The Elephant Ride
- Writers Pouch
- Nov 23, 2019
- 2 min read
Whenever I see an elephant on the road, I feel like giving it a banana or an orange. And I am reminded of a particular episode with an elephant when I was five years old. The schools were closed and my cousins had come to Allahabad for their vacations from Patna. Our daily routine would be a visit to Sangam with grandpa and eat jalebis on our way back home at Hira Halwai which is a sweet shop in Allahabad. Of course, there would be visits to Wheelers or Universal bookshop, Nagars stationery shop or El Chico for pastries, later in the day.
So one day when we had returned from our Sangam visit, I was sitting with my grandmother, and my cousin sister was engrossed in one of her Enid Blyton books. The doorbell rang and we were asked to go out to the verandah.
Grandpa had seen an elephant wallah on the road and had asked him to give me and my cousin a ride. I clearly remember, the elephant was not very old and was not huge. It had a nice padded cushion on its back and a small brass bell tied around its neck. There was a rope around the cushion to ensure it wouldn’t divert from its place and I was very excited for the ride.
