Temple Elephants

They don’t live in the real world
These temple people they
Many live on handouts
All along the way
In many ways they are ignorant
And spiteful we can see
The way they treat the animals
Is not how it should be

They are hurtful and hard bitten
Above the law maybe
Laws that are not policed that well
Really thats the key
And elephants are neglected
Ill treated one can see
They are used for temple celebrations
But are treated terribly

This Guruvyur Temple
Its not Kerala’s charm
The 82 year old Padmanabhan
Really they chance their arm
Against a real old veteran
Made to lift his trunk
By beating him with a bull hook
The hook is clearly sunk

Into his tired old skin it goes
And blood seeps from the gash
So many hooking cuts he suffers
Every single bash
Reminds him of the suffering
Accumulatively, he
Has to take for all their sake
And just how cruel they be

Holy men whose meditation
Takes them far away
So far from reality
And care to where some pay
The piper for the pleasure
Of just being alive
Beaten with ferocity
As spitefully they strive

To walk down the tarred roadway
The injuries are there
Bloody gashes on their legs
And trunks the mahouts dare
To do this and to expect the elephants
To perform as well
Fed badly beaten madly
Its as if they are in Hell

recently another elephant did die
From lack of food and appropriate care
We can ask now why
5 elephants held captive
In Mandya Kamataka
The rescue failed apparently
Once again a marker

Put up to the universe
Violations there
The Temple people
Live in cuckoo land
Where such despair
Is commonplace and the animals
Are neglected all the while
Its wrong to hit them with these hooks
But they continue to defile

These veterans these grand old souls
And of course it isn’t fair
All their lives they have struggled
And been chained up so aware
Of the life they could have led out in the forest
Around a bout
But instead were brought to temples
And fed with so much doubt

Beaten lashed and broken
From babies until now
humanity and depravity
We have to ask now how
So called temple people
Venerated to retreat
In the confines of the temple
Not out on the street

Where hallowedness and sacredness
And sanctity was found
Holy minded mystics
Always seated on the ground
Reverent and devoted
But forgetting those sweet souls
Whose grandeur was the epitome
And their dedicated roles

Their heads were up their arses
For practicallity
Didn’t get a look in
Nobody could see
The lacerations on their trunks
The bull hook wounds that bled
These elephants were suffering
Much of it in their head

And the temple followers
Were respected all the while
Given lots of food aid
Who dares to reconcile
The terror that these elephants feel
In a holy space of time
The need now is to observe the laws
And read this little rhyme

Read it and digest it
And remember behind closed doors
In temples many stories
Not subject to applause
Happen when great beasts are chained
And not fed properly
And beaten when they remonstrate
Wanting to be free