Lakshmi’s Blessing
David says:
There is, in the center of a 500 year old temle, which sits in the center of a small village called Hampi, which in turn is in the center of the state Karnataka, which itself is virtually in the center of India, an elephant. Her name is Lakshmi and every day she greets pilgrims to this quite centrally located temple. For one rupee she will grant you a blessing. She is probably the most pampered elephant in India, bathes twice a day and wanders the village in her off time. She looks happy. Deep in her dark eyes lies the soul of an elephant who realizes she could be doing a lot worse.
As other posts have told you, traveling in India is hard. Hard on the body, mind and spirit. Sarah and I had spent quite a few of the proceeding hours feeling somewhat glum as the riggors of traveling this great country were starting to take its toll. Trains that were constantly crowded, rarely with a/c, open windows through dust bowls, trips of eight hours on hard seats and the constant presence of beggers throughout the carriages were wearing us down. As we stood and watched Lakshmi give blessings our skepticism stopped us wanting to believe that perhaps faith on our part might produce something special - or perhaps it wouldn’t but nobody’s going to miss one rupee.
On a whim we took a rupee in hand and in turn gave it to the elephant. She moved her trunk over to us, accepted the coin in her upturned snout and deftly delivered the money to her handler. She swung that mighty trunk back around to us and with surprising gentleness, yet with great authority, tapped us on our heads. That was it, one rupee for an elephant trick. We moved on no more enlightened than we were 30 seconds previously.
Later than night we had to catch another night train - the 8.20pm overnight express arriving in Bangalore at 6am. This was not a prospect we were looking forward to. After the usual commotion on the platform and, again, constant begging we climbed aboard the train and made our way to our bunks. Expecting the hoards of Indians in our carriage, we were amazed that there was only one; Indian that is, not hoard. The steward informed us that the whole carriage was empty, we could bunk where we liked. It was clean, the a/c worked and, best of all, not one person even entered the coach once the train started moving. No vendors, no passengers and no beggers. At last, a little haven in the madness and all because Lakshmi, in her infinite elephant wisdom, decided it was time to bless us with a little calm in the maelstrom of subcontinental travel.