I was transfixed by a pair of eyes that afternoon, it was indeed love at first sight. Among the many unforgettable things in life, those eyes will forever be an integral part. Those eyes were of Chameli, the elephant.
The moment one says Jaipur, we all immediately think of palaces. But not far from the main city, lies a place called Hathi Gaon (Elephant Village). It is a quiet little place away from all the hustle of Jaipur city where hundreds of elephants live together happily.
The manager Mr. Raza who is also owner of the elephants was very helpful in giving me instructions to reach the place – Elefunjoy. Initially I feared that it might be just another place where people have fun rides at the cost of poor ill-treated animals, but I was happily surprised. All the elephants were free and well taken care of. As soon as I reached the place, they assigned me one elephant, Chameli along with her Mahout, Asif.
I had told Mr. Raza that I don’t want conventional rides and I want the experience to be as natural as possible, to which he happily agreed. Chameli and Asif showed me the entire place as I rode on her without any conventional seats or cushions. It was amazing to see the way Asif treated her like his own child. He was continuously talking to her, and she was listening to him. He told me that she can understand everything we speak, and I got to know Chameli a little better because of Asif. He educated me on elephant’s life span, food, what they like, what they hate and even how to give her instructions while riding.
Later I got to pamper my new friend a little. First, I got to bathe her which took very long as she was huge! But she was loving it and I just couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw her face, as she was smiling like a happy child. As a favour she even forced me to shower by spraying water through her trunk.
Next part was her favourite, food. I fed her biscuits and sugarcane (her favourite). I got to see her real teeth as she quite easily cut the entire sugarcane into pieces in her mouth. Mr. Raza said to me “Now she will remember you forever, she will always recognise you in the crowd, as the person who fed her”
It was the first time I went so close to an elephant, or any other wild animal. Throughout those 3-4 hours I kept looking at that giant animal, her huge body and feet. And then I stared into her innocent, loving, childlike eyes and all my fear immediately disappeared. Her intelligence in understanding everything amazed me. It hardly felt like I was interacting with an animal, but more like a loving friend who just couldn’t talk like humans. She ate like us, laughed like us, played like us and understood like us, rather understood better than humans.
I come across many people while traveling solo and many of them become good friends, but never have I ever missed anyone I met as much as I miss Chameli. That day was a realisation of what pure love feels like. I will never forget her, and I will always have a reason to visit Jaipur now.