Safari Jumbo tells me

It was 4'o clock. Before he could blink again, the alarm rang out and Yamboree, the elephant was supposed to be up on his feet and ready for his morning ablutions and his bath. He stretched a little, in a vague attempt to grow out of last night's dream. It was always the same dream. The dream of his family with Yamini. The tiny shed he had to live in hardly allowed him to stretch as much as he needed to shake that dream away. So it remained, lodged in a quite corner of his heart.
Soon he was ready to meet his mahout and begin his first safari of the day. Yamboree worked as the elephant that took excited jungle campers for a safari ride across the jungle. After the morning rounds, mahout sipped his coffee and gobbled his brunch as Yamboree sapped up the plaintains and bananas mahout offerred him. Then began his heavy duty rounds, more and more groups of excited tourists trooped around. Sometimes when mahout was busy negotiating rates, silly kids poked him with twigs. He swung his trunk at them and batted a tired eyelid and off they scampered in fear or maybe mock-fear. Yamboree never believed they actually feared him. Then there were the tourists who wanted to take photographs with him. He never fooled himself into thinking he was a celebrity. But he was a mighty celebrity, his photos often came in tourism brochures and travelogues. Wildlife photographers paid mahout lumpsums to click Yamboree in his varied poses. He had even seen some tourists bear a stunted miniature of him. Sometimes in metal, sometimes in stone, sometimes a vague picture. They seemed to hold that miniature as a God. Maybe they mocked him. How else could he explain why they did snatch him away from everything his life consisted of and throw him into this sub-existence. God, there was none, he seemed convinced. He had been helpless for years now...
Come evening and his loneliness grew to larger amounts. He at times wondered how long he would live like this, live with Yamini only in his mind, live with just pictures of his little sons in his mind, live for ever wondering how they were getting along without him. Was it 10 years now? or maybe 12 years since he last saw them on that evening. They were all out on a stroll to the nearby pool for that family swim when a step of his took him deep deep down into the pit, the pit set to trap an elephant, there was a vacancy for one at that jungle resort close by. He yelped in pain and horror of the suddenness. In a moment it was all over. Yamini was fast, she fled, as fast as an elephant mom with two baby elephants could, deep into the jungle, for in no time the catchers swooped into the pit and chained Yamboree to the life he now led.
Misery, misery, misery, he gave that huge unhappy call, the kinds elephants often give with their trunks all raised. Night it was and he descended into a dreamy sleep, he dreamt of playing cricket with his sons as yamini cooked them steamed banana soup.

PS : As told to me by an elephant I safari-ed upon and took a fancy of whispering into the ear of at the Barur Jungle Resort.