Jumbo hustle: the transfer of elephants to Tamil Nadu’s temples

Nothing illustrates more poignantly the exalted status once enjoyed by temple elephants, and their subsequent fall, than the story of Kesavan — the elephant of the Adi Kesava Perumal Temple at Kanniyakumari’s Thiruvattar — who is the protagonist of writer Jeyamohan’s Mathagam. A favourite of the King, even when he was a prince, Kesavan developed a sense of his own exceptional status.

Even his chief mahout was afraid to command him. The mahout’s emaciated leg, a result of Kesavan’s fury, bears testimony to what the elephant was capable of.

But the day the King died, Kesavan was reduced to the status of just another animal, a slave to humans. The elephant, which once commanded fear and deference, would now meekly extend its leg to help the mahout climb on to its back.