Elephant Indian..... Poem by RAVIKIRAN ARAKKAL

It stood still in chains,
Recollecting it's youth
In the green forest
With it's mother,
living with it's family,
Other children in the gang,
How it was caught
By the humans
By digging a pit
Where it fell and tried
To climb up,
But was caught, chained
Was taught to behave
In several manners,
To drag weights, wood
By it's tusks entwined
By a rope, how to stand
Still in a line with other elephants,
To move in tandem,
For human celebrations
Carrying idols on his head,
Decorated by golden pendants,
By it's drunken mahout,
Beating up, poking
With metal pointers,
It always dreamt of the streams.
Mudbaths with other wild ones,
Crying in silence,
Shedding tears, now and then,
The elepohant dreamt
Of a female it will not
Meet in it's lifetime,
Lived the life like a saint,
Huge in size, yet mute
Cursing the onslaught
Of humans of it's habitat
And making him a slave.

Ravikiran Arakkal