When I was seven, we lived in this place that was next to a huge building owned by a temple. During festival season, the temple authorities would tether their elephants there, and I just had to look out my window to see them (the elephants, not the temple authorities) eat their palm leaves and pee like a waterfall.
One of these elephants, I called him Ramu, was my best friend. I would stand at the window and talk to my him, and he would nod his head in agreement. (I learnt later that he would nod his head even when he disagreed, and also when he was asleep. What can I say? I was stupid.) We would talk for hours, and in the evening, my Dad and I would go visit him, and I would take gifts for him. Like maybe half a peanut or so. (Hey, I may have been stupid, but I knew my priorities.) Ramu's paapaan (mahout) would hold it out to him, and Ramu would reach out with his trunk and put in his mouth. And then he would smile and wink at me. (I also possessed a hyperactive imagination. Still do, to be honest, which is why I cannot sleep without a night light. Well, that and nyctophobia.)
He would leave at the end of the festival season, and it always seemed to me that he too was crying. My mom bought me a lot of books to console me, and when I read that the Indian elephant is the closest surviving relative of the woolly mammoth, I cried all the harder. I missed my only friend. So I improvised.
Thus it came to be, that my Mom came home from work one day to find me sitting on top of the wall, talking to Ramu. Only Ramu had left a few days ago. Curious, she leaned over the wall, and nearly fell over laughing.
Like I said, I wasn't too bright those days.
