by Anura Guruge
on March 14, 2022
Just a tad incongruous, but that is par for the course for Sri Lanka.
This elephant & I are the same age. So, I am fairly sure that I have met him & seen him. I was a fairly regular visitor to the ‘Temple of the Tooth‘ in Kandy when I lived in Ceylon, i.e., 1953 — 1967. I also visited in 1981 & watched the sacred ‘procession’ where he would have been the star.
I like elephants. I like Sri Lankan elephants.
As you can see from image 2 I am not fond of how some of these Temple Elephants get treated despite our supposed reverence for them.
Study the TOP LEFT thumbnail photo on image 1 (above). We have a young girl WORSHIPPING the dead elephant! Suffice to say stuff like that does NOT sit well with us. Everything in perspective.
These are trying times in Sri Lanka. So, a state funeral for an elephant would be a distraction. The government is savvy. They know the populace over whom they hold sway. If you can con them off with a state funeral for an elephant, why not?
