of overfed elephants

Yedyurappa came visiting, to pay his respects to our 8th cross ganesha ,tv9 in tow on the day the government was sworn in, seeing our ganesha on tv I shouted the roof down. It was brushed off, appa reminiscing about the times Hedge used to visit, in a white ambassador waving to the smiling crowds in the temple. I was all sheepish at my ignorance of the celebrity status our ganesha held. Now that exams are here, I did the usual round of the all the temples , this time stopping at ganapathi temple, thanks to the yedurappa factor also my parents were kind enough to remind me that- ganesha being the highest common factor among all gods would help me in warding off the troubling shani( Saturn), who is ruling the roost for the next seven and half years. I desperately needed all the luck in the world to remember the programs for my lab externals. I haven’t been to this temple in a long time, in years in fact because we are usually tired after all the shopping and just too lazy to stop here after the matha visit, jostling the crowds there. The smaller ganesha closer home is much more peaceful,hence the neglect.Climbing the white marble steps in the temple, which are stained in a very temple way, I could smell the faint stale odor of routinely broken coconuts, which made me think of the times when I used to run up the same marble steps or race twerp to the main temple at the top. We went for the sankashtha puja regularly for two years,at those times,we wore frocks and had a boycut. The main attraction in this temple held for us initially was the shundal, which tasted very good here, I still don’t like the idea of boiled pulses at home though, there is something about shundal and temples. The priests used to come up with a myriad of alankaras to suit the general mood, my favorite one was the notebook alankara just before school started.In the same period the management procured an elephant calf to hoist the urchava moorthi, mostly to add to the essential grandeur of the temple. Once the baby elephant arrived the crowds spent all their time away from the gods , near the calf. The elephant had a childish air about it and spent all its time feeding on bananas from 8th cross market which the malleswaram praje brought faithfully. Soon the elephant acquired the status of a favorite nephew in a huge household gorging on all the attention and bananas,the kids vying for its attention. As the shankashtha phase for my parents came to an end, the elephant was suddenly taken away from the temple. We badgered our parents for its whereabouts, they in turn promised us that it had been sent to bandipur, for it was homesick and ill from all the food it had eaten. The indigestion theory was the best accepted among the masses , we blamed ourselves for it. There were harsh rumors that the elephant died of food poisoning, this theory was carefully shielded from us and I really hope it isn’t true. I'm still too small to handle it. All this makes mahaganapathi very next door, I cant blame myself for the initial surprise at his celebrity-ness.