July 23rd morning Swami was to visit the new elephant to perform the Annapraasa ceremony (where the child is fed rice for the first time!). The calf had been tied because, young that she was, she was very energetic! Swami had sent ornaments so that she could be decked up for the ceremony. It was so tough for the mahout to keep her quiet. Once when he bent down to apply Kumkum to her feet, she began to take in his head as though it was a coconut! At about 9:15am Swami arrived at the planetarium where the calf was waiting. Swami came out of the car and the little one went near Him. There was a beautiful smile playing on His face as He saw her. He sprinkled Akshata (sacred grains) on her in blessing and benediction. She was then garlanded with jasmine. There was special sweetened rice for her in silver vessels. As she was fed the first rice, like any baby, the first reaction was to reject it.

A The mahout suggested to Swami that maybe she didn’t like sweet things. Swami immediately took a sugarcane stick and gave it to her and she crunched merrily on it! (That seemed to be a silent answer to the mahout’s observation!)

Swami then fed her with more sugarcane, bananas and apples. The apples had been nicely sliced and were not whole as they would be when Swami fed Sai Geetha. The calf seemed to go bananas over bananas! In fact, after a little while, she began to explore the basins with her tiny 3 feet trunk and gulp down any bananas that she could ‘lay her trunk’ upon. Swami just sat watching her eat so hungrily. As He kept watching her from top to toe, he noticed a hole in the upper part of her right ear. He enquired about it and was told that it had been made to put an identification tag at birth. The calf had arrived from Bihar, almost near the Indo-Nepal border. Swami didn’t seem to like that concept of tagging babies! He was told that it had been removed.

The elephant continued to blissfully gulp down sugarcane and bananas. After a while, she slowly moved her trunk and placed it on Swami’s feet! (One was reminded of Swami Vivekananda’s quote, “Feed a man and then teach him spirituality” and it seemed to apply for elephants as well!) Swami was then asked to name the calf.

“I will tell…I will tell”, was the reply. A bowl of water was given for Swami to wash His hands after which Swami received Aarthi and left. Before leaving, He blessed all the caretakers and the other helpers taking care of the elephant.

Source: www.radiosai.org