Lakshmi: Worshipped as Sacred, Treated as Disposable
- Feb 8
- 3 min read
Updated: Feb 19
Back in December 2013, I met Lakshmi—and in ways I still struggle to explain, she met me too. She is rare among temple elephants, one of the few females held in captivity, and from the moment I saw her tethered and alone, something in me broke open. There was a familiarity in her loneliness. A recognition. We are all, in some way, bound by inherited beliefs and cultural codes—but Lakshmi’s captivity was literal, heavy, and unrelenting.
She reached out to me with her trunk, a gentle, reassuring touch. In that quiet exchange, it felt like two long-lost friends finding each other again. She seemed to acknowledge pain I hadn’t yet given words to—mirroring it, holding it, sharing it. That moment is why I took up this mission.
At first, I believed Lakshmi was lucky. Her mahout insisted he loved her, that he never harmed her, that he treated her like his own child. They were rarely apart. Their days began before dawn, with a bath in foul water, followed by a meager scoop of leftover rice. As traffic roared past, Lakshmi walked beside him toward the temple, shackles wrapped around her own legs—an image so quietly devastating it still haunts me.
On the way, they stopped at a roadside kiosk. The mahout drank coffee; Lakshmi was offered milk. Small mercies, framed as kindness. At the temple, she took her place on hard concrete, rocking and swaying. Her mahout called it happiness, a dance. But this repetitive motion was not joy—it was survival. In the wild, female elephants live in tight-knit herds. They touch, communicate, grieve, and raise their young together. Lakshmi had none of this. Her world was reduced to a temple courtyard and a chain.
Twice a day, she carried priests and led processions. Between rituals, she stood waiting. Sometimes she posed for photographs. Sometimes she was fed scraps or sugary junk food. Always, she carried the weapon used to control her—a constant reminder of what obedience costs.
One evening, as we walked back to the temple, Lakshmi noticed a dead cat on the road. She carefully stepped around the small body, as if honoring another life lost. Cars sped past, crushing it without pause. In that moment, Lakshmi’s awareness—her reverence—felt worlds apart from the humans surrounding her.
I thought she was protected. I was wrong.
When I returned to see her days later, her eye was badly injured, swollen and weeping. What followed was not care, but fear. She resisted treatment, knowing pain was coming. With little hygiene, little compassion, the men forced her to submit. I kept filming, though every instinct told me to look away.
Later, the truth emerged. In a moment of rage, her mahout had beaten her for eating unattended vegetables. One blow struck her eye. He denied it, then minimized it. Authorities spoke of infections. Reports later confirmed a serious injury that could leave her permanently blind.
Though the law allows for punishment, justice never truly came. Her mahout lost his job—but Lakshmi lost her sight. And still, she was forced to perform.
Lakshmi is not an exception. She is a symbol.
Across India, nearly 2,000 “festival elephants” endure similar lives—chained, isolated, beaten into submission, paraded as symbols of faith while their suffering is sanctified. They are not living; they are merely surviving. Waiting. Waiting for the day their bodies finally give in, so they can take their last breath and free themselves from captivity—far, far away from cruel hands and captive hearts.
Yet hope is rising. A decade after the release of Gods in Shackles—the film that carried Lakshmi’s story into the world—something has begun to shift. Temples across India are slowly awakening to the brutal realities endured by captive elephants. The media, once silent, has become relentless, as though finally granted permission to amplify suffering long buried under fear and intimidation by elephant mafias. Community activists are speaking out, protesting, refusing to look away.
Through this collective awakening, a remarkable cultural transformation has emerged: the embrace of robotic elephants. For the first time, temples are proving that tradition can thrive without torment—that faith does not require flesh, chains, or broken spirits. Lakshmi may have been a poster child for suffering, but she has also become part of a turning point. A future is taking shape—one where culture endures and elephants no longer have to. Stay tuned for next month’s blog on the quiet revolution of robotic elephants.