WALK LIKE AN ELEPHANT!

"A for apple.. B for ball.. C for cat and D for doll... and E for???" "ELEPHANT!! "

We often hear kindergarten kids learn their alphabets this way. As kids we are taught a specific trait about every new word we learn so that we remember it better... like for e.g. Lions are king of forests... Apples are red... Elephants are FAT so on and so forth.

All throughout my childhood, I was this little cute chubby baby kid everyone loved to pull cheeks of and laugh at. The over-loved, over-pampered kid.

Cousins and peers would pull my cheeks and call me "baby elephant"

"Cute my foot!!" I would think to myself, No one taught me about elephants being "cute" in school! All I knew throughout my academic period of pre school was that elephants were fat and huge! Exactly what I hated to be called...

"Grrr... I hate people calling me baby elephant" I would tell mom everytime I was mocked in school or college. I used to hate the damn word! The moment someone would equate me to a baby elephant.. However cute it would have seemed to them, I wanted to punch the admirer in his face.

The word had such great impact on my psyche that involuntarily in my subconscious I always had this aversion towards the animal and never really liked it either! (sounds silly I know! )The poor cute animal lost all its brownie points on my appreciation list. My fav animal always remained the lion.

Until a day in a college workshop I discovered ...

It was one of those bright sunny Saturday afternoons that your college teachers decide to ruin by organising workshops meant to develop your personality and groom you as an individual. (i admire the effort, but why waste my holiday, why cant we do all this on a weekday?! )

"Good Afternoon everyone" said a vibrant voice of a wheatish brown man tall enough for us to stretch our necks up and see and size huge enough not to be noticed but yet a personality you cant ignore. "Elephant" my inner voice instantly mocked in my head and I wickedly grinned. The sadistic pleasure of being on the otherside of mocking is pure pleasure sometimes. The class greeted him with equal enthusiasm, "Good Afternoon Sir" most of us curiously waiting to get done with the session and begin our weekend.

The college had organised a 2 hour lecture cum workshop on managing ourselves as individuals as a part of our usual personality development lectures every other weekend. The session began with the speaker asking us random ice breaking questions on how we feel about standing up on stage, about giving presentations, about how many of us loose our tempers and get angry or sad when someones mocks at us etc. While most of us were throwing chorus answers to his generic questions. He was perhaps preparing us for a fabulous lesson.

"Please take out a small piece of paper and write your name on it and alongside your name mention your favorite animal." He told us. I instantly tore a sheet off my notebook to scribble my name on it and right next to it I proudly wrote LION. I then kept the chit in my notebook, awaiting further instructions

"Before I ask you students to read out your chits, allow me to participate first... My name is Mr. Joshi and I simply love elephants !" The entire class burst out laughing at his sense of humor. The fact that this statement was coming from an overweight fat man himself made it even more funny.

"Wow he is fat and isn't shy about calling himself an elephant! So cool! " we thought. An "instant hit" trick it was in striking the chord with the class. He grinned back at us and said "Why are you guys laughing? Aren't elephants cute? Dont you want to be elephants?" Now what kind of question was that I thought! "Who wants to be an elephant??"

I continued to listen to him more intently now since I wanted to figure out why was an elephant the favorite animal of a cool professor like him. It was perhaps the soul searching moment for me (I love drama)

He said to class.. "Next time you are in trouble, or you have a stage fright or you are scared to face a crowd or you are trying something new..remember these golden words.. say to yoursef, walk like an elephant!" And showed us the picture of an elephant on a LCD projected slide.

This is how you must be he said pointing at the picture. All of us were still looking at the picture trying to figure out a logical explanation of what he just said, while he continued.

"Although elephants are huge in size, they are the most loving and humble animals of the animal kingdom."

"Elephants are loved by adults and kids alike. They are popular and fun to be with. They are strong yet humble and playful. When angered they can cause mayhem, uproot trees and their strength cannot be matched by the mighty lions or the fearless tigers! Barking dogs dont bother the mighty elephant. They are intelligent and  their emotional connect is closest to the humans. When they walk their path they don't get bothered by other animals around them."

"That's how you guys should be" he said.

"Don't be bothered or intimidated by the so called achievers or stars or whoever is around you. Be nice and humble to everyone around you. Smile and make others smile. Use your anger and strength only when someone seriously bothers you. Be playful and fun and don't worry much. Eat well and enjoy being magnanimous!"

The class was quiet. I don't know about the others but I was jaw dropped. What an awesome change in perspective.

I never thought of the elephant the way sir just explained!

I took the chit out and right next to the word lion, I wrote elephant with a  :-)

...and ofcourse then on I did not mind being called the ELEPHANT! ;-)