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If you’ve been coming around sukhjit.me since I started posting last month, you may notice some changes in the way it looks. On of my favorite changes is on the top left corner, two elephants. I love elephants. When I was 6 years old my parents brought me a small mirrored elephant souvenir from their trip to India and I’ve been fascinated with them ever since. They are gentle, wise and majestic giants.

A few years ago I got to produce a story for the Fine Living Network about an elephant “retirement home” called P.A.W.S, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, and Pat Derby the founder. I call it a “retirement home” but the truth is it P.A.W.S is a sanctuary for exotic animals that have been let go from use in the entertainment industry or rescued from situations and mistreatment you couldn’t imagine.

I learned a lot about elephants while spending time with Pat Derbey. I saw first hand how they made an effort to talk to her with this high pitched sing-songy sound and how they treated her like one of them. It turns out the elephants love their families. They live in extended groups with the old grandmas and aunties as the leaders. The family is greatly invested in the babies and love and care for them much like a human family would. The most compelling story I heard from Pat was about the ritual elephants go through when one of them is dying. Elephants gather around an ailing member of their family and do what they can to comfort it in it’s last days. They caress their loved one with their trunks and always touch it so it knows it is never alone. Pat described how this ritual is broken when elephants are in zoos because they are often kept in separate cages and not allowed to be with each other. She described how recently an elephant had died in a zoo nearby and the only other elephant there struggled and suffered in a cage close by trying to get near it’s dying friend. The story still brings tears to my eyes.

Pat gave us the rare and amazing opportunity to get up close to the elephants. The upclose pictures are actually taken by me, with my little minolta dimage camera. You’ll also see the elephant walking up to Danny while he’s filming. That elephant stepped on Danny’s tripod and we were flabergasted! I plan to post all or some of that story here after I get a copy. You’ll see that moment on film then. For now you’ll see my crew; Danny Maneja is the photographer and Juaquin Marquez is the audio tech.

One last shout goes to my friend Giannii Calvert who has helped get sukhjit.me up and running. He is responsible for the design of this site and also adding the little elephant family. By the way, I’ve named the elephants up there Hathi and Sathi.