King Kong versus the Elephant

February 2006 my travels took me to Ooty in India. A fascinating little town up in the hills and so much cooler than the plains below. The air was cleaner too but the streets a mess and small herds of horses charging about.

The days were busy but the nights were quiet and I was a little stretched to find things to do so on one night I went to the cinema.

I arrived at the local cinema just as the movie was starting. Rushed to the box office where for the princeley sum of thirty English pence I got my own box. The Royal Box...and I felt like royalty too.

It was an exciting, sad, emotional but very enjoyable movie. The Gorilla itself was so realistic that it was almost believeable. The scenes set on the skyscraper made my legs feel quiet queasy.

Even though I knew how the film was going to end I was expecting that in this classic was going to produce something to rival the passing of 'Old Yella' or Bambi's mother.

What made the movie so much more enjoyable to me was that I could actually empathise with the Heroine. No...I have never been picked up by a Giant Ape. Something better.

I have been lucky enough in my zoo career to have worked, hands on with a number of elephants. Things have changed so much that these past few years have seen free contact change to protected contact and Health and Safety taken over by Risk assessments. The world of zoos is different today. So different that the chances are few for keepers to experience what I have done.

She gently grabs you with her trunk pulling you slowly beneath her head and between her front legs. She crosses these slightly holding you in a firm grip. Her trunk caresses you, breathes your air, inhales your body and she purrrs like a great big cat. You feel her warmth, her body fluttering, loving.

This is the second greatest feeling on earth. There is nothing quite like it. True, she could snap the life out of you like a twig...but she won't. Like a human lover she will not break your heart as you lie in her embrace. She loves you and you love her.

Elephants. I have loved and been loved by a few. King Kong had nothing on them.