Elephants in God's own Country

Source: johnrobshaw.com via Anna on Pinterest

Every time I see the picture of an elephant or a peacock my heart skips a beat. It reminds me of my life in India. When I saw this picture from Johnrobshaw textiles and saw the name of this collection my heart did not just skip a beat but it also stopped for a minute. Guess what the name of this collection is! Kerala. Yeah that is the name of the state I grew up in India. In Kerala, aka God's own country elephants are very common. Elephants used to come on a regular basis to my neighbor's house from the temple. And our neighbors used to give the elephants coconuts and bananas. I with my brothers would watch the elephant eat and then walk away. Sometimes the elephants would cry. Tears would roll down the wrinkled black skin of the elephant and I used to wonder why they cried. Were they missing the forests they really belonged to or were they missing their family?

Source: stylebeat.blogspot.com via Anna on Pinterest

Sometimes when the temples had festivals there would be fireworks in the midnight and the elephants would go on a procession. All the elephants would be dressed up and their trunks would be covered with a gold thing (I don't know the name of the thing in English, but in Malayalam it is called "nettipattom," I think). The mahout would sit on the top with two white furry fans. Elephant after elephant would parade through the streets to loud drumbeats. This post will be unending if I go on and on about elephants and India's textile heritage. I hope you have a great day! Btw, the pantry is still a work in progress though, yesterday there wasn't much progress.