Review: Parvati the Elephant’s Very Important Day by Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan
A picture book in rhyming verse meant for children and adults, this is a fictional account of a day in the life of a temple elephant in Kerala
Do you remember that heartbreaking piece of news about a pregnant elephant in Kerala who died in June 2020 because she mistakenly ate a pineapple stuffed with firecrackers? The explosives in the fruit were planted by local farmers to protect their crops from wild boars. The wrong animal took the bait. The badly injured elephant died, standing in water, trying to cool herself after the unexpected explosion. She was given an honourable farewell by forest officials on the land where she grew up.

Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan, who wrote the book Prince with a Paintbrush: The Story of Raja Ravi Varma (2021) was deeply affected by the horrifying incident. A few months later, she decided to write a book that would celebrate “the beauty and majesty of elephants”. This led to Parvati the Elephant’s Very Important Day – a charming fictional account of a day in the life of a temple elephant in Kerala in rhyming verse with illustrations by Tanaya Vyas.

Published by HarperCollins India, it opens with a purple elephant jumping out of a green comforter and getting ready for “Pooram day” – a temple festival with “hours of celebration and many fun activities”. This is not specifically the Thrissur pooram that you might have read about in Anjana Menon’s book Onam in a Nightie: Stories from A Kerala Quarantine (2021). Shobha Tharoor Srinivasan wants us to think of it as “one of the many such festivals held throughout Kerala at various temples with similar pageantry and festival action”.
The author makes the elephant sound like a girl who is excited about her birthday party or debutante ball. After deciding what she will wear, Parvati scrubs herself with “small rocks and a coconut husk”, massages her legs, sprays water on her back to remove dung and dirt, cleans her ears, and rinses her neck, so that she can look her best when she sports a crown to greet the royal family gracing the occasion. She puts on her tinkling bells, silver necklaces, and sparkling shells. Tinselled silk umbrellas and peacock feather fans complete this picture. She is “ornately adorned… in hues of white and midnight blue” and is happy because there is a special lunch waiting for her – bananas and sugarcane rather than grasses and dry grain.
The joy on Parvati’s face touched my heart but also made me wonder whether assigning human characteristics to animals shields human beings from acknowledging the extent of pain animals undergo for our entertainment. The author’s position on the use of elephants in temple festivals seems quite ambivalent. She writes, “I recognize that these temple events that utilise elephants have been criticised for the use of firecrackers, for the neglect of the animals by some mahouts, and for what is often seen as the harsh treatment of elephants.”
However, she does not advocate for festivals without elephants as that would mean shaking up the status quo. As she notes, “Kerala has a few thousand temples, churches and mosques, each of which celebrates annual festivals… Kerala’s state emblem includes the elephant.” She is of the opinion that “because of awareness and education, it is also thankfully true that many temple elephants these days are well looked after and not treated like forced labour”. What she advocates for is “responsible caretaking” for “as long as festival practices remain”.
Though this is a picture book, it is meant for children as well as adults. The preface, in particular, speaks directly to adult readers evoking nostalgia, clarifying the pedagogical intent, and also perhaps because adults make purchasing decisions. The author writes, “Children love elephants. Mine did. Yours probably do.” She goes on to share how thrilled her children were “the first time they sat on top of one and enjoyed the ambling, rolling ride on that gentle pachyderm”. The author is opposed to poaching, and wants readers to assess the value of elephants not only in terms of ivory but also for being “gentle and highly intelligent animals who balance the ecosystem”. She draws attention to how they help other species when they “create water holes by digging dry river beds” and “make room for smaller species” by trampling forests and dense grasslands “with their heavy footsteps”. They also disperse seeds through dung when they traverse large distances in herds “like joint families”.
The author includes words in Malayalam throughout the book, without providing an English equivalent because it would be hard to find one given that the story is rooted in a specific cultural milieu. There is a glossary at the end, explaining, for instance, that nettipattam is “a distinctive ornamental head covering worn by elephants during festivals, allavattam is “a decorative circular fan that is carried during festivals in Kerala”, and thidambu is “a decorated replica of the temple deity…used instead of the deity if the procession leaves the temple grounds”. Turning to the glossary every time there is an unfamiliar word could be annoying for readers who do not speak Malayalam but also an opportunity to engage with India’s multilingual reality. Being exposed to new words could be a pleasurable experience.

The illustrations add much to the impact of this book. They are meant to help readers appreciate the scale at which these festivals are organized all over Kerala, and why they are such a big draw for tourists from various parts of India and the world. The large pictures fill up the pages, recreating the atmosphere in all its colour and grandeur with decorations, firecrackers, and musical instruments such as the kombu, idakka, ilathalam, and timila.
What happens in such a scenario when there is panic, and people start to run? Do the proceedings continue as planned, or do the celebrations come to an early end? Read the book to find out more about Parvati’s adventures. The author believes that stories can build bridges “between the human and nonhuman”. I agree with her but I do not think that we have to be convinced of any creature’s value in economic or environmental terms to think of their life as worthy. It is our perceived superiority as human beings that causes much harm to the planet.
Chintan Girish Modi is a freelance writer, journalist and book reviewer.