"Where are we going, exactly?" the elephant kept asking.
Her rescuers would not say. They just kept smiling, and leading her on encouragingly.
She found she could not help smiling too. She had no idea where she was being taken, but she trusted the little elephants who had so gently tended to her sore leg and even given her toys to play with while they broke her chains. Also, some mysterious happiness was blossoming in her heart.
At last they arrived! The happiness which had been getting stronger with each step she took toward this place exploded and she was temporarily blinded by tears of joy. She sank to her knees at Bhagavan's feet.
Bhagavan, always able to recognize the cubs no matter what form they were in, smiled lovingly at them, and then looked for a long time into the eyes of the elephant. Somehow, though her tears did not stop, as soon as he looked at her, she was able to see him perfectly.
He asked his attendent to bring in some iddlies, and he fed these to her from his own hands. She had never tasted anything so delicious!
Afterwards, the little rescuers took her back to their cave, along with Mum Lioness and Med Tiger who had also come for darshan.
Mysteriously, the rescuer elephants turned into three little lion cubs and one baby leopard as soon as they got home.
For the next few days, the temple elephant played with the cubs and rested while they did their studies. Each morning, they all went for darshan. The cubs were always begging for rides on the elephant's back.
Life was quite perfect, except for one thing ... sometimes the elephant would see the look in Mum Lioness' eyes as she was looking at the cubs (the elephant could not understand why one of them was spotted!) and she would feel a longing to have a baby of her own to look at and love like that.
On the fourth morning, she heard a sound in the distance. What was it? Could it be?
Yes! It was the sound of other elephants, calling.
Before long, Unca Tuskers and two other elephants appeared.
"Unca Tuskers!" said Mum Lioness, welcomingly. "Who have you brought?"
"Oh, it is a sad situation," said Tuskers. "This is my brother Gambhiram, and this is his baby ... the mother has just passed away from a dreadful elephant flu. We hoped you might help us with the little one...."
Before Mum Lioness had a chance to agree, the temple elephant burst out, "Oh, let me be the one to care for the little one! Mum Lioness has been blessed so many times over with this furry bunch, but I have no baby at all!"
"Oh, would you be so kind?" asked Unca Tuskers, looking terribly relieved. "My brother has no idea how to care for the little one ... he is at his wit's end."
"Oh, absolutely!" exclaimed the elephant, rushing to the little one's side.
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