An Elephant Called Malla Prasad

An Elephant Called Malla Prasad, is a book written for children in the age group of ten to fifteen years. It is the story of a bull elephant who is bought as a little calf in the Sonepur fair by a local landlord. The story has a Behari background and revolves around the landlords cowshed near which the elephant lives. The Zamindar is a lover of animals and has seventy five cows, eight bulls, two horses, and several camels who all, except for the bulls, befriend the elephant. The cows call the bulls male chauvinist pigs and give them interesting names. They are Headache, Neckache, Hoofache, Legache, Rumpache etc. The village quack proves that the camels urine is divine and cures many diseases, so the villagers give them pharmaceutical names. They are Brufen, Glaxo, Cadilla and Ranbaxy. The two horses are the wise old residents of the cowshed. Malla Prasad has his own problems. He lives in a land of ancient beliefs and superstition. Because of them, he is not allowed to go anywhere near a female elephant. He himself wants a wife, a spouse, and sometimes comes to heat and goes berserk. He loses most of his friends (the two horses and the camel) in a booth capturing mission during the assembly elections and sees them go drashing to the ground with bullets in their hearts. He does not understand the violence the humans inflict on each other, and on the other animals and starts hating them. He however meets his nemesis one day in a marriage party where he is instigated by a drunk human and kills the latter. The dead persons family get enraged and finally shoot him down.