This story is about elephants.  We are only to retell it for it was originally told at a grand wedding held at a high-end hotel at Diyawanna. A provincial chief purohita played the host at this wedding. 

Political heavyweights and lightweights practically from all main political parties and even Number One were present as wedding guests at the time this story was being told, they say.

Political elephants figured at the outset and the focus of the story soon turned to elephants in the wild.  The former ‘monarch’ found himself at the centre-stage when he declared that the elephant population in the wild was fast dwindling with the population figure coming down to something less than 4,000. 

Now that he held everyone’s attention, the former ‘monarch’ proceeded to account for this phenomenon. “Although male elephants in musth do not look for particular terrain in the wild for courtship with females, they prefer mating in water… But now there are no tanks and waterways suited for their reproductive activity.  The physical incompatibility – the matching height and size -  between male and female elephants also often become an impediment to copulation. Those responsible for preservation of our wildlife should look into this kind of obstacles in the way of the reproduction process of our wild elephants. They do not seem to have realized that our elephants are now endangered. I see only utter madness in their activity!”   They all listened to the former ‘monarch’ with much interest and most of them nodded their approval with a smile when he wound up.