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ShareFriendly and disciplined elephants can always find employment during the marriage ceremonies of the more affluent Hindu desi-Americans -- especially with those who want to keep up with the Singhs. The elephants' services are also needed for all those temple consecrations and in some cases, even re-consecrations.
Just last week Minnie, a magnificent-looking 37-year-old elephant --dolled up with a gold-studded shield on her forehead and a Hindu priest armed with a parasol astride her -- took part in what the New York Times called the "reconsecration" of a Ganesha temple and its stone deities in Flushing, Queens, one of the busier boroughs of New York City.
It was part of a $4 million renovation plan to expand the temple that involved bringing in thousands of tons of granite from India. A few priests were flown in from India as well. Thousands of believers (some from as far as the Midwest) congregated at the Hindu Temple Society of North America's Ganesha Temple, considered to be one of the oldest and largest temples in the US.
There was much fanfare as well about two years ago when the Hindu Temple of Metropolitan Washington in Adelphi, spread over 28,000 sq ft, opened. It is the 10th temple in the DC area. Many of the new or dramatically upgraded temples are, like most diaspora houses of worship, designed as ethnic community centres. The Adelphi temple complex houses a ballroom and a stage and dressing rooms, amongst much else, to attract young desi-Americans; to bring the straying back into the fold as it were.
Who said religion is not good for business? Michael and Thomas Graysing, brothers who are New York-based contractors who worked on the expansion of the Ganesha Temple, have now made temple-building their speciality.
In the present hard times there is no business like religious business, especially when huge, boarded-up mansions with foreclosure signs on the expansive lawns litter the landscape. New Hindu temples are either sprouting up across this country or being expanded as the Indian-American community becomes more prosperous.
Desis are finally able to wear their religion on their sleeves and on occasion with great flamboyance and Bollywood flourish. Filmmaker Yash Chopra and his world has obviously been an inspiration. There have been temple inaugurations with Chopraesque grand finales with helicopters showering flowers on the temple, a la Rishi Kapoor in the film Chandni throwing rose petals from a helicopter on his beloved Sridevi.
These grand gestures and extravagance are, according to Dr Adarsh Deepak, president of the Dharma Association of North America, all about "making a statement". "It is a way of saying that we have arrived, made it. Until not too long ago people would not get beyond the three C's -- cows, caste and curry -- when it came to talking about Hindu religion."
Meanwhile, back in pachydermland, Minnie, who was on loan from a petting zoo in neighbouring Connecticut, is not the only elephant on call. An American entrepreneur in Dallas, Texas rents out his retired circus elephant for Indian nuptials. I was not able to find out its name but this peripatetic elephant has apparently graced several Indian weddings in New Jersey, New York and the DC area and even crossed the border into Canada to lead a baraat procession.
The big fat Indian wedding has indeed arrived on these shores, with the status games in full play. Elephants are the latest trump card though of course the ultimate prize is still getting a Bollywood star, especially Shah Rukh Khan to come and dance at the wedding.
