Violence in captive elephants

Why do captive elephants become violent ?
One theory says that they might be suffering from a psychiatric condition called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or PT SD. I have written about this in an earlier post. It has three core features.
1) Hyper arousal - Difficulty to relax or fall asleep. Exaggerated startle response to minor stimuli, increased heart rate etc.
2) Avoidance of anything that reminds one of the original trauma.
3) Flashbacks of the past trauma, Re experiencing the trauma as sudden bursts of memory.
The wild elephants after capturing, are subjected to cruel torturing by the mahouts and trainer elephants. This induces severe life threatening fear in them leading to PT SD.
During the festival amid the mob and the loudly beating drums, they have flashbacks of the trauma, re experience the trauma. This makes them mortally afraid and they react violently.

Violent elephants

A dare devil performing Fire Dance

Wayanad - Valleys and Wild elephants

On Islam and art

Thanks for the comments by Devadas. I don't know whether his comments about Emperor Shah Jehan is true or not. Does it have support from historians ? Historians with hidden agendas may malign ancient heroes who are unable to reply to criticisms. 

It is interesting to examine why the Islamic sultans and rulers were keen on building huge structures. Generally Islam's is not tolerant of arts. It forbids drawing human forms and faces because this may end up in idol worship. Music is also not encouraged in Islam. 

I have read that the only art form Islam is willing to accept is architecture. This is because they think that any form of art should be beneficial to man. According to Islamic scholars, other arts and music are useless diversions which only waste precious time and distract man from his duty to worship God. Architecture is acceptable as it has a social utility. After all,  it creates buildings for people to take shelter. 

But even then, can one justify the building of such huge structures, torturing thousands of people ?  

Symbol of Love - The Taj Mahal, Agra.

Talking of love reminded me of Taj Mahal - the symbol of eternal love. Can we call it love frozen in space and time ! Though it is not practical to freeze love like that, don't traditional marriage and many other relationships demand this from us ?

Myths about Love

Myth 1
"You will always know when you are in love with each other". This is very commonly held belief. Classmates or colleagues become confused whether they are in love or not after moving closely together for some time. I can remember the stories of a few friends who married another person, and became desperate that the close friendship they had with a class mate was indeed love. At least two such couples showed courage to separate, and later marry their true love.

Any emotion has a physiological level of increased arousal and a cognitive (thinking) explanation for this arousal. Often this attribution goes wrong and love may be wrongly labelled as either lust or intense form of ordinary friendship (similar to other friends of same sex). This is the cause of confusion.

Myth 2.
This is not always true. Pain, anger, ambivalence and frustration about partner's behavior occurs in love as well as in other forms of friendships. Passionate love is intense, but it can take you to heights of pleasure or pain and anguish.

Myth 3.
Many people assert that 'true love will last forever'. It may be true, but not always. Just because the intensity of feeling is diminishing, one should not conclude that it was not true love. Passionate love tends to be strong in the early phase, but as the emotional bond strengthens, companionate love propels the relationship in the later phase.

Love all !

Love has been divided into many subtypes. Most intersting form is romantic love.
Romantic love has been subdivided into passionate love and companionate love.
Passionate Love: Intense emotional involvement. longing for each other, separations are agonizing, tender feelings with sexual overtones.

Companionate Love: Warm, trusting, caring affection to one's who is closely associated. It can be thought of as a more mature form of love which develops after the initial intense phase of passionate love.

Both these forms may coexist, but they may not always go together.