The Charming Elephant

In 1945, most of the wild animals at Tokyo's Ueno Zoo were killed by their keepers who feared they might escape during air raids. Since then, visitors who daily flock to the zoo have had to content themselves with housecats, hogs, a Jersey cow, stuffed lions & tigers. The government has been deluged with children's pleas that real live wild animals, especially elephants, be restored to the Ueno Zoo, but exchange difficulties have made it practically impossible.

Recently, Tokyo moppets made friends with personable young Himansu Neogy, a Calcutta exporter who had taken time off during a business trip to visit the city's schools. They gave him bouquets of flowers, posed with him for group pictures. When Neogy was about to go back to India, they begged him to intercede on their behalf with Prime Minister Nehru to send them an Indian elephant.

Last week, Neogy dropped in at Nehru's office in New Delhi, plumped on the prime minister's desk a pouch containing 815 letters. In English, Sumiko Kanatsu, a girl pupil in Negishi primary school, wrote: "At Tokyo zoo we can only see pigs and birds which give us no interest. It is a long cherished dream for Japanese children to see a large, charming elephant.. Can you imagine how we want to see the animal?" Said Masanori Yamato of Seisi grade school: "The elephant still lives with us in our dreams."

Pandit Nehru ordered the External Affairs Ministry to consult with the provinces and princely states forthwith, set about procuring funds and transportation to get a beast to the Ueno Zoo.

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