An elephant on the road to Varanasi (Benaras) 

This morning we were driving back to Varanasi (Benaras) when we met this elephant on the road.

As it is my favourite animal I asked the driver to stop the car and I took a few pictures.

The tradition wants that people give some money to the haathi (elephant in Hindi) which is picking it up with his trump before giving it back to his mahout.

A mahout is a person who drives and look after an elephant.
The word mahout comes from the Hindi words mahaut and mahavat, derivatives of the Sanskrit word mahamatra, which means " having great measure."

Usually, a mahout starts very yound, usually at about ten years old, when he is assigned an elephant early in its life and they would be attached to each other for the rest of the elephant's life.

The training of a mahout is similar to a family business, passed down from one generation to the next.
The art of training an elephant is gradually becoming extinct as the job of a mahout is extremely difficult.