Video of tourists chanting mantra after encountering elephant goes viral

One should always remain alert while moving around wild animals, even if it's a guided safari. We must always respect nature and its inhabitants. Recently, a video of an elephant moving towards a tourist safari car has gone viral.

However, it is not the angry pachyderm but the passengers’ reaction that grabbed the attention.

The video, shot from the vehicle by one of the tourists, in the middle of what looks like a forest area, shows an elephant at a distance which is charging towards the vehicle. While some of the passengers are seen asking the driver to give the elephant some bananas, others are seen panicking and asking to move away quickly. 

As the elephant nears the vehicle, some of the passengers start chanting the mantras of Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu God, in an attempt to safeguard themselves and calm down the wild animal.

They continue chanting the mantras as the driver keeps reversing the vehicle for a few metres. The elephant gradually moves aside and goes to the side of the road.

Then one of the passengers can be heard saying “Ab ek dum speed jao.”  As the vehicle starts passing the elephant, it raises its trunk in acknowledgement, as if it was greeting them with a safe journey ahead.

The video was shared on Twitter by Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Rupin Sharma. Sharing the clip on Twitter, Sharma wrote: "When a car full of Brahmins meet a wild Elephant."

😜
When a car full of #Brahmins meet a wild #Elephant 😄😄

😜@susantananda3 @ParveenKaswan @SudhaRamenIFS @hvgoenka pic.twitter.com/75lQQuVOWE

— Rupin Sharma IPS (@rupin1992) March 26, 2023

As soon as the video was shared, it instantly went viral and managed to garner more than 48K views and several hundred likes.

A user wrote " Definitely Not mantras, but it was the good gesture of both the people in the vehicle and the Pachyderm, that they decided to back off and give way.. At the end of the day, this is how it works....coexistence and respecting each others space.."

" Beautiful. Power of Mantras. Elephant even blessed them," wrote a second user.

" The hym actually worked....see the last part...it blessed them," wrote a third user.