evidence: When I visited Lakshmi in June 2015, her left eye was swollen shut, tears constantly streaming down her face. Her mahout wasn’t there, but another replacement handler told me that Lakshmi’s mahout had punished her. Apparently, she’d eaten the vegetables he’d left unattended at the Thiruvambadi Temple, where she works, and the poor animal’s hunger instincts must have kicked in. But instead of feeding the elephant, her mahout beat her mercilessly in a fit of rage, and apparently one of his blows hit the animal’s left eye.