Watch: Tamil Nadu’s temple elephant enjoys a splash in her new swimming pool

Ramalakshmi the elephant belonging to Arulmigu Ramanathaswamy temple in Tamil Nadu’s Rameswaram is in news as she is all set to enjoy her new swimming pool built exclusively for her. The video literally showing the elephant loved by everyone, testing the waters has gone viral.

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This exclusive pool came into being as she was finding it difficult to walk all the way from the temple to the pool located outside the premises.

Ramalakshmi came to this temple 10 years ago. It was then that the authorities had constructed a pool and shower facility for her outside the premises on the land owned by the temple.

For many years, she used to walk from the temple to the pool which is one kilometre away. Due to aging, the animal was finding it difficult to walk and also there is heavy traffic on the road and the sidewalks are damaged.

Seeing her difficulty, C. Mariappan, the Joint Commissioner of the temple instructed that a pool be made inside the premises itself which was done with funds provided by donors and temple.

The new pool is five and a half feet deep and it was constructed at a cost of Rs.15 lakhs. Water for the pool is being pumped from the Sethu Madhava Theertham. Further to prevent wastage of the pool water, it is used to irrigate the trees in the temple garden.

Mariappan also informed that as Ramalakshmi needs to walk, which has become difficult because of heavy traffic and poor road conditions, the authorities are considering building a special walking track within the temple premises.