“Gods in Shackles” is an award-winning documentary that tells the story of the suffering and abuse of the temple festival Asian Indian elephants in the southern state of Kerala India. Sangita Iyer, the documentarian, is from Kerala and is herself an activist, environmentalist, biologist and “Huffington Post” writer. Dr. Amy Shroff, a veterinarian from Wayland, has joined forces as a fellow Indian and honorary associate producer of the film. She has also done volunteer work in Asia to end the suffering of Asian elephants and other species. “Gods in Shackles” will be used as an education piece before the government of India to stop the use of these endangered gentle giants. But the whole world needs to know their story.

Scheduled to be screened in L.A., Boston and seven cities throughout southern India, the tour kicks off at the Elephant Walk restaurant in Cambridge on Sunday, June 5 at noon, with lunch, cocktails, Indian classical music by the soundtrack artist, silent auction and a question-and-answer session with Iyer. Laurie Kirby, newscaster from WBZ, will be hosting this world debut!  The ticket price of $85 per person is tax deductible, sponsored by TD Bank, Supple Construction, The MNE Group and Picot Landscape Developers, among other generous corporate donors.

Complete details and tickets are available online here.

“Gods in Shackles” exposes the story behind these temple festivals that draw thousands of people from all over the world each year. There are about 800 bull or male elephants held in captivity, forced to perform wearing hundreds of pounds of décor, saddles, and people on their necks and backs, plus heavy chains shackling their feet and legs so they can barely walk, while standing for days in crowded temples, 110-degree heat, and with fireworks and loud screaming going on all day and night.

When not at a festival or a temple, these elephants are chained up again, lay in their own filth and never see a moment of freedom. Food and water are scarce at best and not offered during the festival. Where do they come from? These large males are taken as calves from the wild, disrupting the herds and ability for the elephants to breed. Elephants are highly intelligent and social animals that live in large herds. They are endangered in Asia and Africa. Once there were hundreds of thousands of elephants roaming India, now only about 26,000 roam free. It takes 22 months for a female to give birth to a newborn. The number of calves born has dwindled partly due to this horrible practice.

Once in captivity, they will go through training, which is called “breaking of the spirit” where the elephant is chained, starved, beaten and not allowed to sleep for at least 10 days. Every year this is done, and when an elephant is bought and sold it can happen multiple times in an elephant’s life. The fallout is not only elephants that die in the hundreds each year but also people due to stampedes when these sentient beings act out of fear and constant abuse.

Sadly, the cultural norm is such in Kerala, and even as people and elephants are dying in stampedes at an alarming rate, the masses continue to cling on to their myths. Nowhere in the Hindu culture and faiths do live elephants need to be a part of any temple ritual or festival. A single bull temple elephant can fetch up to $600,000 per year in festivals and other appearances, which is about 30 million Indian rupees. The average Indian lives on 30 to 50 rupees per day.
These animals are owned by individuals who make hordes of money off of them.

Four elephants and six people have died in almost 220 incidents of stampedes over the past three months this year. The most recent casualty was a 55-year-old bull elephant, Keshavankutty, owned by the Guruvayur temple, a popular rental that fetched a significant amount of money for parading in cultural festivals. He was forced to parade for three days in 110-degree heat. But unable to cope with his deteriorating health he collapsed a couple of days later, dying a miserable death on the temple grounds. The Heritage Animal Task Force of India deemed the bull was allegedly suffering from pulmonary disease and severe indigestion. Indeed, the elephant was struggling to stand all along, but his symptoms were ignored by the festival organizers. He was so hungry that he began to eat sand from the ground, which could have exacerbated his digestive condition, causing his death.

The issues surrounding the elephants of Kerala are spiraling out of control. Much of the world is unaware of the harsh realities that are cleverly masked by the glitz and glamour. Tourists have already converged from all over the world for the world renowned Trissur Pooram festival, the largest of such events, as the vicious cycle of torture and abuse continue.

More information on the film is online here:  http://www.godsinshackles.com/

A preview of the film is online here: