Indore: 50 years old, Moti is a wonder elephant in the busy industrial town of Indore.

Although in chains at the local zoo, Moti is a major attraction for visitors here, where otherwise the tourism sector needs a lot of face lifting.

The 'philosopher-animal' plays a 12-inch China made mouth organ much to the delight of visitors to the zoo which hardly has anything to cheer about.

"This is perhaps the only zoo in the country where we can see lean and thin animals and birds like crows," complained Mritunjay Bose, a Mumbai-based journalist.

In such a scenario it is the irreplaceable Moti, who continues to astonish visitors by playing the musical instrument on his trunk and subsequently playing it to the tune of popular Bollywood numbers.

Moti, kept under the care of Niaz Muhammad, originally belongs to the Kaziranga (Assam) breed and was purchased by its present master about 40 years back in a small time 'mela' (fair) at Sonepur in Bihar.

"I always thought music has a universal appeal, animals being no exception," says Muhammad, adding, "We are animal lovers for generations. I took upon myself the task of educating Moti in the art of playing the mouth organ."

"It was not an easy job. It took five years of rigorous efforts to achieve this," he adds with pride.

Now it needs hardly few minutes to convince the elephant to play the instrument. Muhammad takes a bunch of leaves for it, puts the mouth organ on its trunk and gives instructions. Holding it for a few seconds, Moti is fine with playing it.

Muhammad claims that his Moti is media savvy and has already been photographed with by the likes of former president Shanker Dayal Sharma.

PTI