It's the typical immigrant story. I was a young bull elephant; a massive wall of wrinkle gray hide, strong thick legs, long sinewy trunk gracefully curving tusks, and the fine, small ears that characterize the Indian elephant. But there wasn't much opportunity for me in the jungles of India. Well, not for any of us, since the introduction of bulldozer and tractor and the diesel engine. All the herds had been driven back by industrialization and urban sprawl. What with the ban on ivory sales and extinction of the tiger, our natural predators were few. The population had exploded. We were confined to reservations, hopeless, jobless, directionless.

I surveyed my prospects and realized I just couldn't live like that any longer. So I took advantage of my Commonwealth passport and made arrangements to immigrate to Canada.

Naturally, I was too poor to simply walk into an Air India office and buy a one-way ticket; I was forced to work my way over on a freighter. I found a job as ballast on the ship Delhi Delight. Down in the hold with the bolts of fabric and piles of computer programs that are India's chief exports, I rolled round with the tossing seas for two long months as the freighter made its way through the Indian Ocean, around the Malay Peninsula, across the Pacific to Vancouver.

The days and nights were indistinguishable down there in the dark; I lived on dry hay and Styrofoam packing material. My only pleasure was the measure of rum passed out to all crew members on Friday nights. Oh, I remember the loneliness sitting down there, deep, deep in the hold, and hearing the deck above me reverberate with the thrumming sound of the sitar and drum, as my shipmates sang traditional Bollywood sea chanties on the upper deck during those long starry nights I could never see, as the ship steamed along in the topical latitudes.

Needless to say, I was looking forward to putting my feet on firm, sunshiny ground when we hit Vancouver. Nobody told me there wasn't much sun on the Pacific coast. The officer at immigration asked, "What are you going to do here, young man?" and I tried to look ambitious and bold as I told him, "Make my fortune in the New World."

First task was to find a job and a place to live. I went down to Little India, and tromped the streets. What a glittering mixture of sari shops, restaurants and electronics stores! I searched each window for a help wanted sign, and near the end of the third block, found a "dishwasher wanted" sign in the window of a vegetarian tandoori shop.

It was a shabby place, didn't look like it got much business... must not be much call for vegetarian tandoori, but if there was, this place cornered the market. I stabbed the sign with my tusk and strode in.

"I'm your man, or, well, elephant. Just let me at those dishes."

"Uh, that's very ambitious of you, but don't you think you're a little big for my kitchen? And I think your, uh, feet or hands or whatever are bigger than my plates..."

"But I'll be great at rinsing!" I said, raising my trunk.

"Riiiight... how about I have another job for you? I need a sandwich board guy, to parade around advertising my shop. Big fella like you – wander through downtown – touting the virtues of tandoori cauliflower, kohlrabi and tofu – could make this place a goldmine."

"Deal!" I said. After eight weeks in the belly of the dark freighter, working outdoors sounded great. Besides, even kohlrabi sounded good after all those weeks of hay.

We spent the night painting signs. Higbe Singh's Vegetarian Clay Pot: Tandoori Delights, with a Humanitarian touch.

The next morning I was parading through downtown Vancouver, attracting gawkers, blocking traffic, causing news breaks, bring in helicopter reporters, and being interviewed by everyone from the local stations to CNN and Time International.

It was great PR for Higbe Singh; in the long run it made the tandoori shop a big success. He franchised it and even ended up with a series on the Food Network. But it got me arrested and popped in the slammer for disturbing the peace.

Higbe bailed me out and gave me a really generous check. But I decided that things might be too hot for me in Canada and decided to try my luck in the States.

It is not so easy to cross into the United States any more; Immigration officials are ever more vigilant about illegals, so it was really important that I looked like a causal daytripper. I outfitted myself in Hawaiian shirt, a Seattle Mariners baseball cap and a pair of Raybans. Then I bought a ticket on a bus tour to an Indian casino.

(I didn't know what an Indian casino was, but I thought I'd be at home there, being Indian and all. Boy, was I surprised.)

The border crossing was a breeze.

"What is your purpose for visiting the United States?"

"Just to leave behind all my spare money in a reckless and wasteful way, and when I run out, overrun my ATM."

"Fine, welcome to the USA."

And I was in, simple as that. I was sure they were going to search my trunk for explosives, being Indian and all. But they must have taken me for African; people get confused that way quite often.

When the tour bus got to the reservation (and not a bit like reservations at home, no bobbu trees, no savannahs, no watering holes, and no female elephants) I just jumped ship and wandered off.

It was harvest time by now, and the apple orchards were looking for migrant workers. I joined the queue at the first orchard I came to. Hired for my strength and endurance, I was paired with a Mexican family named Sanchez. Through I didn't speak Spanish and they didn't speak Hindi, we managed to make a fine team through an elaborate game of charades.

Our technique was simple. I ran full tilt at the tree, rammed it with my head and the apples fell off. The father, mother and older children gathered the apples that fell. I lifted the smallest child with my trunk into the upper branches and she pulled down the ones that were still hanging on.

Bushel after bushel, tree after tree, the six of us worked together. At night they invited me to join them at their campsite. They shared their humble meals with me and we sang sad songs around the campfire. They fed me re-fried beans and enchiladas. I taught them to make tandoori. The littlest girl slept curled in my trunk.

I don't think I was ever as happy or useful as I was during the apple harvest. Hard work, good friends, fresh air. But apple season came to an end. My friends had to move on to their winter base in the Midwest, and I had to find a place to stay as the cold came on. They gave me their address and I watched them drive off in their beat-up van, wondering if it would make it all the way back to this place they called Chicago.

For a long time I stared east down the road, but my fate did not lie that direction. A cold rain started to fall and I knew I better turn south before winter struck Washington State. I began trudging down the Pacific Coast Highway.

I walked, I jogged, occasionally I hitched a ride; once or twice I pulled a vehicle out of a ditch in exchange for dinner, through Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, all the way down to Los Angeles.

When I got to LA, I picked up the trade papers, figuring I might find something in the entertainment industry. Hadn't really decided if I was interested in performing or producing, but what the hell, if Rosie O'Donnell could have a career, why couldn't I?

I was sitting in an agent's waiting room with a stack of head shots when the man himself strode through. As he breezed by he did a take, then a double take.

"You! Elephant! Can you balance on a ball? Stand on your rear legs? Trumpet on command? Are you afraid of mice?"

I gave him all the right answers.

"Have I got a job for you." And he cackled meaningfully to himself.

And just like that I got a job in the Ding Dong Ringa Ding Brothers Family Circus.

Breaking in as a new guy with all the other elephants was hard. They were African, they were cliquish, and they made fun of my small ears. But I had become resourceful from my travels and wooed them with tales of my adventures, and right out lies of escapades in places like Nepal and Uzbekistan and the Indian Casino. It was easy. They were all circus bred and had never seen much of the world beyond the tent and circus train. In no time I had charmed them and proved myself to be a natural leader.

Learning the act was easy. The trainer cracker his whip and shouted "Up Jumbo, bend Jumbo, dance Jumbo." Traveling in the train was a luxury after the freighter, the trekking and the hitchhiking. Performing was thrilling. You're in the center ring; the spotlight is on you, a thousand spectators all silent, but for the munching of peanuts and popcorn. You do your trick, something incongruous, unexpected, unelephant-like. You create grace and beauty in a two-ton wall of weathered gray hide. And they burst into applause. The rubes in the seats don't know, can scarcely grasp the inner depths of the elephant's soul.

We worked our way across the south that winter. I'll never forget, in Arkansas, for a brief while, we had a really talented attendant. She had a way with the scrub brush and knew just how to scratch our itchy skin. We followed her everywhere. Unfortunately we followed her into the mess tent one day. Actually they were calling it a dining hall until we followed her in to it. That was the last we saw of her. We didn't mean to get her fired.

As spring came we worked our way north, up the East Coast, through New England, across the Great Lakes, into the Midwest. I realized I was in Chicago, near my beloved Sanchezes. I told the ringmaster I needed the afternoon off.

"My elephants don't get days off."

"What do you mean? I've been working, balancing, dancing, juggling, parading for peanuts. And I can't get time off to see friends?'

"You belong to me, buddy, and you do as I say. I bought you from that Hollywood guy, and you are mine!"

Bought! Oh no! I hadn't signed on for slavery, that slimy agent. I had to get out of there, but I knew the ringmaster was going to be keeping an eye on me. "Yes sir."

That night, As I was leading the parade of elephants out of the center ring, instead of going down the tunnel to the stalls, I led all twelve of them right out the shipping bay door into the parking lot. At a pre-arranged signal I yelled "scatter" and they stampeded in all directions, trumpeting at the top of their lungs "Good luck."

And in the confusion I snuck away. Running as fast as I could run silently, I didn't stop until I was about two miles from the arena. Then I crept into a gas station to check a map. The Sanchezes were in a suburb called Highwood, far north of the city; I was at the south end of the city.

"The best route up there is the interstate," the station attendant told me. I explained I didn't have a car, and didn't think hitching was safe in this part of town. He agreed with that — though I think he realized I was a fugitive and wanted to stay out of sight.

"You could hop a freight; it'll take you within a mile of where you want to go."

So that's what I did. When his shift was up, he drove me in his pickup, under a tarp, to the freight yard; we found a train heading north, and I clambered into a box car.

A couple of hobos were already in the car. "New to the rails, sonny?"

"Yep."

"Best way to travel, really see the country. Nothing like coming across the plains and seeing the Rockies rise outta a wheat field, or see the sunrise sparkle on the Mississippi, or just watch miles and miles of cornfields roll past to understand the beauty and power of America. Where you headed?"

"Thirty miles north to Highwood"

"You ain't gonna see nothing. Why don't ya just take a nap. We'll wake you up in 45 minutes."

And I gratefully fell asleep.

Not much more to tell. I got off at Highwood, found the Sanchezes and had a heartwarming reunion. They were healthy and beaming and bubbling over with good news. They had taken my tandoori recipes and opened the Sanchez Tandoori Casa right in downtown Highwood, and it was a raging success. People came from all over to eat their tandoori chilies and curry con carne. They didn't have to be migrant pickers anymore; the kids could go to school and they lived in a real apartment, not a van. They even had a garage where I could sleep.

Now I work in the restaurant – they trust me to wash the dishes, as well as rinse them. I have found a home and a job and a family. My life has direction and responsibility. And when I get lonesome for the old days back in India, there is a great grassy field behind the schoolhouse where I go and graze and recall my youth wandering the savannah without a hope in the world.

I spend a lot of time in that schoolyard thinking how lucky I am to be safe and secure in the good old U. S. of A.