Joy ride?

Today while going to a place called Bhakti-Shakti; on Mumbai Pune expressway, I found an elephant ride being offered to kids. The elephant looked majestic; and patiently walked from one end to another and then back; with the children enjoying their delightful ride.

A thought occured to me, about how much the elephant may be getting bored, walking from one end to another and back again right from 5 in the evening each day to around 8pm in the evening. Further, I wondered if the elephant was being fed well to maintain the energy levels required to do this task repeatedly with different children mounted atop on his back. Elephants need massive amounts of food - around 135 to 160 kgs and about 189 litres of water each day.

I wondered if the mahout was able to feed the elephant with this food each day? It seemed like the mahout's bread and butter was being earned by the elephant; but what about his own meals? It's is quite big in size and leaving it unfed could potentially be harmful for the mahout himself; so I concluded that he is doing something to keep his pet & bread-earner satisfied. However the curiosity remained.

Further, I wondered if we were right in taking joy-rides without knowing if the elephant was being well taken care of. It may be a joy-ride for our kids, but is it really a joy-ride for the elephant?