How close can you get to an elephant ?

When I was in Delhi today I saw this magnificent elephant. He and his owner+caretaker where having a siesta under the metro tracks.

 It still amazes me to see them right among the traffic......I just had to get out of the car and get some pictures.

You can see that he's resting by his back leg....and his owner+caretaker  is sound a sleep on top

I wonder what command they gave him to stop right there and then have him stay.....?

All of a sudden I saw that he was actually looking at me and I thought....hmmm I wonder how close you can get to an elephant without disturbing him ? I meant it's not like the zoo where you have a fence in between....he's right there and I'm not even 3 meters away....

He started flapping his ears and I kind of backed off.....but I'm so amazed by this creature

and when you get as close as I did today I'm happy that this is an indian elephant....because they are smaller right......he felt gigantic next too me though.