Into the Wild

It was again that time of the year when one couldn’t stop bobbing up and down in anticipation of good times to come. School had closed for the summer and the books for the new session would only arrive in the last week of the holidays. They didn’t seem all that bad at the beginning when one could go on smelling them for a whole day. But those joys could wait because my little band of brothers beckoned me to a holiday in the midst of deep forests and under moonlit nights, a place called Betla. No I wasn’t going camping alone at age seven. The group was to be a big one with all sets of mommies and daddies included!

It’s cruel to have been a tot then, because the little I remember of the place can only be described as bordering on the surreal. It was a small place, with forests all around. At night with the moonlight playing hide and seek over the forests, one felt fear and awe at the same time. The strange noises standing out in the eerie silence of the night would keep me awake until Dad would assure me otherwise. Our lodgings were simple but a novelty for us cousins. We didn’t get separated by rooms but lived like one big family in what seemed like a boarding school dorm!

Our last evening was something special. After much debate the party had decided to go for a walk towards the forests before settling down somewhere in the open for a musical evening. No sooner had the plans been made than I started pointing out to Dad the inherent evils in the design. As if hearing all those creepy sounds weren’t enough that we were going to walk right into the forest and into the clutches of unknown beasts that were lying in wait for just this opportunity. My father tried to calm me down saying we were a big group and that in itself would shoo the beasts away. I kept up the grudging tone until we came to the part where the road ahead forked into two, the right leading to an old fort some kilometers away and the left deep into the jungle. We had stopped on being hailed by an old man sitting at the side of the road. Beyond him lay a vast expanse of mustard cultivation as we would come to know later. We went up to him. Without further preamble he asked us exactly where we though we were headed? My father told him about our plan to stroll a little into the forest to which he made a tch tch sound. Dad and I had been walking a little ahead of the remaining party so that at the time of this exchange the others hadn’t caught up with us. The man told us to turn around and walk back towards where the hotels were situated. He said it was dangerous to go walking into the forest in the evenings. He confirmed what I had been droning all along the way and let dad know as much. At last here was someone who could override disadvantages kids faced and convince my parent to do the right thing. But my father wasn’t going to let go so easily. He asked what harm it could possibly do to walk a few metres down the road in this perfectly blissful moonlight. Plus that we weren’t going to actually enter the forest just wander around a bit and then head back. The old man then plunged into woeful tales of wild elephants who frequently came out to feed on the mustard and trampled everything on their way. No sooner had he finished telling us one particularly scary incident that a trumpet sounded loud and clear from the direction towards which we were heading before. Even now when I sometimes think and laugh at it, I believe I reacted more out of reflex than anything else. I freed my hand from Dad’s and made a beeline towards the hotels, screaming past my cousins who were only a little way behind us. While I ran towards the hullabaloo I saw people running past me towards the forest with all kinds of weapons to distract and drive the elephants away. Oh yes there were more than one. My Dad came running behind me trying not to lose me in the crowd that was rushing towards the scene of action. He had already warned the others who were headed back. He finally stopped me and took me to one of the nearby tea stalls. He quickly ordered two teas and then turned his entire attention towards me, trying to calm me down and assuring me that I was safe and he would not let anything happen to me. I was out of breath with all the running for dear life! And then, with the first effort I could make to talk I blasted at him saying, “Are you supposed to bring kids out in this place?” He looked lost for sometime, not knowing what to say. Then he burst out laughing and hugged me tight telling me that I was right. After tea we joined the rest of the group and trudged back to the hotel where we were up till midnight wondering what would have happened if we had come face to face with those mad elephants!