The tranquillity of the jungle night was suddenly shattered by a familiar sound. A few minutes later the glaring headlights of a Jeep came into view."This is it" I thought. " Someone besides us wants to sit up here tonight." The machan was barely big enough to seat the four of us, there was no way these new guests could have been accommodated. But luck was with us that night. The jeep turned round and returned to more civilized environs, giving us no further trouble. The night wore on. Not a sound broke the eerie silence. There was no moon in the sky that night. The darkness was complete. A chilly breeze was blowing. We huddled together keeping our eyes closed, but our ears open.
The silence was first broken by a frightening sound, half-way between the howl of a jackal and the roar of a lion ! And it was quite close too ! It gave me a shock. An investigation revealed that it was just my neighbor Gupta, snoring. Soon select accompanists joined Gupta's bizarre Symphony. We had had an excess of eggs that morning and our tummies were making the most incredible noises. In that unearthly silence even our tummy-noises were loud. The night was rapidly getting colder and we were rapidly losing faith in our plan of staying up all night. At midnight, after nearly three hours of fruitless meditation I said, "Let's go back to the village and sleep comfortably. There is no chance of spotting anything tonight." " You can go back if you wish." Bhide replied."we are not getting down till morning." I didn't dare walk back alone, and so we gave up on my idea." Let's drink the tea we have, and eat the biscuits." Gupta suggested. Everyone agreed to this brilliant suggestion. There we were munching biscuits, in the middle of nowhere, at 1 a.m. on a cold, windy December night when decent folk were in their beds dreaming. The silence was decisively broken by our talking. Half an hour later all was silent once again. Gupta was fast asleep, Bhide very nearly so. Joshi was as alert as ever, keeping his ears tuned to the slightest sound.
I was seriously considering throwing myself into the arms of Morpheus, when the rustling sound in the bushes began again in the same direction as before. Joshi switched on the Commander and a few seconds later we saw "eyes" or something similar gleaming in the torchlight. The odd thing was that although we could see the eyes clearly there was no sign of the animal to whom they belonged. Frankly we were stymied. I suggested that the " eyes" were probably pieces of glass reflecting the torchlight. My suggestion was met with typical IItian scepticism. Someone suggested that it might be a buffalo sitting on the ground and invisible because of its black color. I laughed at this ridiculous statement. The eyes, or whatever they were, did not move an inch although we looked at them with our torch on for more than five minutes. This reinforced my belief that this was no animal but only some glass or aluminum foil that some careless `machaner' had accidentally dropped. All this while in our excitement, we had forgotten that we must not speak.
Vocal curfew was hurriedly reimposed and the vigil began anew. Ten minutes later the noise resumed. Joshi switched on the torch and pointed at the spot where we had seen the "eyes". We gasped in surprise ! The eyes had disappeared. Joshi swung his torch left ward slowly and a few seconds later we found the "eyes" again. And with them we saw the owner of those shining spots of emerald green- A full grown leopard on the move barely 50 m away. He was walking around leisurely seemingly unconcerned about the bright light that we were shining on him. He turned left, then right and then left again before he walked away into the jungle. A literal catwalk! Those bright green eyes, that sleek perfectly proportioned body, that royal unhurried gait sent a thrill of excitement running down our spines, aa emotion that I had never experienced before. We realised that the king of the Bhimashankar forests had been with us all through that evening- before even the jeep had arrived. For all we know, he might have been sitting there even before we arrived. The eyes were his too, and we hadn't seen his body earlier because it was hidden by a large black boulder ( this we discovered the next morning ). After it was clear that the leopard was well and truly on his way, all hell broke lose on the machan with each on of us presenting our own theories of why the leopard had not moved away in spite of our boisterous tea-party. Some ideas were plausible, others were wild. Joshi suggested that the leopard was probably laying up after a heavy meal and was probably too lazy to get up and walk away. Bhide suggested that he might have been attracted by the presence of another wild animal, and looked at me as if to suggest something.
The rest of the night passed off quite uneventfully, except for a lone sambar that was prowling around without showing itself. We switched on our torch about a dozen times but we did not even see the sambar's stumpy tail. At daybreak, we went to the spot where we had seen the leopard and found evidence of his presence - broken branches where he had rested, and pugmarks. We followed the tracks for about a hundred yards, before they disappeared. My first night on a machan had turned out to be an unforgettable experience. We returned to the Institute, richer in a new experience and high on excitement !
| |
Last modified on: Tue Apr 5 15:35:09 2005