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Stories Scorching summer at its height! The sun blazing and spitting fire; the streams, the springs and the rills in the forest – all went dry; wild fires were raging on hill tops; sun-stricken birds were dropping down dead like dry leaves in the Fall. Thirst! Thirst!! Thirst!!! Ambient Thirst!!! Tigers, wolves, deer, birds and the sundry were constantly on the run – migrating to safer pastures, by the day, by the night with just one desire – to quench the wrenching thirst. 'If only I could kill an elk, I wouldn't ask for more. That would fetch four hundred. Luck favoring, if I stumble upon a wild boar that would be two to three hundred. If it were a deer or a buck, then it would fetch a reasonable hundred bucks. That'd be quits to Soorayya's debt. Continuous drought for the last three years compelled mortgaging the meager holding of dry land; the principal and interest together compounded to about three hundred. Should he fail to release the mortgage even this year Soorayya would surely grab the land for ever.' Byri knew how Soorayya, the money lender, ruthlessly appropriated the lands of the poor and turned a millionaire in no time. Byri was, therefore, all the more determined to retrieve the land from the clutches of Soorayya. Byri took out his country rifle and dusted it. He pulled out a pouch of gunpowder he had concealed under the roof of his hut and poured out a little quantity and test-fired it. Like the poor man's desire, it burned instantly. Satisfied that the powder hadn't lost its power, he stuffed it in the barrel, took out a bag of old nails, screws and iron trimmings and filled them in place of buck shots. He waded the barrel with waste paper and cotton rags. Girdling up his lo! ins, Byri pulled the bamboo door shut and marched into the woods holding rifle in his hand and the bag of ammunition hanging on to his shoulder. Byri was sixty. The wrinkles on his face gave a look of dry, parched and broken land. Emaciated by age and endless struggle for existence, his body looked a skeleton wrapped up in skin. His streaked eyes, however, were like embers. They hadn't still lost the tenacity and resolve to fight. It was well into the noon. The sun was still blazing. Far away, the village folk were invoking the rain gods by uproarious prayers to drumbeats in a procession. The trees in the forest stood denuded shedding off every leaf spreading a carpet of dry leaves under their feet. Byri was like a scarecrow walking with a gun. The parrots in the bamboo grove squawked and fluttered away in fright as the dry leaves rustled under his feet. A set of crows disturbed by Byri's intrusion into their domain, hovered over him in circles and followed him a long way. In order to reach a watery sprout before sunset, Byri was walking briskly taking short cuts crossing copses, bushes, thickets hillocks and rocky mountains and puffing and fuming he reached the spot after crossing two mountain ranges by sunset. In the midst of the dense forest, beside a dried up stream, in the shade of a thicket, the ground was still wet. There was a small puddle with water slowly oozing out. As Byri approached the puddle the mosquitoes swarming the water flew up. That was the only place in the forest where all animals could come – come here they must – to quench their thirst. Byri carefully scrutinized the surroundings of the puddle. The footprints of animals were clearly visible on the wet ground about the pool. Wild boars had dug out a large number of pits in the sand for springs of water.
The sun setting behind the trees gave a panoramic backdrop. The wind
blowing down the sun-burnt rocks was still stingingly hot. Byri
pulled out his knife from his bag, trimmed the bamboo bush twenty
yards from the pool and made a comfortable hide out. He camouflaged
the hide out with trimmings from nearby bushes and made a small room
for the barrel of the gun, so as to be able to shoot from the hide
out. He patted himself for the wonderful work done. He carefully
crept in and took up his position keeping the gun in readiness. He
started looking keenly from the crevices of his hide out for animals
approaching the puddle. His ears were sensitive to every little
sound. Byri was a seasoned hunter. Peacocks were cluck-clucking somewhere nearby. Various small birds were also coming down to the pool, quenching their thirst and flying away. A couple of peacocks came running over the dry leaves to the pool and looked around. Sucking in with their beaks in a hurry, they stretched out ! their necks and gulped the water. His thirst quenched, a peacock cluck-clucked jumping in joy spanning his plumage and angling for his mate. His spread out tail reflected its iridescent colors in the twilight. The couple danced for a while and flew away. As the evening spread its wings a large number of wild fowl and a variety of birds came up to the puddle and left off. Gradually as darkness descended on the forest, chirping of birds grew thinner as they flew nest-ward. Now it's time for the animals to arrive. Having sat still for hours, Byri felt his back aching. As darkness deepened the creaking of insects also waxed. A barking deer (Kakur or Munt Jack) bleated somewhere on the hill top. A bright star reflected through the water in the pit. Even in pitch darkness Byri was able to see the well laid out sand carpet of the dried up stream. Hours passed. Cool wind blew over the fluttering dry leaves. It also comforted the sweat-soaked body of Byri incidentally. Suddenly an elk roared "faunk, faunk". The sound reverberated through the forest. The animal ran past Byri so quickly that Byri could make it out only from the sound of its hooves. The creaking insects suddenly fell silent. Silence reigned the entire forest. Byri shivered in his hideout. His body threw horripilations. Unconsciously his hand leapt up to the gun. He was wondering what made him shiver. He was in a confused state. |
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