The Man-Eating Rumour

We were resting after a heavy lunch. There were no participatory learning activities scheduled. The Panchayat secretary and two lekhpals entered the room with somber expressions. They requested our permission to provide us with some news. The assembled IAS officers granted permission to impart the news. The panchayat secretary told us that the man-eating tigress terrorizing the area had struck again and close by. It had killed a fakir/baba who lives in a kutir at the edge of the forest. The said killing happened as late as last night. We were aghast. The shocking news sent chills up my spine. I was jesting online only a day ago that the tigress may develop a taste for fat and juicy OTs. What if the tigress did get a whiff of my scent-the scent of a bureaucrat? What if the tigress was active on online social networking platforms? What if it decided to wreak vengeance on me for rejecting her friend request sent from a profile with Katrina’s face as display picture? The conjectures were many.

We decided to visit the site of the killing. For good measure we asked the two UP wala police bhaiyyas to come along with their .303s. The convoy consisted of two motorbikes, a Gypsy and a Scorpio. We could have as well been a travelling circus. The road was a kachha road. It could not have been kachha-er than it was. There were deep ruts from the bullock carts and pot holes 3 feet deep. A two inch layer of fine dust topped the road which was raked up by the tyres and rendered the air a post-apocalyptic yellow/ochre tinge. The silent convoy was an eerie sight. Sugar-cane rose 10 ft on either side, eucalyptus and poplar trees blocked sight of the fields afar. After what seemed like a venture deep in to the uncharted forests, we arrived at a clearing, the said kutir. There were two banyan trees 50 ft tall, a thatched hut open on two sides and a makeshift mandir. There was a farmer, his wife, kids and sugarcane on a bullock cart nearby the kutir. The whole platoon of police, revenue officials and prashikshu adhikaari disposed him to a chatty mood. He informed the gathered government machinery that the baba was safe in a village close by and that there was no tigress attack. The villagers assumed the worst when they saw the contents of the kutir turned upside down and a trail of blood on the floor. Blood on the kutir floor. That there were 15 odd killings by a man-eating tigress in the area only bolstered the villagers' doubts. A drunken brawl and a possible bloody nose led to the wild (but probable) news of an attack by the tigress. Lessons learnt: One needs to verify the information fed by the lower administrative machinery and not take it at face value.

A lazy Sunday, 'Roads to Mussoorie'

'Let me have a companion of my way, were it but to remark how the shadows lengthen as the sun declines.'- Laurence Sterne.

Today was a breathing space of sorts. A much needed one. I spent the day idly lazing around in the room and in the campus. It afforded me time to read Ruskin Bond's 'Roads to Mussoorie.' The book is available in the Gandhi Smriti Library, along with few other books by Ruskin Bond. It is a good source material for information on local history, geography, flora and fauna. Like, did you know that Rudyard Kipling stayed in the Charleville Hotel in the summer of 1888? The erstwhile Charleville Hotel is the present LBSNAA as you all know.

So, from one writer to another, hope you enjoyed your stay at the academy. Did you write anything while you were here?

The OTs occupied themselves in various ways. The culturally inclined practiced rigorously for the cultural programme scheduled tomorrow. The invite for the said event is in the form of a memo. A memo is short for memorandum. More about memo in a later post may be?

A bunch of OTs played cricket with tennis ball and few even got injured. Most others went to the Mall Road to see all that one has seen last week too. Once one starts living in a hill station as a resident and not visit it as a tourist, the perspective starts changing. There is one main street and not much else to the sleepy town. The town itself starts contracting in size, especially after one covers the surrounding areas in short but intense treks. Soon enough one starts to look at people after one has had their fill of the trees, hills, clouds, shadows, flowers and birds. Now, people are infinitely complex creatures. And writing about them is fraught with consequences. As a writer, one must write. Therefore, you may find fictitious people in my accounts here. They will never be real people, not even in approximation, but an amalgamate of various characters, various facets of very many people. Any resemblance is surely your imagination.

About the quote at the start of this post. It is best to go for walks in the hills alone. However, it is not bad to have a companion too. Provided the companion can maintain composure not to talk except to remark on the remarkable aspects of the surroundings. That is what the quote means.