Meeting with the Death!!
I will never forget the day when I saw my death in front of me and staring at me and I looked through the eyes of my death.
It was quite sunny when we started for
Guhi after our meeting was over at 2.30p.m. It was just a two hours journey by bus throughout the forest. By the time we reached near Guhi by bus we were informed that due to heavy rains during the week, the road ahead was closed for heavy vechicals. So to reach Guhi we had to walk through the dense forest. That evening we reached Guhi by 7.30 p.m. By the time we reached it was totally dark. As soon as we reached there, it started raining heavily. By the night we got the news that it was raining so heavily that even if we have to reach up to Kanashi (where I used to work and stay) there was no bus up to Umbarthan so we have to walk for about 12 kms. I and Raju (a 16 years young boy from tribal area) we have to leave Guhi as we couldn't inform about our stay at Guhi in Kanashi. So we started our journey at 8.30 a.m. It was totally a new experience for me to walk through a proper dense forest. We were not having much things with us, so it was quite pleasent to walk through the forest. We proceeded by enjoying the beauty of the nature. Whole forest was lookig so fresh. Raju was from different tribal area but he was knowing many stories about the forest. So he was telling me about his experiences at his place in the forest. We walked around 9kms and by 12.00 noon we entered in a very dense area of the forest where we could see only trees wherever we looked. Raju told me that in this forest during noon time leopard can be seen. It just come out of its cave for food and to drink water. I though he was jocking so I ignored his information in a laughter. He tried to convince me that whatever he told it is true, but I took everything lightly. As we were feeling a bit tired we decided to sit on a rock at the side of the road to take some rest. The rock was sufficiently big where we could sit facing eachother so we were able to see eachothers back side of the road. Suddenly
Raju asked me to turn and see at my back side. I was in a very much relaxed mood and just turned my head towards the back. I was horrified by seeing a leopard just climbing up to the valley towards the road. It was a great shock for me, so I screamed. Before I screamed, the leopard was walking its own way and its attention was not there towards us. As soon as I screamed, it noticed us, stopped and looked at us. We were quite nearer to it.
Raju immediately told me that I should not make any sound or moment, otherwise the leopard might attack us. His words hit my ears and my voice couldn't come out again. When I looked towards the leopard, I found that it was staring at us. I was freezed and couldn't think about anything. Suddenly my mind became thoughtless. Leopard and both of us were staring eachother. I felt that I was loosing the strength in my legs. We were just waiting for the leopard's attack. For defending ourself we were not having anything in our hands except a rain coat. I think the same time the leopard was also thinking about its safety. After five minutes it left the place and climbed up the hilly area. At that moment we felt releaved but we were shaken from inside as we saw our death in front of us. We felt more frightened after it left because we had to continue our remaining journey in the same direction in which the leopard went. We felt that since it had seen us, it might attack us in the middle from top of the hill. We were thinking about returning back to
Guhi. Finally after 5 mins, we decided to go ahead and continue our journey in the same direction. We thought that if our death would be written by attack of leopard in our destiny then nobody could stop it. So we decided to take the risk and continued. Fortunately we reached safely in
Umbarthan where we came to know that just a month before at the same point a man was attacked very badly by a leopard and that person was admitted in the hospital.
When we reached
Kanashi by a thought of death, I felt sick. I had to take 5-6 tablets of brufen and 10 blankets to make me sleep and feel safe. I slept for 12 hours in that state. During the sleep also, I was thinking of the leopard and what would have happened, if it would have attacked us at that time!!