In the Wild for a While

I had my summer vacations and had gone to stay with my paternal grandparents.After a delicious dinner with them one night, I went out for a walk with grandpa at around 9:30pm. I held his hand and led him through the front gate.

 While walking, he was telling me the names of various plants and was also teaching me how to identify each of them. He told me that his profession was that of a civil engineer, and that he often travelled through jungles with his team. I understood , immediately, why he talked like a botanist.

 “What did you see in the jungles?” I asked. “Did you ever see wild animals?”

“Don’t ask!!Me and my team have experienced a lot of wildlife. Do you want me to tell you some incident?”he asked me.

“Oh please do! I love hearing tales from you.”I replied excitedly.

And so my grandpa, an effective ,influential and expert storyteller , began telling me his story-

“Once we, as in me and my team, saw an animal whose name would surprise you.”

“What was it?” I asked .          
                      “We saw a TIGER!!!” There is hardly any change of tone in my grandpa’s calm voice, but he said this with a different tone .

I was not surprised at all. “What’s so surprising? Even I have seen a tiger at Ranthambore.” I said with an irritated voice.

“You don’t understand!”grandfather said. “We were not protected the way you were at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve. We were sitting on the ground and the tiger was staring at us.”

“Oh no!” I screamed. “Run! I mean, did you run? Did something happen to you or your teammates?”I was very frightened. Did anything happen to my dearest grandfather ?

“Calm down. Nothing happened. Actually we were having our lunch and the tiger smelled it. He must have come to check it out.”

I was still waiting for my grandfather to continue but he took a really long pause, as if to tease me by increasing my curiosity.

“We all sat quite still and the tiger stared at us and went away after some time. We were not even harmed ‘this’ bit.”he said ,making gestures with his hands. I quickly took his hand in mine  and held it firmly.

“Wasn’t it thrilling?”, I asked , shocked by the anecdote.
                             

“It was thrilling indeed. We were not too brave so as to sit and wait for another tiger. We ran off with our mini-van to another part of the jungle”

We walked quietly for some time, and I thought over the story.

                          

“Again one night at the jungle, we were sleeping peacefully inside our tents when a bear tore the tents and tried to attack us.” Grandpa said, grinning, as if lost in ‘those’ days.

“Oh my!Then did you sit quietly and did it go away?” I asked in a concerned tone.

“No! This was a completely different case. This time we ran for our lives and left the jungle. We took our vehicle. The next day we collected our belongings.”

“wow grandpa, you were so brave.” I said , admiring the tale as well as him.

“come on now , enough of wild animals. Let’s go home if you don’t want your grandmother to turn into a wild animal.” He said, laughing.

I left him near the front gate of his house and ran inside the house, laughing, and  pretending to tell grandmother.

“I was only joking! Do not tell your grandma!” he shouted from behind.

He came in and was immediately questioned by grandmother, “where were you for such a long time? It’s almost 10:30!”

“we were in the wild” he answered.

“IN THE WILD FOR A WHILE!”, me and grandpa chorused. All three of us had a hearty laugh.

         

✎ Shravani Kelapure