An Encounter With Wildlife

 “TO COME CLOSER, GO TOO FAR”

I don’t know from whom and when I heard this quote, but yesterday, the quote proved true when I went to my village for its annual fair.

It is my grandmother’s place. I have hardly stayed there for more than twice as I do not like the eating habits of the people living there. They eat bhakris (made up of Jawar and Bajra in the breakfast, in the lunch and in the dinner too. I am more habitual too and would always love to eat chapattis and bread. There are many other reasons why I haven’t spent many days there when my other siblings are always happy to spend their entire Diwali and summer vacation.

The village fair is a great affair, for the villagers. I have been going there once in a year since last three years just to drop my mother as she cannot travel by public transport due to an injury in her back, and I have hardly stayed there even for a night. Though people there are very nice and have all praises for me, I always preferred to be in Pune enjoying the hustle and the bustle of the city.

Yesterday I invited two of my friends-cum-colleagues Suhas and Sachin to join me to visit our village and enjoy the fair. They, without hesitation, agreed. My mother, my three nice, Sachin and Suhas were scrambled in my car. We reached the place. The preparation for the fair was still going on. We still had around two hours with us before the actual fair would start, so, we went for a walk in the farm. The whole time when we were roaming in the farm and in the dried up dam, we were talking about the movie we have been planning to make and how this would be a perfect spot to shoot the movie. From a distance, we could see a small hill. I have gone on and behind that hill last time when I visited the village along with my wife. There are two temples. I told this to Sachin and Suhas and insisted that we should go at that place.

I took my car that was parked at the back of our house. The slope of the hill, the gravel road, and the deep valley at one side of the road gave us the adventurous feel. We reached the place. There were many tall trees whose shadows have spread over the area and even in the hot April, one may feel cold there. There wasn’t anyone, no human could be seen. I was scared, not of the loneliness, but of what people of the villagers coming and asking us strangers questions. We enjoyed playing with water on a hand pump. It was getting dark. So, we decided to leave.

I switched on my car’s headlight and was moving very slowly through the narrow gravel roads as we were discussing about the movie and suddenly I saw something that literally stopped my breath.

A herd of deer crossed the narrow gravel road from in front of my car very swiftly. Very quickly I told the same to Sachin and Suhas who too were amazed to see the fully grown deer jumping on the rocks, going at a safer distance from us and observing us with their ears standing tall. I deliberately slower down the speed of my car so that we could catch some glimpses of the deer, but they were too quick to be spotted again. But I was sure, there was something. I thought – ‘If there are deer, they can be leopard too’. With this fear in mind, I pulled over the car’s windows and slowly drove my car. Before we could even think of anything, a fawn crossed the road in front of us. He too, like his elders, stopped at a safer distances and stared at us. We were awestruck, with gaping mouth, what we had just witnessed, we could not think of anything but looked at each other in amazement. A few meters more drive and there we saw a grey and black rabbit crossing the road.

All the way back to my mother’s house what we discussed was the deer and the wildlife. I was too excited to tell my mother and the siblings what we saw behind that hill.

“I spent my entire life going on that hill and beyond that for colleting twigs. We spent days there on that hill, but not even for a single time, we saw deer. Yes, we saw rabbits, but not deer. You must be lying, it must be something else.” My mother said in a very casual tone trying to prove me wrong, and the other old people sitting around her, joined in proving us wrong. From their talk, I could believe that they really might have not seen any deer on that hill. For a moment, Sachin, Suhas and I felt fortunate. Out brief visit to the hill has shown us the most beautiful moment of our life. We were feeling so fortunate at that moment.

I have always prefer not to stay in the village, as for me it was a boring place where you do not have mediums of entertainment like TV, but this incident has given me a reason to be closer to my native place. All three of us (Sachin, Suhas and I) are interested in visiting the place, especially the hill, in the evening time to see more wonders of the nature. There are amazing things around you, but what you need to do is leave that idiot box, the mobile and the wi-fi away, and come in the midst of nature.

This incident truly made me believe in the quote, “To come closer, go too far.”