The Great Downpour

Chapter XVI

Chapter XVI

Chand and Seeta lay very close to each other throughout the night without knowing it. When Chand came to, it was a bright and sunny morning. He realized that Seeta lay next to him and she was still lost to the world.

Is she alive? He sat up and put out his hand to touch Seeta’s face. It seemed warm. She is alive! Chand looked around at the rain-covered, soggy landscape and sighed loudly at the injustice of it all. He shook Seeta gently, but the lady would not open her eyes.

Dejected, he pulled himself to his feet and immediately saw a small hand-bag that Seeta had around her shoulders. He took it out and opened the zip at the top to rummage through the contents. There was a can of Diet Coke, some kind of lunch box, a mobile phone that was wet through and through, some girlie stuff and small chewing-gum packets – three or four in all! He opened the can of coke and guzzled it first. Next, he unpeeled one of the gum packets and put the gum in his mouth. I feel much better now!

He went to the edge of the water and drank some of the cool, refreshing stream water. He was still drinking it when he heard an ominous growl from behind. Chand was a large man, but he had the courage of a mouse. He turned around to stare into the eyes of a full-grown female leopard, which was obviously carrying her brood inside her. She was growling deep within her throat and looking at Chand with patient anticipation.

Ten feet behind the leopard lay Seeta, still asleep or in whatever state of consciousness she was. Chand had no weapon and no knowledge of the behaviour of leopards. He began to tremble with fear at the sight of possible death.

The leopard growled again and advanced towards Chand. Chand was in a fix, and the leopard could smell his fear accurately. The sheer size of her potential victim intimidated her, and she was considering whether it was correct for her to try and attack this human-being. She turned her head to look at the other human figure that lay on the ground. The leopard went up to Seeta and began to sniff her. Chand said “Shoo! Shoo!” a couple of times, but it was ineffective as the leopard continued to circle Seeta. Something made the leopard disinterested in this prey and now she redirected her attention to Chand. She growled and leapt at Chand with as much spring in her jump as possible. She fell a few inches short of Chand who had stepped back with an agility he himself did not know he possessed. The river was a few more feet behind him, and Chand saw that as his only route of escape. He went back a few feet while the leopard advanced towards him. Then Chand turned his back on the leopard and jumped – rather, dived into the river. The strong current carried him nearly 50-60 feet downstream before he was able to swim against it and reach the bank again. He hoped the leopard had gone away, but he stayed where he was behind a big rock for another half an hour before he made his move to go back to where Seeta, hopefully, lay.

Finally, he was back to the original spot. Seeta lay as she had been earlier, and Chand breathed a sigh of relief. The leopard had indeed left, or so Chand thought, as he advanced towards Seeta. Before he had reached, however, the leopard reappeared from behind some elephant grass. She growled and moved forwards to attack Chand again. This time, the distance between the hunter and the prey was less than ten feet, and the leopard’s next jump brought her on top of Chand. Chand grappled with the animal, fighting with all his strength to throw her off him, but the animal was equally desperate and dug her claws into his flanks. Chand held the leopard by its neck and squeezed her neck with all the force he could bring to bear in his fingers. To his surprise, the leopard let go of him, and climbing down his body, she slinked off into the bushes.

Chand looked at his side and saw three rather deep gashes made by the leopard’s claws. The gashes were bleeding and his trousers were all wet and torn from the encounter. Chand gingerly stood up and stepped out of his trousers. He limped to the river and dipped the torn garment into the running water. He then wrung it free of extra water and wrapped it tightly around his lower torso. The blood flow was stanched by this action of his, and he lay down to collect himself and to praise the Almighty above for sparing his life.

With excruciating pain, he sat down next to Seeta and shook her.

“Seeta! Please wake up! Seeta!” he kept calling to her. After what seemed to be a very long time, the pain in his flanks became a little tolerable, and he stood up to drink more water and to look for a shaded place where the two of them could retire to. About 15 metres away from the place where the leopard had emerged from was a hollow within a large banyan tree. He found that the hollow was large enough to accommodate him as well as Seeta, provided she could be made to sit up. Now how am I going to get her to sit up when she doesn’t even respond to my continuous shouts?

He dragged himself slowly back to where Seeta lay. He walked up to the edge of the river and scooped out some water into both his hands. Taking the water to Seeta, he splashed it on her face. Seeta must have registered the wet splash on her skin, for she finally came to, her eyes shutting tight for a bit before slowly opening to the world.

“Thank God you’re back into the world of the living!” said Chand as he helped her to slowly sit up. Seeta was a bit disoriented initially. Then the reality of what had happened to her hit her with the force of a hurricane.

“Oh my God! I can’t believe this!” She looked at Chand: he had his shirt almost off one shoulder and his trousers wrapped around his torso. Below that, he wore simple half-pants resembling P.T. shorts.

Despite herself, she laughed at Chand. He too looked at himself and smiled back nervously.

“I had no choice, Seeta … a leopard attacked me,” he began and quickly recounted the harrowing experience he had had a few hours ago. Seeta could hardly comprehend the precarious condition they had been in. She asked Chand how long she had lain there unconscious and unaware of death stalking her. Chand looked at his wrist watch and noted that it was past 11 o’clock in the day.

“Well, I myself became aware of where we were just today morning, and you were out cold for a further 3-4 hours!” he said.

Seeta looked at Chand and said, “That makes it over 12-14 hours of unconsciousness. Isn’t that a record for you? It is for me, you know!”

Chand was amazed at Seeta’s flippant talk.

“Do you realize that we are alone here? I don’t even know how far we are from the place where the bridge broke and the river water carried us out … and all you can do is to make jokes! I am hungry too, and you’d better know that!”

“Sorry,” said Seeta, feeling a little foolish for cracking jokes at such a moment.

Chand said it was okay and asked her for ideas on what she felt was the best course for them to take. Seeta was quite prompt with her suggestion: Find something to eat and then start walking upstream by the side of the river.

Chand could see that Seeta’s suggestions were not only sensible but also practical, but he told her wryly that there was the slight problem of the injury in his flank and the weakness that he felt on account of the blood loss.

Seeta was immediately contrite and offered to look at his wounds and to dress them more effectively. Chand agreed that this was a good course of action. He asked her to move to the shade of the large banyan tree where he had already identified a big hollow that would serve them as a resting place till they proceeded further.

Presently, Seeta opened up the make-shift tourniquet made from trousers and examined the wounds. The gashes were at least six to eight inches long and although they were not bleeding actively, a serum-like oozing was still evident. She carefully wiped the dirt off the gashes and dressed up the lower torso with her clean dupatta.

Isn’t she wonderful, thought Chand as Seeta finally completed the task at hand and looked up at him and smiled. Chand wanted to take her face in his hands and kiss her, but he had never before declared any affection for her so he felt odd about suddenly showing his hand right here and now. Seeta got up and looked around and spotted a ficus tree almost immediately behind the banyan tree. Luscious figs hung from its branches. She managed to break some and also picked out some more that were hanging low. She brought these back to Chand who sat nursing his side. He was thrilled to see the fruit and praised Seeta.

They ate the figs together. Seeta could feel that Chand was being very considerate and tender with her. She had equivocal feelings for Chand, but she rather found his taking care of her very cute. I must try and know more about him …

After eating, they went to sleep. In any case, the heavy rain had resumed and it would be impossible for them to venture out. The rain kept falling uninterruptedly for the next three hours. It was almost 4 o’clock in the afternoon when the rain stopped. This awakened both of them. Seeta realized that during sleep, she had dropped her head on Chand’s chest. Feeling embarrassed, she lifted her head off his chest and moved back a few feet. Chand said nothing to her but his eyes said it all. He was in love with her.