Skip to main content

Reminiscing Childhood - IV

 Tiger in the Backyard

It was drizzling outside. A trampling sound was heard clear as the family was having dinner under hurricane lights. Reach of electricity was limited to district headquarters where, it was a restrained supply through either mini or micro hydel projects or DG (diesel gensets). Dinner for us in that interior of Arunachal Pradesh, where my father was posted, wasn't opulent as only some of the vegetables were grown in the backyard kitchen garden. Fish was had if dad caught them from the nearby streams. He was an enthusiast and an expert in that. Meat and eggs were by courtesy of the villagers or if someone came from Roing. Even salt was a rare commodity which was traded for costly kasturi (musk). There were undomesticated mithuns (gayal) and deer who would wander in search for food. The kitchen garden in the backyard was well barricaded with bamboo poles. Bamboo was in abundance all around. The barricade was no deterrent for the hungry ones and merely acted as a restraining structure. It was a season for potatoes that awaited harvesting. My father took out the torch only to realise that the batteries had drained out. He asked my mother to give him a wick lamp and went out with a stick. No sooner he went out, he immediately barged in and shut the door tight. It was a a tiger whose eyes shone bright in that flickering light from the lamp.
The lamp and the stick didn't come back. The kerosene from the lamp spread thin on the wet surface and the flame spread. That perhaps made the tiger leave. But then, that experience didn't deter him to go through inspection checks on long walks as government vehicle was not available.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

PLAYFUL PARALYSIS

[This is purely an act of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Content designed may provide helpful information on the subjects discussed along with presentations/illustrations for highlighting the plight of an aggrieved. The author assumes no liabilities of any kind with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents. Any resemblance to persons living or dead may be purely coincidental]   Sparkling under the morning sunshine, barely had I taken out my beauty out of the garage when a #juvenile or just beyond, rammed into my car, severely paralyzing it on a beautiful October morning in his playful gesture. Barely had my son completed the honours of closing the garage gates that I usually do and, settled down in the co-driver’s seat while I was at the wheels. It was parked momentarily by the road near my residence, before intending to take off to attend to an appointment wit...
10 comments
Read more

UNSAVOURY APERITIF

[This is purely an act of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Content designed may provide helpful information on the subjects discussed along with presentations/illustrations for highlighting the plight of an aggrieved. The author assumes no liabilities of any kind with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents. Any resemblance to persons living or dead may be purely coincidental] With credits to Mrs. Papia Kundu nee Mondal a friend from childhood Dipak had barely completed his diploma in civil engineering when he landed in a job as a junior engineer in a central government department. Such personnel were the eyes of the organisation at the ground level. It was a mass recruitment of sorts where, the country was reshaping itself, a couple of decades after independence. Observing his deft skill-sets, he was selected by his peers for a foreign posting, most immediately. Every...
3 comments
Read more

Reminiscing Childhood - I

My father was posted in the interiors of NEFA, now  Arunachal Pradesh, during his early days in service to the nation. CPWD was entrusted with building of roads following the Chinese invasion of 1962. There was much work to do and the deadlines were strict despite non availability of skilled labour and licenced government contractors. The recruitment then was huge in numbers. Reaching the place of posting was a herculean task. One may say, difficult area posting instead of hard area. That made the life of an engineer more challenging to sustain, who first studied the subject for a life unlike the one he encountered. They all travelled by train to a certain point and then by launch or steamer up the mighty Brahmaputra and then, by a bus that would ply once a day loading all it could, both within, atop and some tied to the rods wherever available. Then there was the arduous treks and elephant rides across the crazy Himalayan streams from the nearest motorable point. Well, all fo...
Post a Comment
Read more