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| Sunday, 3 November 2002 |
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Short Story Lost alone together Love is sweetest when it is stolen, they say. Certainly, it could have been so with us, but for the innumerable obstacles we had to hurdle through in that race to get the better of the impenetrable opposition we had to surmount. We had to guard ourselves against relatives; and friends we had to select. That was the time when a friend in need, truly became a friend in deed! And so it was that we had such a friend in Upali who invited us to spend a holiday in far-away Rakwana. This was it, we thought as opportunities had not come that often our way; thus we decided to have a brief sojourn even though it was somewhat of a risk under the circumstances. Splendour What is beautiful and charming in nature is, indeed, a perennial source of joy that never fails. It is like the water of a fountain, the more you drink of it the greater the supply you have. Perhaps, it could have been the much desired company of each other, but we found Rakwana irresistible. The climate was mild, the scenery was romantic and the atmosphere was typically rural. However, what drew my attention, above all, was the luxuriant vegetation and mountain range in the background that was really out of this world. The more I admired it and kept on gazing at its splendour, the more I wanted to breathe in it and get there with Rita who had already indicated her mutual appreciation remarking rather premonitoraly: "It's a lovely place to get lost!" So, was it any wonder that just the following day, Rita and I were passengers occupying the front seat of our host's Land Rover on our way towards the Depedene Range of peaks of Rakwana? We started off after an early lunch, around 2 p.m. At the wheel was Sunil who apparently knew the area well enough for us to, gradually, acquire a sense of confidence in him. The sky was somewhat overcast but there was no cause for any re-thinking or a change of plan. Drifted In a short while, we were winding our way up the hills of Depedene. The vegetation in the distance, it appeared, was getting thicker while the air around us was becoming rarer; and in the meantime, Sunil was giving us the creeps with his stories of the beastly creatures that used to roam the neighbouring jungles. The elephant, he said, was a particularly common phenomenon by night; this scared the wits out of Rita who huddled closer to me and murmured that even though she could be easily lured by the soothing and romantic effects of a jungle, a lone elephant could have just the opposite effect. By now, our vehicle had reached the other side of the mountain; and we stopped at a kiosk amidst a cluster of estate workers' dwellings and commercial units. Sunil had some official duties to perform and while he was getting about his work, Rita and I decided to do a stroll. Arm in arm, we trudged the jungle paths that eventually brought us to the core of the environment; we suddenly found ourselves amidst a veritable forest of a fairly intensive nature. We just could not believe that we had drifted away so much in what we inadvertently thought was so short a time. Love has no boundaries and we bitterly realised the truth of this when we observed that we had been traversing and crossing many a boundary of this jungle terrain for nearly ninety minutes. Helpless We noted with anxiety the rapid spread of darkness across the sky and were both so nervous and helpless not knowing what step to take next as we recalled the occasional warning given by Upali and driver Sunil of the unpredictable denizens of this jungle. The only redeeming factor was that the two of us were alone together, far, far away and out of reach of, the maddening crowds. The more we tried to extricate ourselves from the environmental mess, the deeper we strayed into the thickening jungle. Even the few stars comfortingly shiningly above us had by now disappeared. For a moment we were locked in each other's arms, dwarfed by the vastness of the vegetation like 'babes in the woods.' And so deep was the night, it seemed. We have virtually come to the end of our tether but we kept on wandering aimlessly in the fervent hope of, at least, hearing a distant human voice or maybe even just a familiar earthly sound. In this calamitous state, the dreadful thought of having to spend the night in the frightening darkness of an unknown jungle and exposed to all the vagaries of an untanned environment, dawned on us. Rita clung on to me and whispered tremblingly "Darling, the fact still remains we are together!" Screamed While the trees were swaying to and fro, waving their leaves and shaking their branches, we spotted a moving light at an earthly height in the distance. This was a godsend, we thought: the sign of an approaching vehicle. I shouted and hooted as I never had done before while supporting Rita and moving quickly towards the source of light now strengthening and spreading minute by minute. Through the rustling sound of jungle flora, we heard the effects of a man on the run - and in a flash, someone held us from behind. Rita screamed while I almost hit the intruder who just then identified himself as Sunil, the driver. The headlights of the Land Rover were on and Sunil triumphantly led us to it. Though I tried to drag Rita into a conversation, I noticed she answered in monosyllables. If there was ever an experience of a lifetime, that was it, she later blurted out closer home. by Lloyd Fernando |
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