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The Invasion of the Awful Beasts

‘The Awful Beasts are coming!’ warned the Sal Trees.

The trees dressed in brilliant green oval leaves stood as sentinels at the edge of the jungle. They could see far, being very tall and straight.  The agitated rustle of their leaves carried the urgent message, leaping from tree to tree, deep into the forest. Russet streaks glowed angrily through their rough bark.

All the animals heard the warning and ran for cover. The tigers were the fastest. They leapt into dark nullahs, well out of sight. Leopards lay down flat on spreading branches.  Though the trails ran right below them, they were so still that few could spot them among the leaves, even when the white tip of their tails twitched cautiously from side to side. The spotted deer families started to move deep into the shade. The Cheetal fathers lifted proud antlered heads from behind the tall grass, sniffed the air, and angrily told the young ones to hurry up. The Barasingha though much larger did not move at all. They just sank into the shelter of swamp pools, their branched horns looking like dry brown sticks. Huge black gaur bison who had been grazing in the sun moved away with dignity into the forest till you could not tell the animals from the jungle shadows. True, streaks of sunlight fell occasionally on the white stocking of their legs, but the forest with its shifting forms and dappled light concealed far more than it revealed.

Only the langurs remained totally unconcerned. Broad white grins lit up their black faces as they laughed at the other animals going into hiding. To show how little they cared about the approaching threat, they swung low through the trees, and joyfully bounced off the road. Even the baby langurs chatted away merrily.

Then the muntjac, the smallest of the deer, hiding low in the grass, saw the enemy first, and barked away in fear for all they were worth. There was a last minute flurry of activity as every living being went into hiding, butterflies closed their wings, and the noisy jungle was suddenly very still. Except, of course, for the langurs who laughed and chatted without a care in the world, their long grey tails hanging nonchalantly over the road.

The huge, black, awful beasts came roaring down the road. They were jeeps of all shapes and sizes, each carrying anywhere from four to ten tourists. They held very fat men and not so fat men, old fat men and young fat men, men with beards, and men with bald heads. There were fat women wearing big dark glasses and shiny silk saris, there were boys and girls, getting to be fat, in jeans and shorts. All carried cameras, binoculars, water bottles, cell phones, and lunch packets. They bulged out of their clothes and they bulged out of the jeeps. They shouted and chattered noisily as they entered the jungle. They were much noisier than the langurs, much, much noisier. It was all very distressing, and the tall disdainful Sal Trees glowered down at them.

Suddenly the jeeps screeched to a halt.

‘Where are the animals? There are no animals here!’ shouted the denizens of the jeeps.

Their khaki clad guides looked around mournfully.

‘They are here, madam, I assure you,’ said a thin old guide with grey hair. ‘But we must be very quiet. Animals don’t like noise!’

‘How do you know?’ challenged a young man in a stripped red tee-shirt, pulled halfway over a large tummy. ‘I bet there is nothing here, not even a rabbit! God! How I wish I had brought a case of beer!’

A severe-looking woman opened her bag and pulling out a cigarette, lit it in a cloud of smoke. ‘Well, let’s go on till we spot something! What’s the point of stopping here!’

The cavalcade moved on, but not before it had dropped half-eaten sandwiches and an unopened packet of biscuits. Even before the jeeps had roared round a corner, the langurs had gleefully jumped down and gathered the sandwiches.

‘See! What are you afraid of!’ said Old Grey Langur, holding aloft the packet of biscuits. ‘This is food, and they are idiots!’

But all the others hated the awful beasts. The jeeps roared up and down trails, all over the jungle, for hours on end, clothing the trees in dust, which they disliked very much, for trees are fastidious creatures. After several hours of noise, the jeeps left at last, their occupants’ discontented chatter slowly fading in the distance.  But they left behind a pall of diesel fumes, which gave every animal a headache. Perhaps, the trees got a headache as well, who knows?

‘This sort of thing cannot go on,’ said Hiran, the oldest Cheetal buck, who was the first to break the silence after the assault. ‘It’s time we called a Jungle Council meeting.’

Gaur Singh came out majestically from the shadows. ‘I agree. Something must be done. Sher Sahib, send out a notice for a General Council Meeting.’

‘All right,’ growled the tiger from somewhere.

The great jungle meeting was held the following full-moon night, in a wide open glade, guarded by the Sal Trees as usual. All the animals were there in their own special places. The bison block stood to the east. The tigers lounged under the tree trunks, and the leopards were curled up carefully above. The Cheetal and Barasingha shared mixed berths. Bunny rabbits peeped up from their bolt holes. The snakes were there as well, but hidden from view, and everyone respected their privacy. High on the tree tops sat the birds in council. The langurs had been invited but they only sent one representative. All waited for the Speaker to call the assembly to order.

‘Why is Black Drongo always the speaker?’ asked a young rabbit.

‘Because he speaks in different voices, of course,’ said his older friend loftily.

‘Sorry I am late,’ said the Speaker flying in. ‘Had other duties to attend to.’

‘Drongo Delays are getting commoner,’ muttered a Chousingha, who liked to be noticed, for he was the only one with four horns.

‘I heard that,’ said Black Drongo sharply. ‘Had to inform the observers, you know. Can’t start a meeting without them. It’s their privilege!’

‘Right you are, Sir,’ said a deep voice from the outskirts. ‘Sorry, if we kept anyone waiting, but we just couldn’t get away till the mahouts fell asleep!’ The Forest Department’s working elephants loomed up behind the bison.

‘Well, all right then, I call the meeting to order,’ said Speaker Black Drongo fussily. ‘We have only one item on the agenda, but a big difficult one, this time. What do we do about tourists? That’s the agenda. They were always a nuisance, but nowadays they are becoming unbearable. Who would like to start with an observation?’

The meeting went on till it was almost dawn. Every animal had grievances to relate, but few had any useful suggestions to make about how to deal with the menace of tourism.

‘At this rate, we will get nowhere,’ said Black Drongo in a tired voice. ‘Come on, animals, what do we do?’

‘There is only one thing to be done that can have the slightest effect,’ said Hathi Singh Maharaj ruminatively. ‘We must all act in unison – together, in one concerted effort, when the next invasion comes.’

‘How’s that to be done?’ asked a tiger with great big yawn. ‘There has to be planning. The devil is in the details, you know?’

‘I will tell you how it can be done,’ said Hathi Singh Maharaj, and he told them. They listened with rapt attention, they grumbled, shook their heads, argued, and listened once again to the elephant’s reasoning. He was much respected, for he was old, and knew the enemy better than most.

‘So, you all think it will work?’ asked Speaker Black Drongo at last, with some relief, happy that he could bring the meeting to a close.

‘There can be no other way,’ said the Bison Chief decisively. ‘But mind, we must all act together as Hathi Singh Maharaj has emphasized.’

They dispersed slowly, talking among themselves in groups, making sure who would stand next to whom, and what each one would do.

***

Far away in the City another meeting took place shortly after the Great Jungle Council Meeting.

Ratan Lootmarwala, the Chairman of Omnipotent Mining, OM for short, the richest mining corporation in India, had organized a grand dinner for Tej Bahadur Shaitan Singh, the Chief Minister, in the business centre of Xanadu, a eleven-star hotel in the State Capital.

After all the innumerable plates, glasses, and bottles had been cleared away, and the waiters had withdrawn, the captain of industry leaned forward with an oily smile.

‘My dear Shaitan – now that we are going to work together – I hope I may address you as we did in our school – my dear Shaitan, OM will make you rich beyond your wildest expectations!’ He wheezed a little, for he had dined very well, and massaging his paunch brought out a long guttural belch.

‘My dear Looty,’ said the Chief Minister unctuously. ‘The interests of my State come first.’

‘Of course, the State comes first,’ said Lootmarwala condescendingly. ‘These huge forests, what use are they? We will strip them! Chase those lazy tribals out of there and make them work for a living here. God! It’s difficult to get good domestic servants these days, they all want to work in a factory, and those who come home are all thieves. But tribals who know nothing will make good honest servants, I know, and we need pay them very little.’

Shaitan Singh looked doubtfully at his friend. ‘We can’t clear away all of the trees,’ he said regretfully. ‘Every jealous rascal in opposition makes such a fuss about the environment these days.’

‘I know, I know, you have this National Park,’ said his friend Lootmarwala airily. ‘My daughter took a party of friends there the other day, but there are no animals in your National Park, they went everywhere, and did not see even a rabbit.’

‘There are animals there,’ said Shaitan Sahib stoutly, ‘why I myself shot two black buck – I mean I SAW two black buck, and…’

‘It doesn’t matter whether there are any animals left or all have been – shall I say – utilized,’ said Lootmarwala comfortingly. ‘Tell you what, once OM operations start, I shall make a donation of a million, ten million, for your park – okay?’

The Chief Minister was not satisfied. ‘I shall take you through that jungle on an elephant, and you yourself will see that there are plenty of animals there, all kinds of animals. I insist you come with me, so you know it’s a genuine park.’

‘OM, OM, OM,’ intoned Lootmarwala.

‘What are you doing?’ asked Shaitan Singh curiously.

‘I am saying OM, it’s a sacred word,’ said Lootmarwala piously.

‘You are just repeating the name of your company that makes millions for you,’ said Shaitan Singh scornfully.

‘Hee, hee, hee, that’s why it is so sacred,’ chuckled Lootmarwala.

***

One fine afternoon, a few weeks later, the Chief Minister, Shaitan Singh, and his friend,  Lootmarwala, Chairman of OM, India’s greatest mining company, were seated on the back of Hathi Singh Maharaj himself, and accompanied by forest guides and conservators were making their slow way through the jungle. All was well till they were deep in the jungle.

Lootmarwala laughed happily. ‘I told you, my dear friend Shaitan, there are no animals in your precious park. Now admit it and let’s go home. But I will give the money all the same, and we will tell everyone how we saw all sorts of creatures buzzing about!’

At that precise moment Sher Sahib the tiger sprang out of the long grass with a blood-curdling roar and leapt onto Hathi Singh Maharaj’s back. He was of course careful enough to keep his claws retracted so the old elephant was not scratched at all. But with a trumpet that sounded like the knell of doom, Hathi Singh Maharaj reared up on his hind legs, and out tumbled the Chief Minister, the OM Chairman, the mahout, and all the others. A horde of bison galloped towards the panicked Very Important Persons lying in the grass. The chief of the bisons added colour to his charge by tearing open Lootmarwala’s shirt with a vicious hook. But he was also careful not to touch the skin underneath.

Somehow, in all that pandemonium, Shaitan Singh and Lootmarwala got up shakily to their feet, only to find a huge king cobra looking them in the eye with its hood raised. The snake shot out a long forked tongue.

‘Hisss- ssss,’ hissed the snake, or hisses to that effect.

 They both shrieked and stumbled backwards flat onto Sher Sahib’s back, who caught hold of Lootmarwala’s shoes and pulled him a few yards through the soft grass. The bison tried to play football with Shaitan Singh, and rolled him about a bit, which was more scary than hurtful to the politician. Before all this rough play could get totally out of hand, Hathi Singh Maharaj picked them up with his trunk, one after the other, and tossing them high in the air caught them on his broad back, and ran back to the road.

‘Oh, my God! Oh, my God! What a horrible place!’ screamed Lootmarwala. ‘This is not a park! It is hell itself! They are not animals, they are devils! I am sure! I will not set foot here ever again! No OM ventures here! No, no, no! I will never come here!’

Lootmarwala kept weeping and screaming all the way to the safety of the camp. Shaitan Singh was in equally bad shape, and though silent on the way back kept trembling with fear. He was unable to give a resounding political speech for the next six months. The camp guides and the conservators were unable to comfort their leaders till psychiatric doctors arrived in camp and gave both of them sedative injections.

Lootmarwala’s staff removed him immediately by helicopter and flew him to London for tests. Shaitan Singh was attended to by a team of fifty top doctors in his mansion. When after a week he could say something, he ordered that the National Park should be closed forthwith, and that no one should be allowed to enter the haunted jungle.   

***

A month or so after this dramatic event, on another full-moon night, the animals gathered again in their forest glade to give thanks and to take stock.

The Speaker, Black Drongo, looked around on the happy gathering. ‘Very well done, my friends,’ he said. ‘It gives me much satisfaction to announce that our campaign has been completely successful. No human being will disturb us again in our own jungle.’

But he spoke too soon. A circle of light appeared all round the glade. They were surrounded by adivasis! There were Gonds, Murias, Khonds, Koyas, Baigas, Bhinjwaris, men and women, boys and girls, all holding lit candles in honour of the animals.

The eldest and most honoured of the Baiga priests stepped forward.

‘We want to thank you, dear animal brothers and sisters,’ he said with great solemnity, ‘for ridding the jungle of our common enemy. Tourists will not come, miners and businessmen will not come. Poachers and loggers will not come. We will now all of us live together, as we have always lived from time immemorial.’

Hathi Singh Maharaj raised his trunk and trumpeted a return salute. The Sal Trees rustled in quiet satisfaction.

The End