Discovery of Fire

For weeks altogether they kept on traveling. The only aim was to move away from the group as far as possible. In the day they will travel hopping from one tree to another, crossing rivers and streams. In the night they will sleep, wherever they stop. First time away from the group, they realized the dangers of the jungle. How unsafe and insecure the jungle could be. Once a roar of tiger almost misbalanced one of them. Luckily, at the last moment he was able to catch hold of a branch. Another time they landed in the middle of a group of their own brothers, monkeys. They were chased away by a big group of burly thicksets. If they would be females, the leader of that group would have welcomed them with mangoes and all the males would have groomed them and would have plucked all the lice and ticks from their fur.

Once one of them hopped on an adjacent tree. In front of him was the most horrifying experience of his life. A leopard was sleeping on the adjacent branch. In the same second, the monkey jumped to another tree. The leopard opened his eyes, seeing nothing, he went back to sleep. The days went on and on and they moved further and further. Only one direction they could thinks off, the direction opposite to the group. None of them knew their destiny. Just a direction in front of them, towards which they kept on traveling.

One morning one of them woke up hearing strange kinds of sound. Little later the other three also woke up. The sound became louder with each passing moment. The four kept their eyes fixed in the direction of sound with a perplexed look in their face. They have never heard of a similar sound before in their life. It was certainly not a tiger or elephant which made them a little relaxed.

All four held their breath with anxiety in their face. The incidences in last couple of days after they have left the group have made them scared. In the night they would get dreams of landing between a group of tigers. On the end of the walkway, passing in front of the tree appeared three females of Homo sapiens. The women were coming to the jungle to collect firewood. The confusion on the faces of the monkeys became more pronounced. They have never seen such creature. The first question flashed in everybody’s mind was – Are they Dangerous? The ladies came nearer.

They have never seen animals walking on bipeds so comfortably. The can stand on their hind legs but for very shorter duration. The spinal cord pains a lot in the process. The monkeys are bipeds only during fighting with each other and there also they take the support of the opponent to stand. But this creature is walking very comfortably. The next amusing thing was the colour of their skin. The three women were wearing different colour sarees. The monkeys never saw the animals of the same kind having different colored skins, apart from some insects. But they have never seen such a big insect in their life. They hoped that the insects do not start flying towards them.

The skin they noticed was loosely wrapped around the body with pieces hanging from everywhere. By this time the women reached to the tree. One of them noticed the four monkeys sitting in the tree watching them intently.

“Look monkeys..shooo” One of them shouted excitedly.

The monkeys rushed to the top branch. The ladies laughed and went ahead.

This animal is not frightened with them. The rules of the jungle say that one of them should be frightened from the other. It maintains the hierarchy of the jungle. If they are not frightened than the monkeys should be frightened of them.

The monkeys saw them intently so that next time they can avoid this dangerous animal. The new creature is very similar to them except for the size and fur. They could not figure out conclusively that this new animal has got a tail or not.

They started moving further. The forest became sparse and thinned out. In front of them appeared vast stretch of plain grassland. On the grassland similar kinds of new species that they have seen in the jungle are moving. At the other end of the plain is a series of strange colourful trees like structure but having no leaves and branches.

Sitting on trees at the edge of plain but maintaining a safe distance form the new creatures they tried to understand this amazing part of jungle. Still it is not becoming clear whether the new creature is dangerous or not. Apart from the new creature they noticed other animals looking like chital in the plain. The strange creature is chasing the chital and at times hitting on the back with a rod. With every hit, a grunt like sound is produced by chital, which sank the heart of monkeys further. The creature is looking dangerous. They remained there for the whole day watching and trying to understand. They did not want to go back, in the direction of their old group. The only option is to move ahead. For that they will have to cross this new part of jungle. They waited for the night to set on.

In the night the four started the journey. As there were no trees in the fields in front of them, they had to take the risk of coming on the ground and cross on four feet. To remain on the ground for a long time is a dangerous proposition. They can become easy prey, but risk has to be taken to reach to the other side of forest. To their relief the dense grass field is hiding them. Slowly they crept towards the village sliding between the grasses.

Soon the grassland finished and they were in the front of the tree with no leaves and branches. The light was coming from the tree. Is there a sun inside the tree? They crept further to have a better look on what is happening. There was a lamp burning inside the tree. The sight of fire made all of them nervous .In a moment, all four turned back and dashed between the tall grasses, climbed on the nearest tree and hopped to the next one and went deep inside the jungle. Seeing the four monkeys running and screaming the other animals also got perplexed. The forest is in danger and it could be fire. The animals kept looking in the direction from which the monkeys came trying to get the hint of danger. After the monkeys traveled deep into the jungle, they felt safe and relaxed. The fire gave them a sense of hope also. Probably the strange creature would die in the fire, than they can safely cross the jungle.

The next morning they again went to the edge of the forest adjacent to grassland. To their amusement, the creature was not only alive but forest fire did not seem to have made any difference to the surrounding. The tree inside which they saw the fire was also standing with no signs of damage. How can the creature escape the fury of fire? There were lot of questions in their mind but no answers. They decided again to redo the attempt in the night. For the rest part of the day they munched the leaves and took a nap.

In the night again they crawled among the grass and reached to the same tree. There was again a lamp burning inside. The tension crept into their eyes and face but nobody turned back to run. The four stood their dumbstruck seeing the fire. They noticed fire is not spreading. It always remains in a small area. A fire well controlled. One strange creature was comfortably sitting next to it. In jungle fire always is an object of danger.

Though in frightened and shocked state, they decided to move further so that they can cross and reach to the other side of forest. There was a series of these strange trees with no leaves and branches. There were openings in the tree from which they can peep inside. In most of the trees, there were strange creatures inside. Most of the trees have a goblet of fire but the creature was least bothered about the danger of fire. Moving between the strange trees the monkeys reached to a ground in the center.

This was a village in the foothills of Himalayas in the vicinity of Corbett national park. The village is comprised of a population of Five hundred people and around 100 houses. The village is settled around a central ground. In the middle of the ground there is a big banyan tree with a cemented platform built around it. The platform is used by villagers for meetings and functions. A road goes from the center to the outside of village which connects it to the outside world.

To cross the village the monkeys have to cross the ground in the middle. They noticed the forest on the other side of the village. They even decided to settle somewhere there, as these the human beings in between will stop their boss and his henchman to reach to them. The idea of their old group chasing them still haunts them.

The decision of coming on the ground did not turned out to be wise. The four climbed down the roof of the last house and ran towards the house on the other end of ground. They climbed the cemented platform of the banyan tree. The moment they were getting down the platform on the other side, a series of wolf barks made them dumbstruck and motionless. The wolves came running from all direction and made a ring around the cemented platform. The monkeys tried to escape from the cemented platform but ring of wolves made all their efforts to fail. The monkeys growled to them but in vain. They were hugely outnumbered.

The wolves started narrowing down the circle around platform from all direction. However none of the wolf made an attempt to pounce of them directly. The size of the wolves was also quite smaller than they have seen in the jungle. Probably underfed and they must be feeling very hungry now.

The only escape was the banyan tree. All four climbed on the tree. The wolves kept on barking for a while on them. Then they dispersed and went in different directions.

In the night there were three more attempts to reach to the other end of the roof. The moment they touch the ground, the ring of wolves would appear around the tree ferociously barking on them. Tired all four went to sleep.

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