One day after lunch Rajesh Srivastava and
myself quietly went to the stage behind our school, bunking our Music class. As
we were playing and gossiping, Rajesh climbed up to the beam on the top and
reached the center. He encouraged me to join him. At first I was a bit
reluctant, but my friend’s constant motivation inspired me to hang myself there
too! We were both enjoying the game and as I was almost about to reach Rajesh,
we both heard the dreaded voice -“Hey You There, Hold On, I am coming”. Both of
us turned back to see in the direction of the voice. Can you guess who was it?
It was our Jungle Man – K.C. Das and was
heading at a huge speed to catch us red handed. Both of us were petrified! Rajesh’s
face was a tomato and mine must have looked like I had just swallowed a bottle
of bitter gourd juice! I wanted to scream - “AB TO MAR GAYE”. Rajesh had better
reflexes so he jumped down immediately. I was still hoping for a miracle! KCD
was approaching nearer and Rajesh was already on his GYARAH NUMBER KI GADI
towards the library. Friends are friends. As he was running away, he was still
shouting “ABE KUD YAAR KUD”. I did not know what to do and was feeling horribly
scared. All sorts of thoughts were coming to my mind, as to what would happen
if I am caught. He would perhaps hit me left and right and also complain to my parents.
Soon the whole class would know of it, and… “Oh! My God, what a disgrace!
Somehow the miracle happened and I jumped,
my eyes tightly closed and my lips muttering “JAI BAJARAG BALI”. I had a couple
of seconds of FREE FALL! My trance ended and I fell on thorny bushes below with
a thud. I opened my eyes and saw that “ALL IS WELL”. I followed Rajesh towards
the library. Once we both were together, we hugged each other and started
laughing and dancing…. “BACH GAYE YAAR”. KCD could not run after us and he left
the trail. Suddenly we wondered what if KCD comes from the other side! We ran
towards the Music Room, entered it and sat quietly like good boys. Luckily,
Music Madam was not there in the class at that moment. LADY LUCK WAS ON OUR
SIDE THAT DAY. We never mentioned about this incident to anyone else. We
managed not to fall in front of KCD for some time. Later, he also must have forgotten
our faces and we were safe enough to play our next prank!
Once, two friends were playing at the edge of the jungle and had climbed up a tree. Suddenly they saw a tiger coming in their direction in a leisurely fashion. The first boy (RS) was the more quick witted and nimble of the two and promptly slid down the tree and ran off. Once he had reached what he felt was a safe distance, he yelled at his stranded friend, who was still decorating the tree and pretending to be a leaf in the wind, to get the hell out of there. Hearing this noise, the tiger started ambling over in his direction and this gave the poor JM a chance to get down and slink off.
ReplyDeleteAs the tiger (Headu) watched the two of them recede into the far distance, he licked his chops in a contented manner and gave a satisfied smirk. He had had no intention of catching the two but had indeed succeeded in reaffirming that he was indeed the lord of the jungle, his jungle.
In the meantime, RS and JM had reached the village and were quite the local heroes. RS: "You should have seen the way I out- ran the tiger. He never had a chance". JM: "Yeah, I am sure the tiger has not seen us.."
Note: NOM. (No Offence Meant).