Hira and Rumi

Hira and Rumi -1

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My name is Hira, you can call me "Buzzer" too. Because my wings make a buzzing sound. I am a dragonfly, a brown colored dragonfly, an insect which probably inspired the helicopter these humans have. Huh, so much for not giving credit to nature. But leaving all of that, I am flying off to the hills today, to Jatog,I am angry and sad. 
I used to live in the Rose Garden in Chandigarh along with my friends, Nikku and Panku but we had a fight so I am off to Jatog. I know it's a beautiful place near Shimla.
So I am flying and I am on the way. While flying I sometimes get tired and rest in the trees. I prefer trees because then I  am not under the threat of naughty, inhuman kids who might try to catch me for pleasure or even might kill me. Rumi, my dearest friend died before my eyes at the hands of such kids and I, Rinku, Panku and Nikku could not do anything about it. It was one of the saddest days of my life. So let me admit,  I am running away from my past,  I am heartbroken.
It was just yesterday and the Rose Garden was filled with visitors. Me, Rinku and Rumi were playing with Panku and Nikku. It was hide and seek, and I had warned them, please don't play near the flowers, let's go up the trees. 
Nikku had resisted saying "Look it's such a beautiful day the roses are blooming and we need to stay close to the flowers, we are dragonflies and flowers and small plants are our abode. And moreover we have a threat in the trees of other predators like the birds,  rodents and the  grasshoppers. 
The roses were indeed blooming and I also could not resist myself from being around them. I just was worried about a swipe of hand that might come from anywhere or little fingers of children hiding behind the bushes in stealth trying to catch us by the tail. The irony for me always was their crackling laughter which I over a period of time had grown to relate to a lot of our fellow dragonfly's death. I never trusted humans and I never will. They are the most ruthless of all species as per me as they kill for fun, and that too when we are not their food. At least a bird or a rodent eat us because they needed to fill their stomachs. Not the humans,  they were simply cruel. I hated kids,  because they were the ones who killed,  the adults never harmed us,  it's the kids who hunted us for their fun. Also I always believed,  we had a better chance against other predators as they still make noise when they are around us and are not really adept at using stealth like these humans. Dragonflies can see almost 360 degrees except to their backs and these humans were adept at hiding and coming right behind us slowly and catching us. During the day,  we were most likely to be attacked by humans. I had a bad feeling but Nikku disagreed. I however used to go stiff and cold at the thought of such a thing happening. I looked at Rumi and Rinku. I adored Rumi, she had such large eyes, transparent like pure river water and large wings, as if she could fly and cross the seas to anywhere she wanted. She was smart and empathetic, and also strong headed. I always used to rely on her for advice and I secretly loved her. I never had the courage to tell her. I just trembled at the thought of anything happening to her. Rinku was a close friend too but just a friend.

So finally Nikku insisted on having a vote and I lost and so had to agree. As per the rules laid down for the game, Rumi was the one who was supposed to close her eyes for a brief period and we had to hide. I now had the tough job of hiding yet keeping an eye on her. Basically hide somewhere where she cannot see me, but I had to have an eye on her. She went behind a huge sunflower at a nearby shrub and I went behind a giant marigold plant just behind that sunflower plant so that I could keep an eye on her. I hid myself behind one of the big flowers and reduced my wing flutter to the minimum so that I could not be heard. I did not sit still,  as a still dragonfly is an easy target of kids. So I kept floating in the air,  just in case I could feel a swipe of hand behind me. I hoped Rumi also did the same. She sat on the sunflower with her eyes closed. I hated her sometimes for being so careless. But she was Rumi,  she would not listen to anyone.
Rinku, Nikku and Panku also scattered themselves behind nearby flowers. Just as Rumi was finishing her count, I could hear a few children around and grew alert. I realized I was a little too far from her and started flying towards her. The humans were all around ,but I felt none of them had an eye on us yet. I started getting closer to Rumi and could see her about to take off in search of us, when a swipe of hand came on her and closed in on her. She struggled and tried to fly off the grip of the huge hands. The boy also tried not to close his fists, and kept it gentle so that he could catch Rumi alive. I sprung towards his eyes, so that I could surprise him and maybe he could in panic, open his fists. I was wrong, as soon I went and attacked his eyes, he clenched his fists out of instinct and fell to the ground. Rumi was squished in front of me. She lay there dead in his hands. He got up and quickly ran away. She fell from his hands onto the ground. 

I flew towards her body and sat down beside her. Her lower body had been squished and one of the wings was broken. I guess it was a panicked effort on her part to break free of the killer's hands and she probably had flown halfway out but the kid closed his hands and she was killed. I realized,  had I not attacked that kid,  maybe she would have been alive now. She was still. I just went close to her face and kissed her eyes. She still looked beautiful, I was heartbroken and I started sobbing.
Nikku,  Panku and Rinku came flying and saw me crying. I was really inconsolable and could not control my tears. They asked me to join them near the small pool of water amongst the tall grass where we used to sleep.  Dragonflies have to use camouflage in the night.  I refused to leave and I just sat there the whole night. Rumi was the best thing that had happened to me and now she would never speak to me. I took an oath that day that I would never get close to any human from that day and that I would leave the Rose Garden as everything there would remind me about Rumi.  

I quietly flew out of Rose Garden just before sunrise  in the morning and started flying towards Jatog.  I had seen beautiful pictures of Jatogh in a magazine a lady was reading in the garden. I had sat on her shoulders and had enjoyed the scenic view of the hills. I wanted to be there. I longed to be there someday.  I guess now the time had come.  

I gave Rumi one  last kiss and I flew away forever. As I was flying away from the Rose Garden,  so many memories came to my mind.  I just flew as hard as possible away from Rumi,  who was now dead and would never come back and never speak to me. I flew keeping a distance from the trees,  the birds were also a threat.  So I kept my eyes open,  washing away my tears when my eyes got blurry.  I just flew.  
I crossed many beautiful trees and could see the world waking up to the sun.  It was a large ball that had come up,  behind the hills of Shimla. I kept flying,  till the time I crossed Chandigarh and came to the open space of Kalka. It was morning and humans had started their day.  I was filled with anger at the mere sight of humans now. So I just kept my head up,  looked straight and kept flying. 
I had been flying quite long now and my body temperature was increasing.  Our rigorous flapping of wings leads to our body temperature increasing so I just felt the need to perch somewhere and search for mosquitoes,  our staple diet.  Kalka had this strange place where long, very long iron boxes, oh trains, yes, trains and they were standing at a place. Some of them gave a strange sound intermittently. I was intrigued and thought of giving a closer look. I reached near one of the large iron boxes and wanted to see inside. There were glass window's and I peeped inside. Inside I saw a lot of humans  some elderly and some kids. I turned back to fly away but what caught my attention was a magazine. It had the same pictures which I had seen in the magazine in the hands of the lady in Rose Garden. Maybe that lady was on this train and she was travelling to Jatog. I somehow had to get inside now. I flew fast parallelly to the box and found one of the window's open. I flew inside and perched on top of one of the racks at the top near the roof of the train, which was empty. I nested myself at the corner with walls behind me so that I could see everything in front of me and there was no threat of any attack from behind. I was on the way to Jatog.