Brothers

The forest fire

    It was time to get the herds into another patches for grazing. These regions were far from where the boys lived and they would sometimes have to stay at another village for the night. Luckily the veteran had friends.

The Indian subcontinent was facing a severe heat wave, and the Himalayas were not unaffected. There were dry spells without rainfall or snowfall. The trees and grasslands were drying up quick. Everyone was eagerly waiting for the rain.

The boys were working hard everyday. Moving around a lot and learning how to scale the mountains and get used to the area. Abhi and Sid now knew the ranges like the back of their hands. Especially Abhi. Bantu wouldn't dare to pull another stunt. Since the last one earned them more work.

The village deep in the forests near the foothills where they sometimes stayed the night had a considerable threat of leopard attacks. Himalayan snow leopard. And unfortunately when there was an epidemic in the village one of the leopards had turned into a man eater due to availability of corpses. And once a leopard gets the taste of human flesh, it somehow prefers it more than livestock.

"Are yaar! This old khadus is testing my limits now!" Bantu exclaimed on hearing about the man eater. "First the milking, then the climbing, the chores, the cold, the hikes, the work! And now he wants us to go where that man eater is! Are you guys sure he is not one of the terrorists himself?" He added.

"Don't worry man, you'll be fine." Abhi reassured him half laughing. "Sid will protect you if you're attacked ok?" he added. Sid's eyes widened but soon he got the joke. "What?! Light fury? He'll climb a tree or run away and I'll be stuck with the man eater!" Bantu exclaimed and whined for quite long.

"You know what, you're right. You have no chance of survival my friend. You enter the forest you're gone" Abhi nodded. Bantu started loosing his breath petrified. Sid saw that and hit Abhi signalling him to stop messing with him. "Shut up Abhi bhaiya, stop teasing him." Sid said and thus it took quite a while to convince Bantu to go in the forest.

They used to go for three days in a row. Staying two nights in the 'dreaded village' as Bantu had named it. And in the few days they were there, they came across another attack by the man eater on a small boy. The boy survived but Bantu died inside.

"Let's shoot that monster down!" Bantu announced. Sid was seriously thinking about it too. But just then Abhi denied, "No man! What are you thinking! If anything we must be protecting them. It's their home we're in remember?" Bantu was like here we go again, and Sid was surprised at Abhi's point of view.

"Leopards are vulnerable to extinction man! All thanks to us invading their forests and causing climate disruptions. The innocent animal must be starving to such an extreme extent that it had to attack us!" Sid was listening. "If it was up to you, you'd call Godzilla innocent too bacchi." Bantu rolled his eyes.

"Just..Please don't say you'll kill it" pleaded Abhi. "Yeah yeah we won't kill it animal welfare fairy." Bantu concluded. Sid burst into laughter and they finally got out to their way.

On their way back they saw a thunderstorm coming from the south. And that was a nice sight. Rain was long overdue. It started getting very windy and dark. Thunder crackled every now and then. The boys were on their way back to the village for the night.

Everyone was running towards the village when the boys were about to reach. And they were running really scared, carrying their wood and their belongings in a hurry. Wondering what would have happened they turned towards the forest. Only to see huge flames and thick smoke rising from the distance.

The lightning from the storm had started a fire in the dry regions of the forest. And it was blazing in the dusk sky! Shocked to see the sight Bantu and Sid didn't realise Abhi was running towards the forest.