A leopard, lithe and sinewy, drank at the mountain stream, and then lay down on the grass to bask in the lat36February sunshine. Its tail twitched occasionally and the animal appeared to be sleeping. At the sound of distant voices it raised its head to listen, then stood up and leapt lightly over the boulders in the stream, disappearing among the trees on the opposite bank.
A minute or two later, three children came walking down the forest path. They were a girl and two boys, and they were singing in their local dialect an old song they had learnt from their grandparents.
Five more miles to go!
We climb through rain and snow.
A river to cross…
A mountain to pass…
Now we’ve four more miles to go!
Their school satchels looked new, their clothes had been washed and pressed. Their loud and cheerful singing startled a Spotted Forktail. The bird left its favourite rock in the stream and flew down the dark ravine.
‘Well, we have only three more miles to go,’ said the bigger boy, Prakash, who had been this way hundreds of times. ‘But first we have to cross the stream.’
He was a sturdy twelve-year-old with eyes like raspberries and a mop of bushy hair that refused to settle down on his head. The girl and her small brother were taking this path for the first time.
‘I’m feeling tired, Bina,’ said the little boy.
Bina smiled at him, and Prakash said, ‘Don’t worry, Sonu, you’ll get used to the walk. There’s plenty of time.’ He glanced at the old watch he’d been given by his grandfather. It needed constant winding. ‘We can rest here for five or six minutes.’
They sat down on a smooth boulder and watched the clear water of the shallow stream tumbling downhill. Bina examined the old watch on Prakash’s wrist. The glass was badly scratched and she could barely make out the figures on the dial. ‘Are you sure it still gives the right time?’ she asked.
‘Well, it loses five minutes every day, so I put it ten minutes forward at night. That means by morning it’s quite accurate! Even our teacher, Mr Mani, asks me for the time.
If he doesn’t ask, I tell him! The clock in our classroom keeps stopping.’
They removed their shoes and let the cold mountain water run over their feet. Bina was the same age as Prakash. She had pink cheeks, soft brown eyes, and hair that was just beginning to lose its natural curls. Hers was a gentle face, but a determined little chin showed that she could be a strong person. Sonu, her younger brother, was ten. He was a thin boy who had been sickly as a child but was now beginning to fill out. Although he did not look very athletic, he could run like the wind.
Bina had been going to school in her own village of Koli, on the other side of the mountain. But it had been a Primary School, finishing at Class Five. Now, in order to study in the Sixth, she would have to walk several miles every day to Nauti, where there was a High School going up to the Eighth. It had been decided that Sonu would also shift to the new school, to give Bina company. Prakash, their neighbour in Koli, was already a pupil at the Nauti school. His mischievous nature, which sometimes got him into trouble, had resulted in his having to repeat a year.
But this didn’t seem to bother him. ‘What’s the hurry?’ he had told his indignant parents. ‘You’re not sending me to a foreign land when I finish school. And our cows aren’t running away, are they?’
‘You would prefer to look after the cows, wouldn’t you?’ asked Bina, as they got up to continue their walk.
‘Oh, school’s all right. Wait till you see old Mr Mani. He always gets our names mixed up, as well as the subjects he’s supposed to be teaching. At out last lesson, instead of maths, he gave us a geography lesson!’
‘More fun than maths,’ said Bina.
‘Yes, but there’s a new teacher this year. She’s very young, they say, just out of college. I wonder what she’ll be like.’
Bina walked faster and Sonu had some trouble keeping up with them. She was excited about the new school and the prospect of different surroundings. She had seldom been outside her own village, with its small school and single ration shop. The day’s routine never varied – helping her mother in the fields or with household tasks like fetching water from the spring or cutting grass and fodder for the cattle. Her father, who was a soldier, was away for nine months in the year and Sonu was still too small for the heavier tasks.
As they neared Nauti village, they were joined by other children coming from different directions. Even where there were no major roads, the mountains were full of little lanes and short cuts. Like a game of snakes and ladders, these narrow paths zigzagged around the hills and villages, cutting through fields and crossing narrow ravines until they came together to form a fairly busy road along which mules, cattle and goats joined the throng.
Nauti was a fairly large village, and from here a broader but dustier road started for
Tehri. There was a small bus, several trucks and (for part of the way) a road-roller. The road hadn’t been completed because the heavy diesel roller couldn’t take the steep climb to Nauti. It stood on the roadside half way up the road from Tehri.
Prakash knew almost everyone in the area, and exchanged greetings and gossip with other children as well as with muleteers, bus-drivers, milkmen and labourers working on the road. He loved telling everyone the time, even if they weren’t interested.
‘It’s nine o’clock,’ he would announce, glancing at his wrist. ‘Isn’t your bus leaving today?’
‘Off with you!’ the bus-driver would respond, ‘I’ll leave when I’m ready.’
As the children approached Nauti, the small flat school buildings came into view on the outskirts of the village, fringed with a line of long-leaved pines. A small crowd had assembled on the playing field. Something unusual seemed to have happened. Prakash ran forward to see what it was all about. Bina and Sonu stood aside, waiting in a patch of sunlight near the boundary wall.
Prakash soon came running back to them. He was bubbling over with excitement. ‘It’s Mr Mani!’ he gasped. ‘He’s disappeared! People are saying a leopard must
have carried him off!’
2
Mr Mani wasn’t really old. He was about fifty-five and was expected to retire soon. But for the children, adults over forty seemed ancient! And Mr Mani had always been a bit absent-minded, even as a young man.
He had gone out for his early morning walk, saying he’d be back by eight o’clock, in time to have his breakfast and be ready for class. He wasn’t married, but his sister and her husband stayed with him. When it was past nine o’clock his sister presumed he’d stopped at a neighbour’s house for breakfast (he loved tucking into other people’s breakfast) and that he had gone on to school from there. But when the school bell rang at ten o’clock, and everyone but Mr Mani was present, questions were asked and guesses were made.
No one had seen him return from his walk and enquiries made in the village showed that he had not stopped at anyone’s house. For Mr Mani to disappear was puzzling; for him to disappear without his breakfast was extraordinary.
Then a milkman returning from the next village said he had seen a leopard sitting on a rock on the outskirts of the pine forest. There had been talk of a cattle-killer in the valley, of leopards and other animals being displaced by the construction of a dam. But as yet no one had heard of a leopard attacking a man. Could Mr Mani have been its first victim? Someone found a strip of red cloth entangled in a blackberry bush and went running through the village showing it to everyone. Mr Mani had been known to wear red pyjamas. Surely, he had been seized and eaten! But where were his remains? And
why had he been in his pyjamas?
Meanwhile, Bina and Sonu and the rest of the children had followed their teachers into the school playground. Feeling a little lost, Bina looked around for Prakash. She found herself facing a dark slender young woman wearing spectacles, who must have been in her early twenties – just a little too old to be another student. She had a kind expressive face and she seemed a little concerned by all that had been happening.
Bina noticed that she had lovely hands; it was obvious that the new teacher hadn’t milked cows or worked in the fields!
‘You must be new here,’ said the teacher, smiling at Bina. ‘And is this your little brother?’
‘Yes, we’ve come from Koli village. We were at school there.’
‘It’s a long walk from Koli. You didn’t see any leopards, did you? Well, I’m new too. Are you in the Sixth class?’
‘Sonu is in the Third. I’m in the Sixth.’
‘Then I’m your new teacher. My name is Tania Ramola. Come along, let’s see if we can settle down in our classroom.’
Mr Mani turned up at twelve o’clock, wondering what all the fuss was about. No, he snapped, he had not been attacked by a leopard; and yes, he had lost his pyjamas and would someone kindly return them to him?
‘How did you lose your pyjamas, Sir?’ asked Prakash.
‘They were blown off the washing line!’ snapped Mr Mani.
After much questioning, Mr Mani admitted that he had gone further than he had intended, and that he had lost his way coming back. He had been a bit upset because the new teacher, a slip of a girl, had been given charge of the Sixth, while he was still with the Fifth, along with that troublesome boy Prakash, who kept on reminding him of the time! The headmaster had explained that as Mr Mani was due to retire at the end of the year, the school did not wish to burden him with a senior class. But Mr Mani looked upon the whole thing as a plot to get rid of him. He glowered at Miss Ramola whenever he passed her. And when she smiled back at him, he looked the other way!
Mr Mani had been getting even more absent-minded of late – putting on his shoes without his socks, wearing his homespun waistcoat inside out, mixing up people’s names, and of course, eating other people’s lunches and dinners. His sister had made a special mutton broth (pai) for the postmaster, who was down with ‘flu’ and had asked Mr Mani to take it over in a thermos. When the postmaster opened the thermos, he found only a few drops of broth at the bottom – Mr Mani had drunk the rest somewhere along the way.
When sometimes Mr Mani spoke of his coming retirement, it was to describe his plans for the small field he owned just behind the house. Right now, it was full of potatoes, which did not require much looking after; but he had plans for growing
dahlias, roses, French beans, and other fruits and flowers.
The next time he visited Tehri, he promised himself, he would buy some dahlia bulbs and rose cuttings. The monsoon season would be a good time to put them down. And meanwhile, his potatoes were still flourishing.
3
Bina enjoyed her first day at the new school. She felt at ease with Miss Ramola, as did most of the boys and girls in her class. Tania Ramola had been to distant towns such as Delhi and Lucknow – places they had only read about – and it was said that she had a brother who was a pilot and flew planes all over the world. Perhaps he’d fly over Nauti some day!
Most of the children had, of course, seen planes flying overhead, but none of them had seen a ship, and only a few had been in a train. Tehri mountain was far from the railway and hundreds of miles from the sea. But they all knew about the big dam that was being built at Tehri, just forty miles away.
Bina, Sonu and Prakash had company for part of the way home, but gradually the other children went off in different directions. Once they had crossed the stream, they were on their own again.
It was a steep climb all the way back to their village. Prakash had a supply of peanuts which he shared with Bina and Sonu, and at a small spring they quenched their thirst.
When they were less than a mile from home, they met a postman who had finished his round of the villages in the area and was now returning to Nauti.
‘Don’t waste time along the way,’ he told them. ‘Try to get home before dark.’ ‘What’s the hurry?’ asked Prakash, glancing at his watch. ‘It’s only five o’clock.’ ‘There’s a leopard around. I saw it this morning, not far from the stream. No one is
sure how it got here. So don’t take any chances. Get home early.’ ‘So there really is a leopard,’ said Sonu.
They took his advice and walked faster, and Sonu forgot to complain about his aching feet.
They were home well before sunset.
There was a smell of cooking in the air and they were hungry.
‘Cabbage and roti,’ said Prakash gloomily. ‘But I could eat anything today.’ He stopped outside his small slate-roofed house, and Bina and Sonu waved him goodbye, then carried on across a couple of ploughed fields until they reached their small stone house.
‘Stuffed tomatoes,’ said Sonu, sniffing just outside the front door.
‘And lemon pickle,’ said Bina, who had helped cut, sun and salt the lemons a month previously.
Their mother was lighting the kitchen stove. They greeted her with great hugs and demands for an immediate dinner. She was a good cook who could make even the simplest of dishes taste delicious. Her favourite saying was, ‘Home-made pai is better than chicken soup in Delhi,’ and Bina and Sonu had to agree.
Electricity had yet to reach their village, and they took their meal by the light of a kerosene lamp. After the meal, Sonu settled down to do a little homework, while Bina stepped outside to look at the stars.
Across the fields, someone was playing a flute. ‘It must be Prakash,’ thought Bina. ‘He always breaks off on the high notes.’ But the flute music was simple and appealing, and she began singing softly to herself in the dark.
4
Mr Mani was having trouble with the porcupines. They had been getting into his garden at night and digging up and eating his potatoes. From his bedroom window – left open, now that the mild-April weather had arrived – he could listen to them enjoying the vegetables he had worked hard to grow. Scrunch, scrunch! Katar, katar, as their sharp teeth sliced through the largest and juiciest of potatoes. For Mr Mani it was as though they were biting through his own flesh. And the sound of them digging industriously as they rooted up those healthy, leafy plants, made him tremble with rage and indignation. The unfairness of it all!
Yes, Mr Mani hated porcupines. He prayed for their destruction, their removal from the face of the earth. But, as his friends were quick to point out, ‘Bhagwan protected porcupines too,’ and in any case you could never see the creatures or catch them, they were completely nocturnal.
Mr Mani got out of bed every night, torch in one hand, a stout stick in the other, but as soon as he stepped into the garden the crunching and digging stopped and he was greeted by the most infuriating of silences. He would grope around in the dark, swinging wildly with the stick, but not a single porcupine was to be seen or heard. As soon as he was back in bed – the sounds would start all over again. Scrunch, scrunch, katar, katar…
Mr Mani came to his class tired and dishevelled, with rings beneath his eyes and a permanent frown on his face. It took some time for his pupils to discover the reason for his misery, but when they did, they felt sorry for their teacher and took to discussing ways and means of saving his potatoes from the porcupines.
It was Prakash who came up with the idea of a moat or waterditch. ‘Porcupines don’t like water,’ he said knowledgeably.
‘How do you know?’ asked one of his friends.
‘Throw water on one and see how it runs! They don’t like getting their quills wet.’ There was no one who could disprove Prakash’s theory, and the class fell in with
the idea of building a moat, especially as it meant getting most of the day off. ‘Anything to make Mr Mani happy,’ said the headmaster, and the rest of the school
watched with envy as the pupils of Class Five, armed with spades and shovels collected from all parts of the village, took up their positions around Mr Mani’s potato field and began digging a ditch.
By evening the moat was ready, but it was still dry and the porcupines got in again that night and had a great feast.
‘At this rate,’ said Mr Mani gloomily ‘there won’t be any potatoes left to save.’
But next day Prakash and the other boys and girls managed to divert the water from a stream that flowed past the village. They had the satisfaction of watching it flow gently into the ditch. Everyone went home in a good mood. By nightfall, the ditch had overflowed, the potato field was flooded, and Mr Mani found himself trapped inside his house. But Prakash and his friends had won the day. The porcupines stayed away that night!
A month had passed, and wild violets, daisies and buttercups now sprinkled the hill slopes, and on her way to school Bina gathered enough to make a little posy. The bunch of flowers fitted easily into an old ink-well. Miss Ramola was delighted to find this little display in the middle of her desk.
‘Who put these here?’ she asked in surprise.
Bina kept quiet, and the rest of the class smiled secretively. After that, they took turns bringing flowers for the classroom.
On her long walks to school and home again, Bina became aware that April was the month of new leaves. The oak leaves were bright green above and silver beneath, and when they rippled in the breeze they were like clouds of silvery green. The path was strewn with old leaves, dry and crackly. Sonu loved kicking them around.
Clouds of white butterflies floated across the stream. Sonu was chasing a butterfly when he stumbled over something dark and repulsive. He went sprawling on the grass. When he got to his feet, he looked down at the remains of a small animal.
‘Bina! Prakash! Come quickly!’ he shouted.
It was part of a sheep, killed some days earlier by a much larger animal.
‘Only a leopard could have done this,’ said Prakash.
‘Let’s get away, then,’ said Sonu. ‘It might still be around!’
‘No, there’s nothing left to eat. The leopard will be hunting elsewhere by now. Perhaps it’s moved on to the next valley.’
‘Still, I’m frightened,’ said Sonu. ‘There may be more leopards!’ Bina took him by the hand. ‘Leopards don’t attack humans!’ she said. ‘They will, if they get a taste for people!’ insisted Prakash.
‘Well, this one hasn’t attacked any people as yet,’ said Bina, although she couldn’t be sure. Hadn’t there been rumours of a leopard attacking some workers near the dam?
But she did not want Sonu to feel afraid, so she did not mention the story. All she said was, ‘It has probably come here because of all the activity near the dam.’
All the same, they hurried home. And for a few days, whenever they reached the stream, they crossed over very quickly, unwilling to linger too long at that lovely spot.
5
A few days later, a school party was on its way to Tehri to see the new dam that was being built.
Miss Ramola had arranged to take her class, and Mr Mani, not wishing to be left out, insisted on taking his class as well. That meant there were about fifty boys and girls taking part in the outing. The little bus could only take thirty. A friendly truck-driver agreed to take some children if they were prepared to sit on sacks of potatoes. And Prakash persuaded the owner of the diesel-roller to turn it round and head it back to Tehri – with him and a couple of friends up on the driving seat.
Prakash’s small group set off at sunrise, as they had to walk some distance in order to reach the stranded road-roller. The bus left at 9 a.m. with Miss Ramola and her class, and Mr Mani and some of his pupils. The truck was to follow later.
It was Bina’s first visit to a large town and her first bus ride.
The sharp curves along the winding, downhill road made several children feel sick. The bus-driver seemed to be in a tearing hurry. He took them along at rolling, rollicking speed, which made Bina feel quite giddy. She rested her head on her arms and refused to look out of the window. Hairpin bends and cliff edges, pine forests and snowcapped peaks, all swept past her, but she felt too ill to want to look at anything. It was just as well – those sudden drops, hundreds of feet to the valley below, were quite frightening. Bina began to wish that she hadn’t come – or that she had joined Prakash on the road-roller instead!
Miss Ramola and Mr Mani didn’t seem to notice the lurching and groaning of the old bus. They had made this journey many times. They were busy arguing about the advantages and disadvantages of large dams – an argument that was to continue on and off for much of the day; sometimes in Hindi, sometimes in English, sometimes in the local dialect!
Meanwhile, Prakash and his friends had reached the roller. The driver hadn’t turned up, but they managed to reverse it and get it going in the direction of Tehri. They were soon overtaken by both the bus and the truck but kept moving along at a steady chug. Prakash spotted Bina at the window of the bus and waved cheerfully. She responded feebly.
Bina felt better when the road levelled out near Tehri. As they crossed an old bridge over the wide river, they were startled by a loud bang which made the bus shudder. A cloud of dust rose above the town.
‘They’re blasting the mountain,’ said Miss Ramola.
‘End of a mountain,’ said Mr Mani mournfully.
While they were drinking cups of tea at the bus stop, waiting for the potato truck and the road-roller, Miss Ramola and Mr Mani continued their argument about the dam. Miss Ramola maintained that it would bring electric power and water for irrigation to large areas of the country, including the surrounding area. Mr Mani declared that it was a menace, as it was situated in an earthquake zone. There would be a terrible disaster if the dam burst! Bina found it all very confusing. And what about the animals in the area, she wondered, what would happen to them?
The argument was becoming quite heated when the potato truck arrived. There was no sign of the road-roller, so it was decided that Mr Mani should wait for Prakash and his friends while Miss Ramola’s group went ahead.
Some eight or nine miles before Tehri the road-roller had broken down, and Prakash and his friends were forced to walk. They had not gone far, however, when a mule train came along – five or six mules that had been delivering sacks of grain in Nauti. A boy rode on the first mule, but the others had no loads.
‘Can you give us a ride to Tehri?’ called Prakash.
‘Make yourselves comfortable,’ said the boy.
There were no saddles, only gunny sacks strapped on to the mules with rope. They had a rough but jolly ride down to the Tehri bus stop. None of them had ever ridden mules; but they had saved at least an hour on the road.
Looking around the bus stop for the rest of the party, they could find no one from their school. And Mr Mani, who should have been waiting for them, had vanished.
6
Tania Ramola and her group had taken the steep road to the hill above Tehri. Half-an-hour’s climbing brought them to a little plateau which overlooked the town, the river and the dam-site.
The earthworks for the dam were only just coming up, but a wide tunnel had been bored through the mountain to divert the river into another channel. Down below, the old town was still spread out across the valley and from a distance it looked quite charming and picturesque.
‘Will the whole town be swallowed up by the waters of the dam?’ asked Bina. ‘Yes, all of it,’ said Miss Ramola. ‘The clock tower and the old palace. The long
bazaar, and the temples, the schools and the jail, and hundreds of houses, for many miles up the valley. All those people will have to go – thousands of them! Of course, they’ll be resettled elsewhere.’
‘But the town’s been here for hundreds of years,’ said Bina. ‘They were quite happy without the dam, weren’t they?’
‘I suppose they were. But the dam isn’t just for them – it’s for the millions who live further downstream, across the plains.’
‘And it doesn’t matter what happens to this place?’
‘The local people will be given new homes, somewhere else.’ Miss Ramola found herself on the defensive and decided to change the subject. ‘Everyone must be hungry. It’s time we had our lunch.’
Bina kept quiet. She didn’t think the local people would want to go away. And it was a good thing, she mused, that there was only a small stream and not a big river running past her village. To be uprooted like this – a town and hundreds of villages – and put down somewhere on the hot, dusty plains – seemed to her unbearable.
‘Well, I’m glad I don’t live in Tehri,’ she said.
She did not know it, but all the animals and most of the birds had already left the area. The leopard had been among them.
They walked through the colourful, crowded bazaar, where fruit-sellers did business beside silversmiths, and pavement vendors sold everything from umbrellas to glass bangles. Sparrows attacked sacks of grain, monkeys made off with bananas, and stray cows and dogs rummaged in refuse bins, but nobody took any notice. Music blared from radios. Buses blew their horns. Sonu bought a whistle to add to the general din, but Miss Ramola told him to put it away. Bina had kept ten rupees aside, and now she used it to buy a cotton head-scarf for her mother.
As they were about to enter a small restaurant for a meal, they were joined by Prakash and his companions; but of Mr Mani there was still no sign.
‘He must have met one of his relatives,’ said Prakash. ‘He has relatives everywhere.’
After a simple meal of rice and lentils, they walked the length of the bazaar without seeing Mr Mani. At last, when they were about to give up the search, they saw him emerge from a by-lane, a large sack slung over his shoulder.
‘Sir, where have you been?’ asked Prakash. ‘We have been looking for you everywhere.’
On Mr Mani’s face was a look of triumph. ‘Help me with this bag,’ he said breathlessly. ‘You’ve bought more potatoes, sir,’ said Prakash. ‘Not potatoes, boy. Dahlia bulbs!’
7
It was dark by the time they were all back in Nauti. Mr Mani had refused to be separated from his sack of dahlia bulbs, and had been forced to sit in the back of the truck with Prakash and most of the boys.
Bina did not feel so ill on the return journey. Going uphill was definitely better than going downhill! But by the time the bus reached Nauti it was too late for most of the children to walk back to the more distant villages. The boys were put up in different homes, while the girls were given beds in the school verandah.
The night was warm and still. Large moths fluttered around the single bulb that lit the verandah. Counting moths, Sonu soon fell asleep. But Bina stayed awake for some time, listening to the sounds of the night. A nightjar went tonk-tonk in the bushes, and somewhere in the forest an owl hooted softly. The sharp call of a barking-deer travelled up the valley, from the direction of the stream. Jackals kept howling. It seemed that there were more of them than ever before.
Bina was not the only one to hear the barking-deer. The leopard, stretched full length on a rocky ledge, heard it too. The leopard raised its head and then got up slowly. The deer was its natural prey. But there weren’t many left, and that was why the leopard, robbed of its forest by the dam, had taken to attacking dogs and cattle near the villages.
As the cry of the barking-deer sounded nearer, the leopard left its look-out point and moved swiftly through the shadows towards the stream.
8
In early June the hills were dry and dusty, and forest fires broke out, destroying shrubs and trees, killing birds and small animals. The resin in the pines made these trees burn more fiercely, and the wind would take sparks from the trees and carry them into the dry grass and leaves, so that new fires would spring up before the old ones had died out. Fortunately, Bina’s village was not in the pine belt; the fires did not reach it. But Nauti was surrounded by a fire that raged for three days, and the children had to stay away from school.
And then, towards the end of June, the monsoon rains arrived and there was an end to forest fires. The monsoon lasts three months and the lower Himalayas would be drenched in rain, mist and cloud for the next three months.
The first rain arrived while Bina, Prakash and Sonu were returning home from school. Those first few drops on the dusty path made them cry out with excitement. Then the rain grew heavier and a wonderful aroma rose from the earth.
‘The best smell in the world!’ exclaimed Bina.
Everything suddenly came to life. The grass, the crops, the trees, the birds. Even the leaves of the trees glistened and looked new.
That first wet weekend, Bina and Sonu helped their mother plant beans, maize and cucumbers. Sometimes, when the rain was very heavy, they had to run indoors. Otherwise they worked in the rain, the soft mud clinging to their bare legs.
Prakash now owned a black dog with one ear up and one ear down. The dog ran around getting in everyone’s way, barking at cows, goats, hens and humans, without
frightening any of them. Prakash said it was a very clever dog, but no one else seemed to think so. Prakash also said it would protect the village from the leopard, but others said the dog would be the first to be taken – he’d run straight into the jaws of Mr Spots!
In Nauti, Tania Ramola was trying to find a dry spot in the quarters she’d been given. It was an old building and the roof was leaking in several places. Mugs and buckets were scattered about the floor in order to catch the drip.
Mr Mani had dug up all his potatoes and presented them to the friends and neighbours who had given him lunches and dinners. He was having the time of his life, planting dahlia bulbs all over his garden.
‘I’ll have a field of many-coloured dahlias!’ he announced. ‘Just wait till the end of August!’
‘Watch out for those porcupines,’ warned his sister. ‘They eat dahlia bulbs too!’
Mr Mani made an inspection tour of his moat, no longer in flood, and found everything in good order. Prakash had done his job well.
Now, when the children crossed the stream, they found that the water-level had risen by about a foot. Small cascades had turned into waterfalls. Ferns had sprung up on the banks. Frogs chanted.
Prakash and his dog dashed across the stream. Bina and Sonu followed more cautiously. The current was much stronger now and the water was almost up to their knees. Once they had crossed the stream, they hurried along the path, anxious not to be caught in a sudden downpour.
By the time they reached school, each of them had two or three leeches clinging to their legs. They had to use salt to remove them. The leeches were the most troublesome part of the rainy season. Even the leopard did not like them. It could not lie in the long grass without getting leeches on its paws and face.
One day, when Bina, Prakash and Sonu were about to cross the stream they heard a low rumble, which grew louder every second. Looking up at the opposite hill, they saw several trees shudder, tilt outwards and begin to fall. Earth and rocks bulged out from the mountain, then came crashing down into the ravine.
‘Landslide!’ shouted Sonu.
‘It’s carried away the path,’ said Bina. ‘Don’t go any further.’
There was a tremendous roar as more rocks, trees and bushes fell away and crashed down the hillside.
Prakash’s dog, who had gone ahead, came running back, tail between his legs.
They remained rooted to the spot until the rocks had stopped falling and the dust had settled. Birds circled the area, calling wildly. A frightened barking-deer ran past them.
‘We can’t go to school now,’ said Prakash. ‘There’s no way around.’ They turned and trudged home through the gathering mist.
In Koli, Prakash’s parents had heard the roar of the landslide. They were setting out in search of the children when they saw them emerge from the mist, waving cheerfully.
9
They had to miss school for another three days, and Bina was afraid they might not be able to take their final exams. Although Prakash was not really troubled at the thought of missing exams, he did not like feeling helpless just because their path had been swept away. So he explored the hillside until he found a goat-track going around the mountain. It joined up with another path near Nauti. This made their walk longer by a mile, but Bina did not mind. It was much cooler now that the rains were in full swing.
The only trouble with the new route was that it passed close to the leopard’s lair.
The animal had made this area its own since being forced to leave the dam area.
One day Prakash’s dog ran ahead of them, barking furiously. Then he ran back, whimpering.
‘He’s always running away from something,’ observed Sonu. But a minute later he understood the reason for the dog’s fear.
They rounded a bend and Sonu saw the leopard standing in their way. They were struck dumb – too terrified to run. It was a strong, sinewy creature. A low growl rose from its throat. It seemed ready to spring.
They stood perfectly still, afraid to move or say a word. And the leopard must have been equally surprised. It stared at them for a few seconds, then bounded across the path and into the oak forest.
Sonu was shaking. Bina could hear her heart hammering. Prakash could only stammer: ‘Did you see the way he sprang? Wasn’t he beautiful?’
He forgot to look at his watch for the rest of the day.
A few days later Sonu stopped and pointed to a large outcrop of rock on the next hill.
The leopard stood far above them, outlined against the sky. It looked strong, majestic. Standing beside it were two young cubs.
‘Look at those little ones!’ exclaimed Sonu.
‘So it’s a female, not a male,’ said Prakash.
‘That’s why she was killing so often,’ said Bina. ‘She had to feed her cubs too.’ They remained still for several minutes, gazing up at the leopard and her cubs. The
leopard family took no notice of them.
‘She knows we are here,’ said Prakash, ‘but she doesn’t care. She knows we won’t harm them.’
‘We are cubs too!’ said Sonu.
‘Yes,’ said Bina. ‘And there’s still plenty of space for all of us. Even when the dam is ready there will still be room for leopards and humans.’
10
The school exams were over. The rains were nearly over too. The landslide had been cleared, and Bina, Prakash and Sonu were once again crossing the stream.
There was a chill in the air, for it was the end of September.
Prakash had learnt to play the flute quite well, and he played on the way to school and then again on the way home. As a result he did not look at his watch so often.
One morning they found a small crowd in front of Mr Mani’s house.
‘What could have happened?’ wondered Bina. ‘I hope he hasn’t got lost again.’ ‘Maybe he’s sick,’ said Sonu.
‘Maybe it’s the porcupines,’ said Prakash.
But it was none of these things.
Mr Mani’s first dahlia was in bloom, and half the village had turned out to look at it! It was a huge red double dahlia, so heavy that it had to be supported with sticks. No one had ever seen such a magnificent flower!
Mr Mani was a happy man. And his mood only improved over the coming week, as more and more dahlias flowered – crimson, yellow, purple, mauve, white – button dahlias, pompom dahlias, spotted dahlias, striped dahlias… Mr Mani had them all! A dahlia even turned up on Tania Romola’s desk – he got on quite well with her now – and another brightened up the headmaster’s study.
A week later, on their way home – it was almost the last day of the school term – Bina, Prakash and Sonu talked about what they might do when they grew up.
‘I think I’ll become a teacher,’ said Bina. ‘I’ll teach children about animals and birds, and trees and flowers.’
‘Better than maths!’ said Prakash.
‘I’ll be a pilot,’ said Sonu. ‘I want to fly a plane like Miss Ramola’s brother.’ ‘And what about you, Prakash?’ asked Bina.
Prakash just smiled and said, ‘Maybe I’ll be a flute-player,’ and he put the flute to he lips and played a sweet melody.
‘Well, the world needs flute-players too,’ said Bina, as they fell into step beside him.
The leopard had been stalking a barking-deer. She paused when she heard the flute and the voices of the children. Her own young ones were growing quickly, but the girl and the two boys did not look much older.
They had started singing their favourite song again.
Five more miles to go!
We climb through rain and snow,
A river to cross…
A mountain to pass…
Now we’ve four more miles to go!
The leopard waited until they had passed, before returning to the trail of the barking-deer.