The Jungle Adventure

“Hey! Sarvesh! Wait for me!”

I was running behind him as fast as I could. Oh, why, why, why, did I get myself into this mess? We were now chased by a cackle of hyenas, in a dense forest.

It all started because of a mess Sarvesh made a month back…

FLASHBACK:

I woke up with a start. It was 7:30 in the morning. I woke up late. (Oh, no, my boss is going to get mad at me). This is my second day of my nightmares. I dragged myself as fast as I could to work. Oops! Sorry. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Niharika. I work at the most boring place you could ever think of (choose the worst place, and that’s where I work).

 Where was I? Ah, yes. I reached my office at exactly 8:13. Only three minutes late. But that doesn’t mean that I could escape my boss’ boring lecture. My boss likes to embarrass me in front of all my colleagues since the day I joined (yesterday).

 But today, someone else got into my place. It looked like a new trainee had joined the work. He was about a feet taller than me, dark, and had the looks of an athlete. His eyes were piercingly bluish, just like mine. His uniform was crumbled, his shirt wasn’t tucked in, and he looked as if he was ready to shout back at the enraged boss. (I actually thought that he was Tarzan from the forest at first glance). I was late, and wanted to escape the sight of my boss, but he spotted me when I was sneaking slowly to my desk.

“Stop right there, Niharika! You are late again, are you? You just joined work yesterday. But already you are unpunctual. And this man here is dressed inappropriately to work. You both have no manners. This is a workplace, not your house. Don’t you have any shame...?”

“Stop shouting at me like this, you ruffian! Don’t you have any courtesy? Is this how you treat your employees? If I were you, I’d be ashamed to be in the place you’re in. I was wrong in choosing this job. And by the way, you can’t just scold a lady like this. We don’t want this job anymore. We both resign right away.”

Saying so, he dragged me out of the building. I was dumbfounded. I just couldn’t believe that I lost my work because of a messy guy, who decided to turn up and ruin both our jobs. I was in such a shock, that I didn’t realise that I was outside the building in the next 8 seconds precisely. (No one counted to be truthful). But, I had no other go, as I was tired of my boss’ lecture, even though this was only my second day.

“Hey. My name is Niharika. I suppose your name is Sarvesh. It says so on your ID card. Anyways, thank you for speaking up. Even though I lost my job, I’m still grateful to you. Maybe, as I owe you, I could take you to…” “Please take a break. I can’t stand people who talk too much. Do you have a place to go to? If yes, I’d be more than happy to drop you there if you keep your mouth shut.”

 I could say that you could realise how rude he is. “Unfortunately, I live in a rental house. As I have no work, I can’t pay the rent and they won’t allow me to stay. So, I am homeless right now. Can you help me find a place to stay in for a few days, until I find a job?”

“Even though my place is not that comfortable, you can stay for the present. Anyways, I owe you as you lost your job because of my temper.” OK. Maybe, I think he’s not that bad. And I’m guessing that you’re thinking the same.

I cursed myself a hundred times, for accepting his invitation. His house was in the middle of a dense forest. “If you are going to be staying here, I suggest you learn how to run fast, hunt animals and make sure that you know how to climb a tree. It is very important. There are many wild animals around here. If you don’t want to end up eaten by them, I suggest you get trained by the professional.”   

“Great. I have to learn to climb trees? I don’t even know how to ride a bicycle! Even worse, I don’t know how to swim. How am I going to survive here?” I almost shouted. I was really annoyed at this man. The boss’ lecture was much better than having to put up with a jerk in the middle of a wild forest. “By the way, if you lived here, then how could you work in the city?” I asked him curiously, for which I got an angry answer which told me that it was none of my business.

After what seemed like hours of training, I got very hungry. “What’s for dinner?” I shouted forgetting that I wasn’t at home anymore. “It’s fruits. I couldn’t get the durian, but I got salak, duku, rambutan, mango and a few veggies like petai, palm heart, jengkol and sago palm.”

“Are they even edible?” I asked myself. But, I had no choice. I put a piece of rambutan forcibly into my mouth. Wow! I didn’t expect it to be so yummy. So were all the other things. I’m starting to enjoy this. At last, my favourite time of the day – that is bedtime – came. But this was the worst night ever. I was given a bed made out of dried straw, which looked as if it had been washed about 5-6 times. Oh, why, why, why, did I get myself into this? I didn’t sleep the whole night, as Sarvesh was snoring like a pig, and the bed wasn’t comfortable, and that I was scared of an attack from a hungry predator.

My eyes looked low and drowsy, when Sarvesh asked me to wake up. We went to a small pond nearby. There were many fishes there. He taught me how to catch one without using a fishing hook. Even though I couldn’t master it, I was at least able to catch 2 of them. Then, we made a bonfire, and as we were cooking the fishes we caught, there were small growls coming from behind the bushes.

“What was that? Are there wolves here?” “Oh, no, there are no wolves. They are hyenas. Climb the nearest tree you can find. Hyenas cannot climb trees. You will be safe. Stay at the highest branch you can sit on, until they leave. Understood?” I nodded silently. I climbed up a peepal tree. As soon as I reached the lowest branch, the hyenas ran out of the bushes, and grabbed my left foot. I tried pushing them away, but all was in vain. When I was about to lose my balance, a sudden and loud lion’s roar scared the hyenas and they let my leg go.

I fell down with a thump. I looked around cautiously, scared that the lion might attack me suddenly. Then I heard a small, terrorising roar from behind me. Terrified, I turned around to come face to face with… Sarvesh! OMG! Being in a forest, he sure does know how to roar. For the first time after meeting Sarvesh, I was happy to have his company.

We again went back to fishing, as the hyenas had eaten the fishes which we cooked. I was much better this time and was able to catch 7 fishes. I guess my friends were right when they said ‘Practice makes perfect!’ We cooked the fishes. This time nothing disturbed us. The day went peacefully. I decided to go to the city the next day to look for a job. Even though I was getting to like that place, I still needed a job. I can’t stay like this forever, can I?

The next day was a very sunny day. All was peaceful, until I departed to go to the city. I realised too late that the city was 100km away. How did I even come here from the city at the first place? Oh, yeah, we came in a van, where I slept the whole time. No wonder I feel that it is too far away only now. There were no vehicles to be seen around now. Of course, it was a forest and no one would come here unless they had a reason to. I had to walk all the way. Sarvesh, too, said that he wanted a job, and so we started the long journey together at about 10AM.

We reached about 40km when we decided to take a break as we were continuously walking and it was late evening. We stopped near a large tree which looked really beautiful as it spread its branches around the place we were sanding. I wanted to see the view that the tree would provide. So I climbed up swiftly. I guess the training came in handy after all. The tree provided a spectacular view. I didn’t want to come down at all. I starting looking in all the directions to compare which direction showed the perfect view of the dense forest, while Sarvesh, went about here and there, picking up branches and collecting fruits. I stayed there till about midnight. But time had come for us to start our journey again. “But it is almost midnight. Isn’t it dangerous to travel during the night? And, we are right now inside a jungle.”

He didn’t have a choice but to agree with me. We walked for about another km and put up our tents and started eating. There were not many fruits in that part of the forest. We could only get salak, duku and petai. We ate and stayed there for the night. It was almost dawn, when I suddenly woke up to the sound of the howling of hyenas. Trees, we need trees, to climb on. But there was not a single tree strong enough to support both our weights. We decided to use our running skills and ran as fast as the wind. The only problem was that I heard that spotted hyenas could run at a speed of 60mph. Oh, no!

Present:

Huff and puff, we were breathing heavily. We had to stop for breath. But we didn’t have the courage to stop and turn back to see if the hyenas were still chasing us. I was about to give up when I heard music somewhere close. I had heard that song before. As I was running, I tried adjusting my ears to the song to catch the lyrics. All that I was able to catch was ‘Don’t you want to see the sun come up each morning? Don’t you want to see the sun go down each day?’ I finally got it. In that shock of realising it was my favourite song. I suddenly stopped running. I completely forgot that hyenas were chasing us. I couldn’t care less as I completed the lyrics. “Don’t you want to see the girl that loves you so? Her heart would break if you should go!” Sarvesh turned back to look at me standing there and singing. I could see his eyes looking behind me and he calmed down a bit. He slowly walked towards me and said, “I should really thank you as the hyenas got scared and ran away due to your awful singing. To be truthful, that was my favourite song and I love the lyrics. You just made me feel like I can never listen to the song again. Stop looking at me like that. Anyways, it was the right song for the situation. I felt like it told me not to give up and be brave. Thanks for singing it.” He turned towards the direction from which the song was coming from as soon as said that. “Sorry for saying thanks to the wrong person. No wonder you sang that song. That caravan is playing the song. C’mon lets catch up to them. They can take us to the city. Stop! Stop! STOP please!”

At last, the caravan stopped after a lot of shouting. The hyenas seemed to have been long gone away from us. When we got to the caravan (at last), we asked for a lift to the city. It took about an hour and a half to reach the city.

I got employed at TCS while Sarvesh got a job at Ecoline Engineering. That was the right job for his personality. I was happy to be back at my dorm, at least that’s what I told others. But deep, down inside, I was craving for another wonderful adventure inside the jungle.

THE END