Toward the end of winter, we lit a fire and sat around it, chatting about what lay ahead in the impending summer. What was now a dusty green landscape crisscrossed by the dry beds of ravines would soon turn into a hecatomb of thirsty trees and scalded, walking bodies. Man, dog, and cow would share the same fate. An endless struggle to last one more day under the intense tropical sun. And we felt for each of those poor souls.
Just two years prior, the great Black Death had smothered everything from here to the city and beyond. Many died, coughing and choking, as their loved ones looked on helplessly. Nothing could be done. Nothing can ever be done in the face of the Black Death. The supremely powerful Mukherjees perished alongside the beggars. Doctors lay dead beside their patients. And the undertakers rejoiced because they had looked too long in the eyes of Death to be afraid, and Death too seemed kind enough to allow the dead their last rites.
The night was particularly cold. But there was no snow. It never snows here like in the mountains, even when the temperature drops near freezing. We argued the reason for such a travesty and one of us concluded to the others’ approval that the clouds somehow came to everyone’s rescue. They covered the night sky, trapping the sun’s heat and keeping the air warm enough not to snow.
The fire crackled, spitting embers toward the sky, its heat shooting right through us and warming the jackals hiding in the brushes. A distant owl flapped its wings as the rodents scurried for shelter. Miles from where we were, a herd of elephants trudged their way through the vegetation to make ground toward the last crop of winter ripening in the farmlands. There was not a single corpse lying unburnt by the riverbank. The only stench came from some distant blooming shrub someone had mistakenly planted in the heart of the jungle.
It was still a few hours before the sun rose and bathed the forest in its golden light, casting leopard spot shadows all over the forest floor. We still had time for our little soiree. And so we chatted about what could be done once the winter was over. Because it was beyond our capabilities to usher in a cloud cover to shade the suffering souls, we thought of beginning our rain prayers right at the beginning of spring. Maybe the Holy Spirit would listen to us and call in the thunderclouds a bit early. But that would ravage the mango flowers, destroying the prospect of a good summer harvest. Such a great injustice couldn’t be done, especially by our own hands. So we thought long and hard and decided it was beyond our power and judgement to help the poor souls suffering the blistering summer.
Every living being is ushered into this purgatory to suffer the consequences of existence. A bitter-sweet life with agony and glory in equal measure – the pain remembered in poetry and the glory oft-ignored. When the young boy of the local undertaker came under the sway of the Black Death, the father fell into an unending melancholy, taking his own life eventually. We tried to share in his grief, but he wouldn’t listen. His spirit now roams the forest and howls with the jackals sometimes, unaware that the child has transcended and is now a banyan sapling.
Not all souls are as pure as the father and the son. Some are made of pure evil like the ones that lurk in the darkness hunting the deer for their skin and the elephants for their ivory. We caught one at noon wandering the forest with a rifle and a magazine, the gun’s muzzle still hot from the fresh kill. A skinned stag lay dying not far from where we trapped the man. It was a terrible sight. A noble creature had been defiled by the avarice of a man who could have chosen a different path in life.
The fire crackled louder as we lowered the poacher’s left leg into the flames to make the meat crunchy. We like our kill this way. We always have. And we always welcome the jackals into our feast. But even after centuries of co-existence, they are still hesitant. Perhaps our silhouettes resemble the ones they deplore. But we – the three of us – have never been without consideration. Caution is the basic instinct of all mortal souls, second only to sex, for when they are in heat, they will endanger their very existence to find a mate. We are beyond all that.
The sky began to change color as we entered the last phase of our feast. There was nothing much left to eat except for a few charred bones. And there was nothing much left to discuss except for which part of the forest to guard when the sun came up. It has always been this way – a relentless saga of thwarting evil humans trying to defile the forest.
