JungleStory Pt One

It was Jungle. ‘Real’ jungle at that as the locally available maps, for what they were worth, had the words ‘moist deciduous jungle’ emblazoned across the area of thickly wooded mountains where the small group was staying. This type of jungle, commonly encountered across the hills and mountains of the Western Ghats comprises for the most part, a dense entanglement of smallish trees and thorny shrubs bound together by a matrix of lianas and other woody twining creepers to produce a dense tangle of vegetation through which only small and lithe or arboreal animals may move freely. A maze of animal paths that constantly split and recombine allow the larger denizens of the forest to penetrate the otherwise difficult undergrowth. For human beings, particularly those not used to it, the only way through is to follow the dirt tracks that connect the small villages dotted about the hillsides and around the small bridges over the seasonal streams at the bottoms of the many valleys.
The ground is rough and stony and the branches of the trees festooned with the webs of huge and sinister looking wood spiders, holes in the tree trucks and in the ground at their bases hold massive tarantulas and a variety of very poisonous snakes, green vine snakes and pit vipers drape themselves over the branches and the air is thick with biting flies. A forbidding place for many a European, indeed a forbidding place for anybody except those born to it or to those who find such places exiting or beautiful even; botanists, ornithologists, herpetologists, entomologists and their ilk find these places full of fascination and are prepared to put up with the bites, stings and scratches that penetrating this domain inevitably bring.
The group comprised an eclectic assortment of individuals from several continents: Amit, the local guide with his antique binoculars held around his neck by a frayed piece of twine, Henri, a French Canadian birder and aspirant travel writer, Chu, a Malaysian photographer weighed down with professional camera gear, Prakash, Ashwin and Rajesh, high caste passionate naturalists from Mumbai dressed in the latest ‘outdoor’ gear and Jenny, a post graduate researcher from Bath visiting the Ghats looking for scorpions to ‘milk’ for their poison.
A long weekend away, with no particular agenda, the plan had formed at the last minute and the loosely connected group; known to each other principally by social networking had traveled up to the little village from the sprawl of greater Mumbai in two groups the night before. The locals had been only too glad to provide beds and food for the group in return for a few hundred Rupees and several villagers had been turned out of their homes by the village chief to provide accommodation in two adjacent earthen floored huts. If the villagers were shocked by an apparently single woman sleeping in the same room as a number of different and obviously unrelated men they made no sign of it. Arriving late the group had sat on the beaten dung floor of one of the huts by the light of a candle and smoked imported cigarettes whilst exchanging news and catching up with each other, all had met previously except for Jenny and Henri and all got on very well, assisted by their mutual love for the jungle and its inhabitants and a couple of bottles of the local red wine. The jungle rang with the calls of owls and nightjars, crickets and tree frogs as the group drifted off to sleep.
A cool clear dawn was announced by the crowing of domestic cockerels in the village and also from wild junglefowl in the surrounding woods. Outside, in the village women busied themselves with lighting fires and preparing Chai and Poha for breakfast. Soon, the few pinkish clouds had dispersed, the sun was up and the heat rapidly started to build, birdsong and then cicadas started to produce the familiar jungle soundtrack that they all knew and loved. The birders were soon picking out local specialties amongst the apparent cacophony. Babblers, Barbets, Flycatchers, Thrushes, Orioles, Sunbirds, Drongos and Bulbuls competed to make themselves heard whilst the myriad flying insects warmed up for a day of hunting for nectar or blood….

That first day was memorable for all the right reasons, the party trekked through the jungle to a small stream and then followed it to a series of interconnected waterholes, where they hunkered down to take photographs, watch for birds and reptiles or simply take in the pristine environment that seemed to vibrate with life. Jenny wandered off methodically turning the large stones that littered the forest floor, occasionally uttering a grunt of satisfaction as yet another scorpion was placed in a glass tube. By ten thirty the group decided to head back to the village to sit out the heat of the day which was already bathing them in sweat. In the comparative cool of the huts, Jenny milked her scorpions into carefully labeled tubes, the photographers and birders compared their captures or poured over field guides, smoked and drank chai, reminisced or dozed until sometime after four when a pile of hot and savory spicy fried snacks appeared to quell their appetites until the evening meal. After food and drink the group split into two: Jenny needed to release her freshly milked captures, Henri and Prakash elected to accompany her back into the woods. The rest of the group decided to hang around the village margins looking out for the birds that are so often found living commensally with man and maybe sneaking a few photos of the village people as they went about their tasks. By six the light had faded and the group reassembled to congratulate themselves on a good day. The birders had got themselves some excellent views of Ultramarine flycatcher and Bar winged flycatcher-shrike, Jenny had venom samples from six different species of scorpion including one she felt sure had not been previously recorded from this part of the ghats. A bottle of wine was opened and they settled down to await dinner, the smells of cooking making their stomachs rumble as evening darkened into night. After dinner a night time excursion was planned to a large clearing a few kilometers along a track leading out of the village and down into a particularly densely vegetated valley. Amit had got the birders in the party worked up with tales of Sri Lankan Frogmouths sometimes being heard there and a walk in the jungle at night is always an exiting prospect… And so a little after nine o’clock the group set out with Amit leading the way, everybody had head torches set to wide beam as the ground underfoot was treacherous with loose rubble and it is always a good idea to keep half an eye on where you are planting your feet… Eventually they all arrived at the bottom of the valley , where a trickle of water formed the occasional small pool and the air was thick with mosquitoes, a thousand small toads croaked loudly as they settled down to wait in the darkness for the tell tale screech of the Frogmouth or hoot of a Brown fish owl. Despite frantic puffing on cigarettes the attacks of the mosquitoes rapidly became unbearable and the discovery of a few leeches on people’s trousers precipitated the unanimous decision to decamp. The thought of some more wine in the comparative comfort of the village huts had become just too tempting and, very much earlier than their original plan the team started the trek back to the village.
The night was oppressively hot in the bottom of the valley, and the absence of any breeze coupled with the effort of climbing back up and out of the valley rapidly had them all soaked with sweat and slapping away in vain at the clouds of biting flies that surrounded them, the jungle seemed intent on hampering their progress with barbed creepers catching at their legs and arms and loose rubble underfoot causing them to slip and slide every few steps.
Jenny and Henri in particular were struggling to keep up and the Indians in the contingent seemed to be floating effortlessly up ahead, Amit in his much repaired flip flops seemed to never loose his footing, or even break sweat for that matter. Even so, they told each other that it was worth the effort and that they would soon be sitting down in the relative cool of the huts. Off to the left a blood curdling scream suddenly pierced the air, so loud it seemed to vibrate inside their heads, everybody stood rooted to the spot ‘SLF!’ shouted Amit and everybody strained to see something, anything, in the darkness that surrounded them, darkness that seemed to suck the very light from their torches. Again the scream came and the birders were making high fives and dancing little jigs of delight. After another five minutes or so, they restarted the climb, and on turning away from the source of the cry and refocusing on the steeply rising path ahead, Henri caught the impression of a light faintly shining off in the jungle where they had been straining to spot the Frogmouth. ‘Look, there!’ he whispered to Jenny. ‘What? Where?’ she replied. ‘There was something, I’m not sure, a light of some sort…’ They stood and scanned the woods suddenly they both saw it, a faint disk of light in the trees, two or three meters off the ground, maybe fifty meters away. ‘What on earth…?’ said Jenny. ‘It’s a poacher, it must be.’ Replied Henri and at this they both felt slightly nervous. A poacher, a man with a gun, looking for some game and likely to shoot at the noise made by people walking through the forest at night, or, more likely, who would shoot at what he felt may be forest guards. But hey, they had their head torches, this would surely distinguish them as both humans and visitors so no need to worry. ‘Look, look!’ hissed Jenny and she found to her surprise and consternation she was holding onto Henri’s arm, for the disk of light had darted in a most un-human manner closer to them and now they could see, there was certainly no human attached to it. It looked somehow like a gibbous moon reflected in a pool of water, it was never fully still, constantly moving, sometimes slowly and sometimes making rapid darting movements. What to do? Henri and Jenny were enraptured with this strange but doubtless easily explained phenomenon. A large luminous insect perhaps? That would be something unknown, Jenny realized. Some sort of.. what? A trick being played on them? Some kind of ritual? The pair of them stood gazing at the glowing disk when suddenly it winked out, disappearing completely. It took them both a few seconds to realize that the darkness that enveloped them was caused, not just by the absence of the strange glowing disk, but also by the absence of light from their head torches, as one, their hands went to the switches on the battery packs but nothing, not a ficker. Not only was it now pitch black but they also realized that they were alone, whilst watching the glowing disk their companions had continued their climb and were now out of sight. ‘Hey!’ Henri shouted. ‘Hey! Hey!’ he shouted again but the night seemed to simply swallow up the sound of his voice.
‘We should stay here’ He said. They’ll quickly realize we’re not with them and are sure to come back and look for us.’
‘You’re right’ said Jenny, I don’t think I could walk far in this without illumination anyway.

By the time the rest of the group got back to the village they were strung out in a long line perhaps two hundred meters long, nobody was talking, everybody silently trudging and looking forwards to sitting down, having a wash and a drink. Last in the line was Prakash who declared that he was going straight to sleep. It took a while; maybe twenty minutes before Amit realized that they were not all back. ‘Anybody see Henri and Jenny?’ he enquired. ‘In other hut’ pronounced Chu. ‘No, Prakash is sleeping in there’.
‘Hey…Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Maybe they’ve, you know…stopped off for a little, you know..’ He touched the side of his nose, an Indian gesture that suggests… possible intimacy. ‘I doubt it’ said Rajesh, they hardly know each other, they’re not a couple, I think they both have partners at home. ‘Well where else are they then?’ ‘Probably found something interesting.’ They’ll be along in a few minutes’.