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The Does Must Bark

WE stepped out of the forest bungalow into stillness.

For a woodland, it was unusually quiet. The langurs had gone asleep after the whole afternoon's hoopla. The birds and squirrels had retired to nests, even insects didn't chirp here in Modhupur forest at night.

Instead, there was something else to greet us -- the moonlight. It filtered through the thick foliage, creating a mosaic of light and shadow on the grassy ground.

The shadows were too dark; the moonlight seeping through branches and leaves of Saal trees too bright. If you look closely at the bright patches on the ground, you can see the intricate designs the light passed through. Patterns you can flower into many things -- true and untrue.

We looked up. The night winds whirled in the sky, flaking that thin layer of clouds. An eerie feeling gripped us. As if we were slipping into a subterranean world of mystery and morals. We walked on, into that sphere of unknown ecstasy. We stepped softly, hoping not to make any noise lest the sleeping world stirs alive, lest we break the slumber of the kingdom of the unknown.

We did not want to be the princes of darkness.

A wind stirred. The leaves rustled. And danced their way to the ground, making an uncanny slithery noise in silhouettes. We knew we were in the core of the Modhupur forest, a land lived long by the Garos and the Koch.

That afternoon we sat in the forest bungalow and watched the nature play around. Squirrels squirrelled up and down the huge Krishnachuras, nibbling on fruits. We stood so close to them that we could almost touch them. They dangled precariously by their hind legs from rickety branches. We held our breath and witnessed the carefree animals play.

We also saw the woodpecker couple in the same afternoon. On the other side of the bungalow lawn, they have carved out their nest. The father slips into the hollow on the huge eucalyptus tree to feed his chics. The mother drills on the thick tree trunk in search of insects.

Again in the same afternoon, we also got our eyes tired of straining at the capped langurs -- the orange-hued ones. We got the long view, close view and extremely close view through binoculars and extreme zoom lens. Very lazily, they chewed on new foliage, giving us cursory glances. Their long black tails suspended in the last rays of the sun.

Earlier, while crossing the tail end of the forest towards the Garo village, we met some unexpected guests -- big rhesus monkeys. Snowy, my dog, which I often boast as the bravest one, barked at the top of his voice, shattering that afternoon stillness. The monkeys retorted, baring their nasty fangs and holding grounds.

But the night wiped them all and the subdued earth looked placid now. We flitted from one patch of moonlight to another in search of nothingness. The glasses in our hands tinkered. Suddenly, we broke the forest cover and happened upon the bridge we had visited during the day. We squinted at the vastness ahead, glaringly moonlit. The crystal moon cast long shadows. We squatted on the bridge and drank in its entirety that splendid beauty of the forest night. But then the clouds came in sequence, dimming the glare, making the mood even more esoteric. We floated from void to exuberance; from not waiting to waiting; from vagueness to clarity.

On such forest nights, heart flounders off the track. And so must the hearts of the does we saw in the morning, as Jibanananda Das once heard. The deer and does, kept in huge enclosures in the middle of the core forest, make an interesting visit. The long alfalfa grasses give a realistic wilderness edge to the enclosure. We walked to the nature park all the way from the bungalow, some six kilometres at the other end of the forest. A broken herringbone road runs in a straight line, frilled by Saal trees. Sometimes, we bump into the Garos, collecting firewood, or forest guards on rounds. A nice long walk that worked us out in the heat.

But the heat was gone by now and an autumn coolness enveloped the night. We again moved on. Fine spider webs that were not there even in the afternoon enmeshed our faces. We flitted like some haunted souls, the princes of the darkness that we wanted not to be!

On such forest nights, the does must bark!

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Story & Photo Inam Ahmed