tree. Now they were to turn right and move straight toward the Karala River. The place was noisy with continued chatters of birds, screeches of monkeys and bell like monotonous sound of crickets. The thickly foliaged tops of the saal trees had leaned into one another preventing sun rays to enter the place and the resultant semi-darkness had given the place an eerie ambience. The two friends said to each other that this was the ideal milieu for treasure troves. They waded ahead beating down the thick bushes fearlessly with keen eyes for the opening of the water course.
‘Oh, there’s the water course!’ Both the friends shrieked out in excitement simultaneously. So their days of misery were going to end soon. They could do many things with such vast money.
‘We may buy a car for hire,’ Fat said and looked up questioningly at Gaunt for his approval.
Gaunt laughed gently and said shrugging his shoulder, ‘You won’t get adequate passengers as very few tourists visit this place now-a-days and if hired by local people they won’t pay the tariff. Better we may set up a shop of electrical goods somewhere at Siliguri town.’
Fat said admiringly, ‘you’re right. There is high demand for these goods and profit margin too is lucrative.’
The water course had dived steeply to a flat place about the size of a small room and then sloped gently down to the river. Rains being far off the course was now completely dry.
‘Keep the candle and match box ready, the place is pitch dark,’ Gaunt said.
‘I feel fear and shaky,’ Fat said in a trembling voice.
‘What for?’
‘If the spook of Saha uncle guards the money?’
‘So what? He has given us the money of his own volition and if there be his spook he would hand the money over to us gladly for the salvation of his soul from spook life,’ Gaunt said assuredly.
They climbed down the steep mouth of the water course catching hold of the hanging creepers and dropped down to the flat spot. The place was clean and free from bushes may be because of want of sun light.
Fat lighted the candle and everything around became distinctly visible now. Now they would have to look for the crevice on the wall of the cave and it must be at a high place so that it was out of the reach of flows of water during the rains. The mouth of the opening was visible where the cave had taken a downward slope toward the river. They hurried to the spot with fluttering hearts. Then they encountered the shock. They found beneath the crevice a broken rusty trunk and the inside of the crevice was empty. This was the very trunk Saha had mentioned. Somebody must have got the map and direction from some other source and already got away with the money.
They sat down right at the spot in utter frustration. ‘We’ve missed the god-gifted opportunity for our own folly; we should have come right after Saha uncle’s death,’ Fat blubbered out.
‘But we have nothing to do now’ Gaunt said nonchalantly.
They put out the candle and remained seated in darkness in perfect silence. After an hour Gaunt nudged at Fat and said, ‘Let’s go back. We would gain nothing by bemoaning here in this darkness. Evening is not far off. We are to think anew.’
Fat aid glumly, ‘What new things we could conceive of? I won’t return, you may go back if you like.’
‘Come to senses, don’t be crazy’ Gaunt said angrily.
Suddenly, a panicked shriek in a female voice alerted them and they hurried out of the cave and ran in the direction of the scream. Turning corner they noticed a thinly-dressed modern young lady running recklessly in panic with a packet of food in her hand and a troop of monkeys chasing her. The two friends rushed ahead and chased away the monkeys to the tops of the trees by brandishing their sticks. The lady was out of breath and panted out, ‘Thank you.’
Looking closely both the friends were awfully surprised. ‘Oh my god, she looks exactly like the “brave lady” we’ve seen in a T. V. program,’ Fat whispered in the ear of Gaunt and the latter said in agreement, ‘You’re right, but how come she’s here?’
In a T. V. contest of bravery in the deep jungle of Brazil, this Bengali girl (or someone looking exactly like her) had defeated all her male and female rivals performing breath taking deeds of courage and prowess. While watching the program in the T. V. at the local club, the two friends used to horripilate. Calcutta news papers described her as the Glory of West Bengal. But how could she be here? The two friends thought. They might have made some mistake and it was not unnatural that two persons might at times look exactly alike.
To dispel his doubt, Gaunt said politely, ‘Madam, may I ask you a personal question?’
‘Oh, sure,’ the lady replied briskly.
‘You look like the T.V…’
The lady did not let him finish and said smiling, ‘Yes, you have guessed right. I’m the “bravest lady”, Mira Das, of the T. V. contest. I wanted to have an experience in jungle alone in the absence of T. V. men and the other contestants and what a danger I had run into! I can’t imagine what could have happened if you did not intervene in time. Where would you go now? My car is on the embankment and I may give you a lift if you like.’
‘No need. We’ve our bicycles at a house close to the Tista barrage and we may get that far on foot’ Gaunt said unambiguously.
‘To keep my request, please go up to the barrage in my car. Besides, I’ve some important talks with you.’
The two friends got into the car to keep the request of the lady and alighting at the barrage they got off to collect the bicycles. Returning to the barrage where the lady with the car was still waiting for them, Gaunt asked, ‘Tell us now madam what you want to say.’ The lady unraveled a charming smile and said, ‘Please put down your names and addresses in my diary.’ She handed out a small diary from her vanity bag, held an open page before the two friends and said, ‘I’ll mail checks as rewards to your address. I don’t have check book with me right now.’
‘Rewards for what?’ Gaunt asked in astonishment.
‘What else! The reward for rescuing me from a grave danger. I’ll send a check of two lakh (hundred thousand) rupees to each of you.’
‘Two lakhs, so much!’ Both said in utter astonishment and thought that the lady was simply joking with them.
The lady once again displayed a sweet smile and said, ‘It’s nothing. I have won fifty lakhs from the contest and much from subsequent ads. Better I’ll pay you five lakhs each.’
The lady advanced the pen and the diary to Gaunt, ‘please put down your names and addresses.’
‘We cannot accept the reward,’ Gaunt said forthright.
‘Why?’ the lady looked bewildered.
‘It’s a grave sin to accept reward in exchange for saving someone from danger.’ He replied gravely like a wise philosopher.
He however said to himself, ‘If we touch your money, we would instantly become coward-heroes of the T. V. contests.’
He looked at Fat seeking his opinion and the later said in assent, ‘You’re right, we can’t .’
They climbed their cycles promptly, said good bye to the befuddled lady and pedaled fast for home. On their way Fat said, ‘notwithstanding our poverty, we are far more happy, aren’t we?’
Gaunt nodded assent.
###
The Author
The author of these short stories is a Ph.D. in economics and professionally an economist but his passion for literature occasionally robs him out of the dry arena of economics to the world of love romance and adventure. From his very childhood his favorite hobbies included swimming in turbulent rivers during the rains, small game hunting, boxing, hill trekking and adventure in wild animal infested deep forests. Later on he gave up hunting and boxing considering them to be cruel sports. In course of his hill treks he came in contact with various hill tribes and he could feel the heart bits of these honest and simple people, especially the charming girls. Many of his romantic short stories are based on these hill people and the hilly charm amidst which they are born and brought up. Dr. Basu may be contacted at
[email protected].
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