Rains were lashing the black tar road that went winding behind the tall lush green trees. Rain drops seemed to bounce off at least a foot high. It made a rhythmic loud sound which intermingled with the whoosh of wind that I though could uproot our tent and send flying back to city! I peeped outside to get a broader view of how spectacular nature looked. The bonfire seemed to have fallen off to sleep in ash and unburnt wood. I liked the smell of it. Up in the canopy, I saw monkeys sitting on a branch. They were drenched. I turned my head to see birds perching patiently, waiting for the rains to stop. The tiny bright wild flowers made the whole scene so picturesque that I wanted to carry that moment back with me! I held hot mug of coffee in my hand and listened to rain. Even in that loud background, everything inside was so calm.. at peace. This noise didn’t bother me like the city traffic. It had the same soothing effect of sound of ocean waves.
After a while, the rains stopped and we decided to take out our jeep in go in the forest. That must be around 7.30 in the morning. In a few minutes we left the main tar road and went deep into the forest. Everything around looked so full of life and verdant! We had the buzz of bees and animal calls as an intermittent interruption to the thick silence around. Suddenly, we all were alert! We heard alarm calls of monkeys from somewhere near by. My heart was pounding.. we were in for a treat! No one spoke a word.. the only expression that everyone had was overwhelming anticipation of which great carnivore were we going to sight? Will we see a tiger? No.. but they were not so common in that forest. But who knows? We might.. or is it leopard? Oh my god! Will it be? It is so difficult to spot one..Will we see the kill? My heart beats were going louder and monkeys were almost shrieking now! We stopped at a little clearing and we were looking in the direction of alarm calls. We must be very close to the predator. Our eyes were searching for that one sight which would stay alive in our minds for ever. Minutes passed, but no luck. Alarm calls were still loud. We got a little disturbed.. we didn’t even manage to spot where the mysterious predator was. My friend sighed and took off her cap. He turned to keep it in the jeep and I suddenly felt her grip tighten on my shoulder. I almost skipped a heart beat. Now was the moment! The predator that we were searching for all this while was sitting with the kill on the branch of a tree around 35 feet behind us. It was a HUGE male leopard. It looked in our eyes and jumped off the branch to disappear in the jungle. We stood there for several minutes spellbound! Man! We saw a leopard! And that too in a situation where he looked at us so closely much longer than we did! We sat in the jeep to head back to the tent and every one was going, ‘oh my god!!’ I am sure the leopard had a smirk on his face seeing that.
