Adventure

(First term unit test essay '09 :P)


How peaceful it is under the neem branches, I thought, as I sat for a while outside my tent before going to sleep. It was a week now since I had read a newspaper or listened to the radio. The previous few days had been very quiet and uninteresting due to the fact that I had gone for camping, alone.


Although many of my friends were supposed to come, all of them made some excuse or the other and had backed out. Nevertheless, I was determined to go even though I would be all alone and nobody would be there in case there was a problem.


The main reason for this determination was the thought of freedom; freedom from household chores, freedom from food cooked by our maid. My mother, usually, would make the food but as she had gone to Mumbai to attend a wedding, we (my father, brother and me) had to eat food which would… taste pretty bad (no offence intended). Luckily, we had bought a huge carton of biscuits and loads of snacks (like those which are made by the ‘Haldirams’ brand) and survived mainly on that.


I had brought along those biscuits to this weird place known as Krumbigalapattu which lies on the outskirts of Bangalore. It is a huge area covered mostly by forests. But surprisingly, there were hardly any animals. The only animal I had encountered in the past few days was a rat, which fled as soon as I saw it.


I had expected this camp to be a lot of fun, but it turned out to be very boring. The only good part was probably the huge, elegant neem tree under which I was sitting. There was some kind of odd feeling I used to experience whenever I came near it. I was sure there had to be some reason for it. Thinking about this, I slowly went into my tent and almost immediately fell asleep.


I heard a few odd crackling noises at almost sunrise. As I opened my eyes I could see the rays of sunlight casting the shadow of the trees over me. The, I realized that I was not in my tent.


Hurriedly, I looked around, but I could not see the tent. I clearly remembered going into the tent and falling asleep. But where was my tent now?? Even the packet of biscuits (my one and only source of food) was missing. Getting up slowly, I strolled a bit and looked for the tent.


The more I looked for the tent, the more worried and scared I felt.


Then, I heard the crackling noise again. I couldn’t quite make out where exactly the noise came from. As the clouds in the sky moved away from the rising sun, a huge figure appeared on the ground in front of me.


Seeing the horrible sight, I almost shrieked. It was a humungous creature with a long tail. There was a rectangular (somewhat trapezium-like) figure beside it. I could not figure out what it was. Looking up in the sky saying my prayers…I saw something which made me start laughing.


There on the branches of the neem tree was a monkey with a huge yellow coloured object beside it, holding in his hand a packet of biscuits.

P.S. - don’t ask why biscuits again ;) .