Inside Man
The red Jeep came off the fast lane towards the man standing by the road before it screeched to a halt. We looked at each other, and loaded the equipment into the car, before we dashed into the fast lane.
Recently, I planned and set into motion a series of events to execute the perfect robbery. Three of us, partners in crime, boarded at various points. Time was set and the paraphernalia was ready. There was an air of tension in the car, though everything was meticulously forethought and being executed like clockwork.
Much akin to the opening credits of ‘Inside Man’ where Clive Owen introduces who, where, what, why and how; you know the ‘who’. ‘Where’ is again the obvious. What, why and how, you will get to know as you flick through.
The streaks of light from the boulevard alternated with the shadows like clickety clacks. The tyres of the car paced in forward direction, with a rocking motion on the uneven road. In the background ‘𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑦𝑦𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑦𝑦𝑎…’ was playing in perfect unison.
The clouds sauntered over the heads of unsuspecting bywalkers - ignorant and unrealizing of my undercurrent plan. But, at that minute, I was oblivious to who’s gonna be the villain.
‘Everything is in place. It’s happening right now. You need to reach fast,’ a voice said sternly, on the other side of the phone.
The adrenaline was pumping. The excitement was too much to contain. Every robbery we attempted till then was a big success. I knew that this was going to be a success.
‘𝐾𝑎𝑏ℎ𝑖 𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑙 𝑑𝑎𝑎𝑙 𝑘𝑎𝑏ℎ𝑖 𝑝𝑎𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑎𝑎𝑡.. 𝑚𝑎𝑖𝑛 ℎ𝑎𝑤𝑎 𝑝𝑒 𝑑ℎ𝑜𝑜𝑛𝑑ℎ𝑜 𝑢𝑠𝑘𝑒 𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑎𝑛…’
As we closed onto the destination, we masked-up, alighted from the Jeep and immediately shifted the equipment to the vehicle that was waiting for us.
A tiger safari is nothing short of a bank robbery. There is a lot of planning that goes across, and then rounding up the partners, contemporaneous decisioning, and still there are unaccounted parameters that happen in real-time for which you are never prepared. If everything goes per the plan, you could pull off a great heist, which, locally, we call ‘a loot’.
Now comes the harder part. Every game drive is like a locker. Some lockers have bigger loot hidden in them and some don’t. To make things a bit more complicated, each locker is designed (by nature) to open differently, irrespective of the contents. Naturally, we aren’t aware of what lies behind a locker, unless we attempt to open it.
‘𝑃𝑎𝑎𝑛𝑣 𝑗𝑎𝑛𝑎𝑡 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑙 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑖𝑦𝑎….’
The road to the forest appeared like a stairway to a heaven. It’s honey to sour eyes. A dense mist engulfed the lush green forest while dark clouds loomed over. An occasional drizzle would send a chill down the spine but the worry was far fletched. This receding monsoon, the villain, was going to stow away the ‘loot’ for the best part of the trip.
Not a single alarm – deer or monkey call, not a single pugmark, not an animal or bird, nothing but the profuse greenery greeted us; forget the Tiger. More game drives passed, and the tiger remained as elusive as always.
The rain washed down all the drab and the dreariness of the forests, making the forest look as beautiful as ever. Incidentally, it also washed down the scent from the trees, marked by the tigers. Tigers being territorial beasts have this need to mark the territories and we were almost at the verge of opening the right locker.
The 7th game drive was a lifer when the queen of the Kolara buffer, Junabai (Juna stands for ancient and bai stands for lady) enthralled us with her grace and glamour when she stepped out, for territorial marking. A shy tigress, initially, she sauntered with such alacrity that oozed tigritude. In search of gold, we found the diamond when we positioned our vehicle at a predetermined position and when she obliged to pose for our cameras as she crossed the fireline.
When Shakespearan Hamlet was contemplating suicide, he said, “To sleep; perchance to dream: ay there’s the rub: for in that sleep of death what dreams may come?”
I realized the exact meaning of these words because I know now – there lies the rub and that’s the rub.
Oh, and who’s the 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒎𝒂𝒏, you must be wondering. It’s an unassuming Indian Grey Mongoose. How? However preposterous I might sound, the superstition is, you spot a mongoose during your way in the jungle, you spot a tiger. It happened to me many a times. And it happened yet again.
Junabai | Kolara buffer | Tadoba Andhari TR