By the time, the bus left the bus terminus, all the seats in it were occupied with the students and the teachers from the city occupying most of them. The people boarding the bus at the first few stops from the terminus were shocked to see the packed bus. The buses that start from the town at around noon were usually empty. But the situation in the bus on that day was different. They were disappointed to see that there were no seats available for them to sit. They stared at the children in frustration. They did not understand the need for these children from the city to visit their area. They did not believe that their area had anything to offer to them. As they walked through the aisle of the bus, they looked to the left and right, attempting to identify some space to fit themselves in. One or two of them tried to bargain space from the children. But the children did not give in as they were tired from the train journey and the subsequent walk from the train station to the bus terminus. Besides, many of them had placed their bags on their laps, and this further reduced the space they had. So, the people stood grimly in the aisle.
A few minutes into the journey, I noticed a man getting into the bus at one of the stops. He seemed to be a regular traveler along the route. He waved to the driver and conductor and started talking to them. I could not hear the conversation but was fascinated by his animated expressions and hand movements. I was sitting at the other end of the bus and could not hear his words. As I only understood Telugu sparingly, I would not have understood the conversation anyway. So, the only logical thing to do was to guess parts of their conversation. I started the guessing game when I saw him pointing his index finger in the upward direction while waving his right hand towards the back of the bus. "My niece got married last month. She stays with her in-laws close to here." Alternatively, he could have been saying "that new biriyani shop is good. I had mutton biriyani there and it was like one of those biriyanis from Hyderabad." A few moments later he waved his left hand towards his left and probably said "all this land was available for 50 rupees a cent just 10 years back. Look at the place now. You won't get a cent even if you are ready to pay 10 lakhs for a cent." Soon, I lost interest in the conversation and started focusing on the landscape rolling by.
We stayed in a dormitory at the edge of a forest. A small stream flowed in front of the dormitory. The sound of the flowing water was heard at all times. Sometimes one confused it for the rain. Every morning, a troop of monkeys swung in from the forest. The older and bigger monkeys, like their human counterparts, were precise about the route they took. When they got close to the dormitory, they stopped to stare inside attempting to discern food items from the rest of the objects inside. However, the little monkeys did not bother about the efficiency of their path. They jumped from one branch to another and almost immediately, jumped back to the earlier branch. They went about their journey in this manner and on the whole, jumped many more times than their adult counterparts. To delay their journey further, they spent many minutes swinging at each branch and playing/bullying the other little monkeys.
One day, I was sitting on the verandah, the top part of which was enclosed in a wire mesh. I was talking to my colleagues while eating a banana. I placed the banana peel on the ledge by the mesh and continued my conversation. Soon, I felt a presence besides me. I turned to my right and saw a small monkey trying to extract the banana peel through the gaps in the mesh. The monkey was looking at me nervously as he/she tried to the pry out the banana peel. Within seconds, the banana peel was between his/her fingers. The monkeys quickly stuffed it in his/her mouth and jumped away. The monkeys only looked at the humans as source of food and did not seem to enjoy their company. I saw one trying to ape a crocodile; only the top part of his/her head were seen above the ledge. When I turned around and looked, he/she ducked under the ledge. I thought the monkey was playing a game with me and humoured him/her by playing along. Soon, the monkey realised that there was no food in sight and exited the game abruptly.
It rained incessantly for two days. Everything was wet and messy on those days. I realised I only loved the rains when its wetness did not reach me. The monkeys did not like the rain either. They sat in the shaded parts of the building, looking at the rain, sadly. A big monkey sat safely below the extension of the roof. Though the space was large enough to accommodate four or five more monkeys, he did not allow any other monkey to occupy it. He growled and pounced at any other monkey approaching the shaded area. Two small monkeys decided to not try their luck with the big monkey. They huddled together in a small square gap on the wall. The gap had a grill that kept the monkeys away from the attic on the other side. They sat there looking at the rain. When the thunder rumbled menacingly above them, they hugged each other tightly and looked away. At times, they hid their faces against each other and at other times, they looked into the room. I was not sure if this was one of the sweetest or saddest sights that I had witnessed in recent times.
Meanwhile the bigger male monkey sat like a king in his safe place. He looked about him arrogantly and continued to shoo away all other monkeys except for one average sized monkey. This monkey sat at some distance from the bigger monkey. From time to time, the bigger monkey looked towards the other monkey. Soon, he got up and walked towards him/her. As soon as he reached the other monkey, he jumped on top of her and started copulating. The female monkey did not seem alarmed by this action. She straightened herself and, in the process, threw away the male monkey and ran away. The male monkey looked at the receding figure for a few seconds before walking back to its position of dominance.
Besides the monkeys, many insects and reptiles became a part of our lives. Within a few hours of arriving at the dormitory, I heard some of the children came out of their room discussing excitedly. When I inquired about the reason for their agitation, one of them informed "there is a big lizard in the room. It's almost as big as a crocodile." I went into the room and saw a large lizard on the wall at the other end of the room. The children had exaggerated when they said that it was as big as a crocodile. It was only twice as long and thrice as wide as a common lizard. Later, I saw a similar sized lizard near the bathroom. The lizards in the area, probably had a good supply of nutritious food and as a result had grown healthy.
One morning, as I waited for the sun to rise above the hill, I saw a small black ant dragging a lifeless large black ant away. The dead ant was at least 20 times larger than the small ant, but the ant pulled it along effortlessly. I wondered how the bigger ant had died. If the smaller had killed it, then Marvel comics should drop all its superheroes and consider making a movie with the ant in the lead role.
Another morning, as I walked towards the dining hall for breakfast, a child pointed towards the sky and said "look". I looked up but did not see anything worth a "look". He urgently pointed towards something and said "spider". The word turned out to be magical one. As soon as I heard it, I noticed a large spider at the centre of the web that it had constructed. The spider body was black in colour and it had four yellow stripes running across its body.
Later, as I walked near the dining hall, I noticed a spider on the ground. Its colour matched the ground and if I was not observing the ground intently, I would have missed it. I sat down and looked at the spider. I realised that there was something odd about it; the spider only had six legs! As per my understanding, it should have had eight. I started counting the legs "one, two, three, four, five and six". It only had six legs: four legs on one side and the two on the other. The spot where the third and the fourth legs should have been lay vacant. The spider had lost two of its legs in some mishap. I got up gave the brave spider a salute and walked away. Staying on the topic of spiders, I had the good fortune of observing three large spider webs glistening as light passed through the dew drops that had settled on it. I wanted to take a picture, but the webs lay across the stream, and I could do nothing but observe them.
One evening we started our journey back to our place of stay at 630 pm. The sun had disappeared beneath the horizon, but darkness had not taken over the sky. We travelled back in autos. The children spoke excitedly on topics that interested them. From the back, a boy started singing the song 'why this kolaveri di'. I had heard this song a million times and did not pay much heed to the boy's singing. Soon, a few others joined in, and they started singing 'Hand La Glass, Glass La Scotch, Eyes-U Full-Aa Tear-U, Empty Life-U, Girl-U Come-U, Life Reverse Gear-U'. As soon as the others joined in, I realised that the singing had to be stopped. I bellowed spontaneously "people, these lyrics are PG-13. So, stop!" They laughed and one of them started singing 'Johnny, Johnny, yes papa'. At the end of the song, he asked "is this PG-13 too?" I did not respond. So, they continued singing nursery rhymes. Though I did not want them to sing, I did not stop them. We were traveling on an empty highway and their singing did not disturb anyone. They were also polite enough to stop singing when the auto driver received a call. A few songs later, the children stopped singing and moved on to conversing in small groups. I turned my attention towards the eastern horizon. I saw a light red coloured object peeping from behind the clouds just above the horizon. It was the moon beginning starting it journey through the sky. As I watched, it escaped the clutches of the clouds and beamed at me brightly. It was full moon night, and the moon brightened the dark surroundings. The auto stopped at the beginning of the path that took us to our place of stay. We walked quietly down the path. From time to time, I observed the moon, through the branches of trees. I was reminded of many paintings and pictures that showed a similar scene. Every time I had seen such a picture, I had yearned to witness the scene in person. But now that I was witnessing it, I felt disappointed that my mind was not enjoying the scene as much as I thought it would.
On the third day of the trip, we were taken to a field to pluck groundnuts. Most of the children jumped into the activity with vigour. Some lay at the edge of the field feeling sick or tired. From time to time, we were supplied with ground nut balls and water. Besides groundnuts, the balls also contained jaggery. The children and I gobbled many of them. In 3 hours, we had covered 80 cents of the land and there were no more groundnuts to be plucked. As we started walking away from the field, big drops of rain started falling on and around us. Many of us took out our rain gear and started walking. Some did not have it and took a share of other's umbrellas. Soon the intensity of the rain increased, and our rain gears were unable to save us from getting wet. Our destination was a kilometre away and our guides decided to not proceed further in the rain. They redirected us towards a small shed. The children got into the shed, sat on the floor and started talking. I did not get a place in the shed and so stood under a large tamarind tree with the guides. The setting should have seemed idyllic, but the rain bothered me. I constantly looked towards the sky and wondered when the rain will stop. When the rain subsided, we started walking towards our destination through green paddy fields. Once again, I was pre-occupied with the thought of reaching our destination before the rain started again. Thinking back, I see that this was another scene that I should have enjoyed more than I did.
