A walk on the wild side

That day I left my Air Force unit in a remote northern region earlier than usual to collect my scooter from a garage after a routine servicing. Learning that the vehicle would be ready only the next day and that for about two hours there would be no bus bound for Krishna Nagar, our residential area some two kilometres away, I took recourse to walking home, the risk of crossing a sprawling paddy field flanking the road aside notwithstanding.

Setting out on one of the banks of the paddy fields on foot, I had walked scarcely half a kilometre when I noticed a big snake, a cobra by all odds from its appearance, lying coiled up snugly across the bank, maybe after a heavy swallow. Standing afar, I thumped my feet heavily on the ground for the creature to move away; soon it slid down the bank and melted into the field.

Plucking up courage, I resumed my walk, recollecting an all but analogous incident I had experienced in the past. By then the jaws of darkness began devouring the brightness of the day. Walking ahead with heavy steps along the bank in that gloaming hour, I reached another bank aside where a broad well almost full of water -- may be for the purpose of irrigation of the fields -- and entirely devoid of a parapet around it espied me smack bang in the dim moonlight. It was by sheer providence that I stopped short of taking even a step ahead. Had I advanced by a step or two, I would have been in the well. This was my second brush in a row with disaster at the same crepuscular hour on that ill-fated day. 

Standing dazed for a while, I collected myself from the series of shocks and continued stirring up my stumps, invoking our clan deity. As I was steadily loping and hopping further on the bank, a dim view of Krishna Nagar unfolded before my eyes, invigorating me to move fast ahead. Hoping that I was out of the woods, I quickly got to a vast plain ground where a pack of stray dogs came running to me baying.

A heap of scree, pebbles and loose stones lying around me came to my rescue, prompting me to pick them up double quick and pelt them at those canines, forcing them to run a mile, curling up their caudal appendage between the hind legs; there was a bamboo stick lying amidst the scree as if for my use as an additional weapon to boot, if needed. Crossing the succession of hurdles, I, however, got back home, life and limb, breathing not a word to my wife about the hazardous incidents that befell me that gloomy twilight hour. 

The bloodcurdling experiences taught me never to follow shortcuts in an unfamiliar area.