“YOU hear that tee-tee-bar over there in those bushes? That bird will twitter when the animal approaches,” said 58-year-old Arbab as he handed me the shotgun.
We were almost a mile from a remote village. As we sat round the fire, beneath the shade of a straw hut, enjoying the evening tea, we waited for the sun to hide behind the silhouetted horizon. It was getting quieter by the minute, as the distant chirping of the sparrows faded into an abrupt silence after a sustained crescendo. As always, the smell of the burning wood from the faraway dwellings revived pleasant memories of the bygone days I had spent in Sindh’s riverine lands, amongst its hospitable people.
As the twilight set in, we were on our way into the denser part of the jungle, where an indefinite portion of the night would pass in wait. Accompanying me was Arbab, a seasoned hunter, who was on the lookout for a beast prowling this area during certain nocturnal hours, in recent nights. This was a big wild boar. A highly skilled tracker, Arbab could tell the size of the boar and the time it daily came to the area, simply by examining its trotters imprinted on the soil. Yet, there was no certainty whether, or when, the boar would actually appear.
Soon, the moon would illuminate the bushy land that lay beyond us, stretching endlessly. We were ensconced in a cozy bush atop a mound, prepared to brave the harsh cold night, which grew colder by the passing hour.
There was the feeling of an adventure, mounting excitement, and certainly a little anxiety of what might happen if things go unexpected. What if I missed? Warnings that the boar in bewilderment might even charge at the shooter and toss him around, ringed in my ears. However, what was reassuring was the moonlight — there would be enough light for me to be able to see the boar, though as vaguely as the thousand hedges and bushes I could see around me. I was sure it wouldn’t be difficult shooting down the boar at a 40-foot distance. Staying put and extremely quite amidst twigs and leaves — luckily no mosquitoes and reptiles at such chilly temperatures — was all that this hunt demanded. Communication with each other was reduced to hand signals and smart nudges.
Silence prevailed all over, only to be repeatedly broken by the cricket’s screech. During the first hour, I kept adjusting myself due to recurring uneasiness, changing positions within the limited space I was given. Arbab, sitting beside me, lit up his cigarette and quietly slumped back into the bush. He assured me that the boar was not expected for at least another two hours, so it was all right if he smoked a cigarette or two. Naturally, my grip on this double-barrel Ithaca also slackened, but I remained alert and excited. My eyes kept roving the 180-degree course every now and then, in the belief that the boar would turn up any moment and from anywhere. On empirical grounds, however, the possibility of the boar showing up from behind us was smoothly ruled out. But who knew?
Three hours had already passed; there was no sign of the boar from any direction. Arbab had long fallen asleep while I was mentally away in random thoughts. He was a veteran shooter who had revelled in such adventures countless times, so his lack of interest or willingness to sacrifice sleep seemed understandable.
While much of me was absorbed in the hunt, part of me was already lost in the serene beauty of nature. If nature drove its lovers crazy, it was not without a reason. It added beauty and loftiness to thought and hope to impossibilities. Even though hunting was the reason that I was here, I wanted to think about so many things that I never approached with a fresh mind free of all sorts of mental barriers, in the hustle and bustle of city life. No one could have resisted the obvious drift into ecstasy. Quietness was soothing and solitude tasted sweet. For a few moments life was heavenly.
My grip on the gun slackened, my legs had grown numb and my fingers cold. I locked the trigger, thinking how big a relief it would be to forget about all the adventure I’d placed myself in, and lie down and peacefully continue in idleness. But fun was just seconds away — there it was, starkly black, resembling no other animal I had ever seen, standing in front of me just a few yards away.
Blood gushed through my veins, returning my mental agility. Tightening my grip on the gun, I rose with meticulous cautiousness. I had quietly mounted the frozen gun, neatly unlocked it, held my breath and placed my finger on the trigger ready to press it. While all this was a matter of seconds, the indecision that followed seemed never-ending — if I missed, where might it dash? If it charged at us, one of us was going to be hurled like anything! I dithered and kept staring at the beast, hoping it would change its position and allow me a better shot at it. It didn’t — it remained motionless. The boar, as I had expected, would graze, wallow in the mud, or do anything but remain still for that long. These three minutes felt like centuries. It was only when something thumped me on my back that out went the small blobs from the cartridge scattering into the bushes!
Arbab, fully awaken as if he had never slept, rose with agility and started looking in all directions, and at me, inquisitively. “What was it? What did you shoot at?” came from him. Inattentive to the deluge of queries, I looked askance at him, as if he should to tell me why that huge black thing still stood there. It would be difficult to describe the way he laughed at me!
Of course, as I shared his laughter, we knew it was over. As we headed for the village, but before leaving the place, I once again took a closer look at the bush that resembled the black object I had just seen. The shadows of the bush keeps changing shadows in a moonlit night as the moon constantly changes its position. It was hard to believe how astonishingly close a bush could resemble an animal!
Hunting, in any case, has never been a dull activity. The passion for hunting sends shooters into the deepest of jungles, leaving them to wait long hours in the thickets. There, mounting impatience, the urge to munch something, light up a cigarette or sip tea exactly at a time when such is not to be done, are common tendencies suppressed by the very thought of the ultimate purpose — the hunt itself.
While huntsmen believe hunting brings them there, a few have quietly realized that there is something more than just pressing the trigger and priding in the kill
“YOU hear that tee-tee-bar over there in those bushes? That bird will twitter when the animal approaches,” said 58-year-old Arbab as he handed me the shotgun.
