Ravanan

Chapter -24

The team retreated from the village and caught their breathe for a while at a far away place. They didn't stop running until their legs started to hurt. They had lost six of their men and Ragav checked the health of other men who were with him.

Ragav called Bala in his satellite phone and explained the incident, for which Bala told," They are calm and peaceful peoples. They won't attack unless there were disturbed. If you say that they attacked you without any reasons, it must the work of Ravanan who would have ordered them to hunt you down in the forest. You need to be more careful sir." Bala explained everything to Ragav with the help of the tribal people with whom he was residing.

After figuring this out , Ragav grasped the reason for their attack and felt a sharp pain in his forehead due to anger. He grinded his teeth and his eyes were as red as cherries. But he took a long breath and relaxed himself. Then he enquired the health conditions of his officers and confirmed that they were fine. But the officers were silent and their minds were occupied with the thoughts of the died ones.

They decided to rest at that place and continue by tomorrow. Ragav cleared the place clean by cutting small plants and grass in the place and carefully planted their tents.

"I knew how you feel. But worrying about the dead ones will not going to make them come alive or bring any other things either. Laughs, cries and sorrows everything come and go in everyone's life. Men and woman are no exception as well. It's just a part of our life and if we let that overwhelm us , we will lose ourselves . So get up and help me clean this place," Ragav adviced to his worn out people and cheered them with a ear to ear smile. The brought a little smile in the lips and hearts of them The people apologised to him and started to plant tent with him.

** At the top of the mountian**

The people enjoyed every single minute in their new home. Kaali were playing with the young girls and laughing with them while tying their cattles near their crude. Bindhu came out of her crude and heard a voice where she saw Raj was completely surrounded by the ladies of the village and Raj was explaining something to them to which they gave keen attention. It seemed like they were trying to prepare something new dish tonight. He always guide the ladies in cooking and he was really a legendary chef who could make your tongue to melt too along with the food. He has good reputation in making dishes and deciding which ingredients would be best suited for a particular dish.

The aroma of the fried fish and fish grave had already began to arouse the tongues of everyone. The place doesn't have any lights except the fire lamb, the place doesn't T.v, air conditioner, car or even a mobile that had became a part of our life. But Bindhu doesn't feel anything she could laugh with the bottom of her belly and heart. She was talking with real people instead of hugging her mobile all day. The fresh air blown from the herb filled forest gave the a new feeling to her and she felt like it was the first time in her life to breath. The smell of the air was good too and it smelled like a damp, moss, rains ,wet tree trunks and sweet honey. Even thousands of air conditioners won't match freshness in the air.

She remembered the moments enjoyed as a child lying on her mother's lap and she was soothing her hair with her gentle and soft hands which always worked for us day and night without rest and thought us everything in our childhood. The air smell felt like her mother's sweet smell. The people in the village would care for her and talk with her as if she was one of them and shared their food, cloth and all other resources with her. She slowly got used to everyone one of the people. Even though she had been kidnapped, she lost that feeling and began to enjoy the life as a human being and joy occupied her heart. She never had this much amount of immense pleasure as her workaholic father always engaged with his work and company , who neither cared about her nor her mother. Raj noted Bindhu standing at a corner and watching them with a watering eyes.

" Hey ! Tenacious young girl ! What brought you all the way here . Do you want anything? ", Raj asked her with a broad smile occupied his face and a heart warming cheerful attitude. Bindhu doesn't know what to say and babbled," Ah....th...that. I smelled something delicious here a-and I want something to eat. That why I was waiting over there. " Raj laughed at her rattle and asked her wife Devi to serve the fried fish and the rice first.

Devi brought a six feet long banana leaf and sliced it into two. Then she washed it in the river shore which was glistening with the moon light and place it under Bindhu. Devi served some Ayira meen(Loaches fish) curry which was soft and fluffy with a great texture and had a little bitter taste. Then she served her pink perch fish which was deep fried and a brownish texture. When Bindhu removed a part of the fried fish and handed it to her tongue that rolled around the piece and the taste buds began to dance in excitement. It released enormous amount of saliva and she felt a tingling sensation all over her body. She closed her eyes and her face revealed her happiness out of herself and flashed itself to everyone.

Seeing her happy face brought joy to the heart of people and they began to smile with her. Raj asked Devi to serve her more of the fish on seeing her reaction. But Devi insisted her to taste the other variety of the fishes for which she nodded her head like a charming little girl and relished all the varieties of the river's fishes prepared.

"Eat as much as you want young one ! This is a mating season and all kind of fishes will gather at the bottom of the river to mate and lay their eggs on the rocks of the shore. At this time this, we will stay away from fish and at a particular time the river will be overwhelmed by all variety of fishes and a large number of fishes will head to the sea to begin their new life journey. As eggs keeps hatching day by day , this river will remain flooded by fishes for a month and that's a heavenly season for us. This forest is filled with everything we need to survive and there is nothing more than valuable for us than this forest. It's like a mother's lap and if anyone tried to separate us, they will feel our wrath", Raj explained about the celestial river.

" And you are refusing to live this place even though you are losing your people, aren't you ?", Bindhu stopped Raj and fired a question all of a sudden. Raj showed a baffled look on his face and Bindhu explained further," I saw Ravanan killing a tiger under the waterfalls and heard that your people were hunted by that tiger. Why is this unnecessary trouble? You can come out of this forest and have a wonderful life with us. What do you say? ", Bindhu asked Raj that got the attention of everyone and all the woman turned their heads towards her and placed a long gaze at her with their nose pumping enormous air out with every breath. This strange change scared her for a moment and her mouth trembled again.

"D-did I...... Did I say anything wrong ?, " Bindhu raised a question to clear the awkwardness in the atmosphere. But the people kept staring at her without saying anything. There eyes reddened and wide open eyes elevated her fear. "This is it ", she thought to herself.

" Pppuu......haaaahaaaahaa " , Raj let out heavy laugh and that cleared the silence. " She is just a little young one. She doesn't know anything about our people and there is nothing to get worked up . Now everyone leave the place and gather our people for dinner. Hey Vimala ! What do you want ? Stop staring at her and take all the food to our people. Look at that little ones face which has become red in fear. Just stop scaring her and move out already everyone", Raj cleared the place and asked the ladies to feed everyone in the village. One of them placed her hands on the ground and pushed herself to stand up.

"Oooooooooi", and everyone of the villagers came to the place while other ladies placed the banana leaves on the ground and served them.

Bindhu finished her dinner and Raj asked her to follow him to the shore where he explained everything. " Animals , poverty, illiteracy and disease are all the problem we face in our daily life. We have risked our lives to bring food for our people and one day it will be pleasant and the next day will be a horrible one. This mother nature is a home for everyone that doesn't say no to anything who enters this forest. there is nothing safer than home and we never want to leave this place. We people are poor, illiterate and rogue and we like the way we are. I saw lot of beautiful and weird things in your city when we came there to kidnap you. Culture, food and everything had a vast change from ours. This is the place where learned to hunt animals, create new weapons, harvest and grow cattles. Now we have gained knowledge about this place by our learnings and by the information passed by our elders. We have cultured plants and determined the fertility of the soil based on the growth rate of the plant. When we people were affected by diseases, we didn't know what to do. We lost many lives and we began to analyse the conditions of a particular disease and prepared medicine with the herbs and treated them. Now we are capable of saying what kind of disease the person has based on looking at them with our naked eyes. We have developed medicines for most of the diseases and cured them. The cattles we grow is one of our family member. The cow gives us milk , the bull helps us in farming and the dogs alerts us about the upcoming danger before we could find and in exchange we feed and takes care of them with love from the bottom of our heart . These are all our only treasure and this is sufficient for us to let a happy life.We are capable of predicting not only the fish mating season,but other all the phenomen that takes place here. There is no guarantee for the life of the man who leaves the house in search of food and water would come home alive. Sometimes we only find their turn clothes or even their fully ripped bones. So we got used to those things. If a predators resides at a nearby place , we will shift ourselves to a new place until the predators leaves our territory. But Ravanan is the only one capable standing in front of those wild animals. I know killing those animals is a crime now a days but that boisterous, hot blooded i***t never listen to our words. Mmmm......We can't blame him though, we had had went through something so terrible and blood freezing that completely screwed his character and we kill animals only when it hurts one of our people and to defend ourselves from that shiny saber toothed tiger.....But even a child know how to survive on this forest because of the guidance of him. My great grandfather, grandfather and my father everyone lived at this place and my son and his grandson will hunt and protect at this same place. There is no doubt in that. You would have noticed the reaction of everyone when you asked them to leave the forest. They obviously doesn't thought about leaving this place even in their dreams. So don't raise this question again in front of anyone and trigger them," Raj laughed and adviced Bindhu for which she nodded her head silently and the understood the deep history of the forest.

Bindhu asked him about the famous twelve great weapons the people where guarding and worshipping.