Ravanan

Chapter -25

" Everything began 200 years ago. Those are the weapons designed and crafted by my grandfather Arasu and my great grandfather Anbu. My great grandfather created the weapons with bamboo sticks and attached manually sharpened bones at the apex of the stick and designed the first spear among our tribe. This eliminates the trouble of dealing with close combat beasts and a long stick inflicted more damage when compared to small ones. He observed the damage dealt to the predator and improved the size and shape of the spear. The people of his time used to hunt in a group and mortality rate was nearly eighty percent and something the hunters will come home with meat, sometimes without meat and sometimes only a few hunters will come back home with a major injuries all over their bodies. My great grandfather witnessed all this and designed different kind of weapons for different purpose. He asked them to use his weapon instead of their wood hammer attached on a sharp stone and other primitive weapons. The first person who used this weapon was the father of my great grandfather who wielded this weapon and tried to hunt small animals. He experimented with the weapons and reported the flaws of the weapons. Based on the opinion of his father my great grandfather replaced the small sticks with long sticks and attached sharpened bones of animals on them instead of tying them together with a small rope and continued their work. The work of my great grandfather really impressed everyone of the village and gradually gained attention all over the forest. Then they used a straight and woody stick and threw it in air to kill wild boar and bisons from a distance which pinned the animals in the ground. The other hunters began to modify their weapons and hunted with the spears. It's not only efficient in animal hunting but also in combat with other tribals, fishing and throwing it to kill animals from a long range. After the success of the spear he made small changes in the spear and replaced the single sharpened bone by a three pronged one. That was quite efficient than the spear because of its three pronged sharp edges which inflicted even more damage when removed from the body of the victim. The three pronged spear was later named as trident which was greatly praised and worshipped for it's heavily destructive nature. After the death of my great grandfather's father he took his place and became a hunter. Unlike other tribal people he developed new tactics and methods to ambush and hunt a particular type of animals. A technique that two people would chase a flock of deer or goat from behind while others would wait calmly until they reach a certain range. When the animal is within their range the hunter bloom out of their hidden place and throw the spears and tridents towards them. He completely eradicated starvation during his time. At rainy seasons animals won't be roaming here and there , so hunting is nearly impossible on those times and we adopted to fishing to tackle the starvation. We used spear to pin the fish on the water. But as soon as people stepped on the water the fishes would run away from the place. Great grandfather Anbu worried about the worsening condition of people due to poor food resources. Then he came up with a clever idea of trapping the animals and fishes that would greatly saved the energy and time of the hunters. But things changed when the sun began to show his might. The animals migrated to nearby forests. Drought took over the rivers and even the ocean of greeneries vanished. People started to die in hunger and some people migrated to other place while my great grandfather and most of the people remained on the same place. One day some tribal people from other forest came to our forest. Our people stood steadily and bravely to protect everyone even though they were weak at that time due to scarcity in food resources. But they came there for trading with our people. They asked for our weapons and other other tools in exchange for abundant meat and fruits. Anbu accepted their offer and gave them newly crafted weapons and tools to them. They became a great help during that struggling time and we were able to feed our people because of them . Soon more of the outside tribals came to our village and traded weapons in exchange of food,clothes and valuable herbs. Anbu felt like he was greatly indebted to them and one day the sky heard the voices of our dying people and open its mouth and filled the rivers against. Plants and trees came back to life again . The forest was once again treasured with all the greens and animals jumped everywhere again. The cracked ground became wet by the rain and healed by the plants that raised it's head again. On a fine and beautiful day Anbu gathered the leaders of twelve tribals clans who helped them during their struggle and showed his gratitude by allowing them to stay on our forest with their clan and that's how the twelve villages of the forest formed. Anbu helped them to build their crude when they first stepped in and gave them everything they hunted before feeding their own clan, we became one and fought against predators, poverty, diseases and so on . We exchanged the medicinal properties of the herbs and clothes. Anbu taught them how to efficiently use the weapons and tools to hunt the prey. He taught them how to throw a spear from the a long distance and trap a fish with the bones of hyena and dears. And my grandfather Arasu was born on a rainy night when the entire forest was flooded. Luckily everyone predicted the weather based on the changes they noticed in the sky and the strange behaviour of cattles and claimed tall trees to with their family to escape. The people lived and enjoyed their life with the bottom of their heart even when their stomach growled in hunger . We also cultivated plants that deliver fruits and vegetables just in case if there were no animals hunted at that time. Anbu took care about everyone of the village and considered to be a good ruler. He separated the work loads of everyone and spliced it to everyone. The women took care of the children and the crude while the young girls brought the woods for fire and waited patiently for the arrival of the men to feed them and their children. The men and young boys went to fish , hunt and brought home resources that were obtained from trading with other tribals. When predators followed us to our crude and hunted people over night, we designed gates and allotted guards to alert the people about the upcoming predator.

My grandfather Arasu was an extremely brash, self confident and self - willed person. He committed lot of outrageous and wild actions in the villages during his young and adolescence time. He entirely destroyed the crudes in a village due to a fight with the youngsters for a honey wax. He also involved in love making with the young girls who loved his manliness . His behaviour spoiled the name of my great grandfather and he became a nuisance among the men due to his violent nature and became popular among women due to his charming nature. Later Arasu was forced by my great grandfather to hunt animals and work with him in crafting weapons. Because of that he gradually understood the sufferings of their people to live and became less selfish. The hot blooded man hunted animals to feed and buried the predators that killed the people . When other tribals tried to raided the village , this broad chested man stood in front of them with his trident and showed them the way path to hell. But his outrageous and violent acts caused even more trouble to the people. On a fine day , the tribal people found an old man who was heavily attacked by a predator and at the verge of death. The native villagers brought him to their home and took care of to him until he recovered. Rumours reached Arasu's ears that the old man was surprisingly attacked by a orange and white striped animal called tiger. For the people who have never seen something called tiger in their life , didn't believe his words . Arasu challenged the old man for a duel and he took down Arasu without even using any weapons who were considered to be the wild beast of the forest with his wrinkled hands. This surprised everyone and Arasu was impressed by his strength. They both became close with shared and the old man told about the wild animals and warriors he fought for many years and explained him about how big this world and various traditions, resulting in igniting a wild dream within the heart of the boisterous boy. One day ,Arasu ran out of the forest to explore the world. He went out of the forest and migrated to other forest where he witnessed new obstacles and animals which was far too dangerous and aggressive. But he managed to hunt them and proceeded further. He found new friends and reckless wrecked havoc everywhere they stepped. All of them had the same motive to explore the adventurous world. He saw other tribal people and challenged them for a duel. Defeating them was like eating a piece of honey for him. He witnessed elephants bigger than the ones in their village and ran wild. In spite of his violent nature, everyone liked him due to some reasons and shared their foods and resources with Arasu's crew. They reached the ocean and were unable to go further when he thought it was the end of his adventure, he met a clan of tribals who told him about the sailors with whom he could cross the ocean and step on to new continents. The crew stayed with tribal people for months expecting the arrival of sailors and braved harsh weather and other obstacles without flinching. But as he expected, a ship came ashore in order to escape from the heavy storm. Arasu jumped from the land to sky in excitement and asked them to take his crew and offered them food and hospitality during the storm. The sailor accepted the crew and sailed all over the world. He became immensely excited and curious when he stepped on a new island and discovered new cultures, animals and foods which were unknown to his native people . He recklessly risked his life and felt the thrilling experience. He stepped on to a new island and hunted new humongous animals with the tribals. When he tried to kill a mountain sized rhino his trident had been broken without even scratching the tough skin of the rhino and it pierced his belly open with a single blow. The people saved him from the rhino by creating big noise. The tribal people treated him well and he started to move around within a week . The speed of recovery of him surprised the people . He thanked the people for saving his life and was desperate to find new weapon before he leave the place. That was the first he heard about something called iron. The people extracted that strong material from the earth's crust and melted it to form unbreakable tools. Arasu combined his craftsmanship skills and their knowledge about the material and the hard skin of the predators to produce some deadliest weapons that could kill any animal in an instant. He crafted the traditional styled spear which was completely made by melting the iron and beating it several times to harden it and alloyed the material with some other materials to prevent it from rusting and produced great damage when used against enemies. With his newly spear and trident at his back, Arasu jumped in front of the rampaging rhino and stared eye to eye. The fearless dashed towards Arasu and pointed its horn straight to his chest. Arasu jumped and stepped on the horn of the rhino and the irritated rhino tried to throw him away by jumping up and down and shaked it's head. The tribals and the friends of Arasu threw their newly made weapon into it but the weapon didn't cause any deep wounds on the furry body of the rhino and popped out of it's body when it jumped here and there. It finally charged toward a tree to squash him like a bug by smashing him with the tree, but Arasu realized this and jumped away from it's horn , the ferocious creature stabbed the tree and its horn was stuck. "