The Red Jaguar: On the Mountain

By Ranjit Lal

The sun went out. The first wisps of clouds had already reached us. A strange silvery light from the clouds bathed the landscape eerily, like some malevolent eclipse. A stillness fell over the mountainside and forest, making the leaves look as though they were made of metal. It became dimmer as I hurried down the green tunnel path?and over the still, silent air came the distinct clink of tools being used. And then came the revving of a powerful engine. Had I found the Jaguar?s lair? Read further?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wisdom Tree Publishers
• Release date: Apr 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9788183284189

Ranjit Lal

Ranjit Lal is the author of around 45 books for children and adults . He was awarded the Zeiss Wildlife Lifetime Conservation Award for 2019 for writing 'with exceptional literary skills' on the conservation of wildlife, especially birds. As a journalist, he has had well over 2000 articles published in the national and international press. He lives in Delhi.

Book preview

© Ranjit Lal, 2006

Illustrations by Subir Roy

ISBN 978-81-8328-418-9

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means — electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise — without the prior permission of the author and the publisher.

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Wisdom Tree

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Printed in India

Contents

1. A Red Car Zooms Past

2. Sound of a Revving Engine

3. A Road Accident

4. A Red Jaguar Parked in the Driveway

5. The Growl of a Car’s Engine

6. Entry into the Jaguar’s Lair

7. A Rude Jolt for Kavita

8. A Hot Chase

You will love Sonekote, Ms Kohli, my English teacher assured me when she met my parents to finalise the plans for my summer holidays. That’s the trouble with having a teacher who also happens to be your mother’s best friend and who lives in the same colony as you. She just can’t help poking her nose in your out-of-school life, and you have to keep looking over your shoulder, all the time, just in case. My parents had to go abroad for a fortnight on a sudden business trip (and of course, couldn’t take me along), and Ms Kohli had helpfully suggested that I spend the fortnight — in late June and early July — on this godforsaken little hill-station called Sonekote, where her niece or someone ran a small hotel.

Ms Kohli was a tall, ramrod-straight lady with short-cropped iron-grey hair and large grey-green eyes. She was always very correct and ‘tip-top’ as some of the girls in the class stated and never lost her temper in class: she didn’t have to. One icy stare down that long straight nose of hers accompanied by her yes? was enough to shut up the most insolent lout. She had a voice that was like a cut-throat razor covered with golden syrup. Now, she was gushing all over me: You can go for hikes and maybe fish in the river. Besides, there are sure to be other families holidaying there too, so you can make friends! You will love it! There is even the TV, so you won’t miss that!

She sounded like a holiday brochure. And like all holiday brochures, you had to look hard for the small print. She didn’t say that she was going to accompany me to Sonekote and stay there herself for a few days. It was going to be some holiday indeed! I would be bored out of my mind in two days flat!

Sonekote was about nine or ten hours by road from Delhi, fairly deep in the mountains, so we left in our hired Ambassador car quite early in the morning.

So, where exactly will we be staying, Ma’am? I asked Ms Kohli, as the car sped through the country side.

My niece, Kavita, runs a small hotel and boarding house called Cloud Hotel near Sonekote, Ms Kohli said, patting her hair down. Now could you please wind up your window?

So, Miss, this is not exactly in Sonekote proper?

No, Anirudh, it is about an hour’s drive away. But it is at a beautiful location. It overlooks a deep gorge, which opens up into a valley. There are snow peaks and forests all around.

Does your niece have any children, Ma’am?

Ms Kohli looked out of the window. No. Kavita is not yet married.

Oh, so she lives with her parents? I was getting into my nosey-parker mode, but, well, there was nothing else to do.

Kavita’s parents died when she was very, very little. Ms Kohli’s voice quite clearly indicated, thus far and no farther.

Oh, I’m sorry Ma’am. I backed off and shut up. I didn’t want to be slashed by that syrup-covered razor so early in the morning! Besides, you never knew: she could start crying or something and I wouldn’t be able to handle that, though, I imagined, Ms Kohli’s tears would probably be like .22 slugs.

The journey went off without any incident. We passed several smashed up trucks, buses and cars on the highway, and each time we passed by an accident, Ms Kohli would shake her head disapprovingly and look away. To get to Cloud Hotel, we had to drive through Sonekote itself, and in a way I was glad we weren’t staying there. It was a shanty hill-station — or like, Ms Kohli acidly remarked, a wastepaper basket emptied over the mountainside. It was just after we passed through Sonekote that I noticed something very strange. All through our winding drive up the foothills and into the mountains we had met reckless buses and trucks hurtling down the other way at dangerous speeds. Ms Kohli hadn’t turned a hair or said a word to the driver — who I must say, drove quite well. But after we left Sonekote, the traffic suddenly began to behave impeccably — as though there were traffic cops hiding behind every bend, waiting to pounce.

And Ms Kohli suddenly started haranguing our driver non-stop. "Drive slowly, the limit is 20 kmph, be careful around the bend, horn bajao, horn bajao, sambhal ke jana, sambhal ke jana!" She continued on and on, and the poor driver must have wondered what had hit him! Even I wondered what had come over Ms Kohli so suddenly. She was almost having a panic attack, Man.

The road out of Sonekote clung to the side of the mountain, and according to my compass, ran due south. The gorge, with a stream rushing at the bottom, was on our right, perhaps a hundred metres or more down. We drove for about 10 km, on this road, very sedately and steadily (as if the Ambassador car were a Rolls!) and then, to my delight, crossed over the gorge on a little stone bridge. At the end of the bridge, the road forked sharply to the left and right and Ms Kohli instructed the driver to turn right. It was quite dark now and the headlamps were switched on. As the car swung to the right, the headlamp beams swept across the trunks of the tall pine trees (as ramrod as Ms Kohli!) straight ahead.

Nailed to one of the tree trunks was a sign with an arrow pointing right, with ‘Sonekote Cloud Hotel,