“The kid ran towards the lion!
He wasn’t scared one bit!
Fear is a developed trait!
But once you get then; that’s it!”
This is a blood sucker! Literally! Now don’t worry! I normally write blogs which can be read by all age groups and this one’s no exception in spite of the suspicious click bait title!
read on!
Once we were in the famous wildlife sanctuary called the Kaziranga which is in Assam. Those days it was not that famous and most of the inner guest houses were controlled by Army and defence personals.
The danger was not that it was a remote sanctuary but the fact that it was the home to elephants! Now they are the not elephants you see who are tame and maybe bless you or allow you to climb on them and play around with them!
These however were wild elephants and they used to move in packs deep within the jungle! Our guest house though within the jungle was still in the periphery of the sanctuary and usually the wild animals used to stay clear of it. The place was known for all types of wild animals but was popular for the Rhino!
Now we kids were not listening to anyone and playing around with no shoes and in shorts without a care for the world! Our mom’s were continuously telling us to wear shoes and socks and not to walk around in the mud! But we were happily playing when suddenly we were informed that there is a deer chase happening!
We were rushed into the 4 by 4 jeeps which were the only vehicles which could navigate those terrains and started for the observation point!
With the military binoculars you could see the tiger (or was it lion or cheetah! I frankly do not remember that part since I was in 6th grade!) chasing the deer! My toy binoculars could only show me a yellow speck following another darker yellow speck! Still it was as close to the kill as possible!
If it was now then it would have been a treat for my canon!
Suddenly then we were told to rush back to the jeep and to the guest house!
Apparently a group of wild elephants were seen in the area and they do not follow rules! It had rained so badly that the whole road was muddy and slushy!
We rushed through the slushy mud to our jeeps! Then sped of to the guest house covered in mud! We had just been missed by the herd! If we had been there for some more time, the elephants would have played with the vehicles and us like toys and cleared their way!
While thanking our lucky stars we were going on back when my mother gave a big shriek! We all turned to see what the problem was and what I saw was one of the scariest things for me at that time!
In the middle of her leg which was almost white, there was a deep blue mark and on that mark there was a small snake like creature attached to my mother’s leg! Our instinct was to just pull it out but our driver Laata (not Lata, it was assamese-bengali name and he was an interesting character! but then that is a blog for another day!); told that if you do that then the bleeding from the wound will not stop! It was a leech! They were actually small creatures but this one had become so big by drinking my mother’s blood!
Laata then took some salt which he had kept with him as he knew the place and put it on the leech! It slowly started literally melting and showing odd shapes and it let go of my mother’s leg! The whole area had become blue and later it turned black and the scar was there for some time.
After that there was no need for us to be told to wear socks and full pants! Even now I cannot wear shoes without socks even for an instant and when I think about it, I am sure this was the reason!
Years later my friends planned to go on a hike between the forest in an isolated place! We were told that a dog would show us the way! And that was not the scary part! The whole path would be full of leeches! But we young people with young brain who like to play with danger did not care!
I told my friends that I know how to take care of those leeches! All we need is salt! So we got into the bus with a big packet of salt and kept it on the top for safe keeping! When the stop came we confidently got down and started with the confidence which comes as we say in our medical college to only house surgeons! The one who does not know any complication does not fear them!
Two minutes into the walk to the leech laden forest, we suddenly remembered that the salt packet was safe! In the bus! All the plan and my confidence washed away with that and the rain!
It was a leechy walk indeed in the rain with no idea of the route since there was no dog! We saw one later on but he was not the official dog! That trek in the dense forest without any cell phones in the rain with the leeches for company and not much money, well; that is for another blog! Needless to say, we became expert leech pickers after that trek! I still remember drinking half a bottle of iron syrup after coming back from that trip! Blood is precious you see! Precious also are the songs sung with such gusto and energy by birthday celebrity Sukhwinder Singh!
Now be happy that there are no leeches anywhere near your bed and sleep!
Shubh Ratri!
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