The following short story is based on a true account, narrated to me by my friend. Some of it is true, most of it is a figment of my imagination.
“After my 12th standard, I applied and got through to a Government Engineering college situated on the Orissa- Andhra Pradesh Border. it was located on the foothills of a small mountain, and the campus was spread over a large tract of reclaimed forest land. The natural landscape appealed to the explorer and nature lover in me. I was thrilled to be in a place of such beauty!
After the few initial days that it took to familiarize myself with the area, I formed my own adventure club! We were a group of boys from the hostel. Every night, after dinner at the mess, we used to explore the adjoining forest and grounds. Each night, torch in hand, we would choose a new direction to travel, and since most of the areas had security guards, there was no real danger.
We became quite well acquainted with the security guards. Most of them were local villagers who were employed by the college trust, when they bought the land. Our favourite was ‘Shankar Anna’. He was the oldest amongst the guards, and supposedly the bravest too! There were several areas on campus, where the guards refused to patrol alone at night, but Shankar Anna had no qualms spending his night duty in solitude. He was one of the first employees of the college. He had joined when the land had just been acquired, and watched as it was cleared and leveled to make it suitable to build a college.
Shankar Anna had interesting bits of information to offer. He had topographical knowledge of where we would encounter lakes or streams, where we could spot deer, or where we could find some caves to explore. He was indulgent of our inquiries. But he had one word of caution. “Don’t go towards the north-western edge of the campus. There are no guards in this direction, even I don’t venture there. If you happen to go that way, avoid the old Ashoka tree there. The local tribals thought it was very sacred, and they insisted we do not go near it. They even built a hedge around it, and planted Bougainvillea on the hedge, marking the area around the tree.”
Anna never said anything else. He always grew visually uncomfortable whenever we mentioned the area. So we heeded his wishes and didn’t venture towards the North western edge of the campus.
Atleast not on purpose……….
Continued-