And The Secrets Echoed

Re-stacking an old one for the new year! In memory of my father, to ring in his birthday month. May 2025 be kind to us all!

Photo by Beverly Kimberly on Unsplash

My father has had some crazy ideas in his time. When my brother and I were little, while all our friends visited Calcutta or Diamond Harbour or Puri on sensible, sedate holidays from our hometown Jamshedpur, my father planned annual visits to the jungles of Bihar and Orissa - Dalma Hills, Saranda, Simlipal, Betla, Hazaribagh. Dad and his friend Uncle B would each drive an Ambassador car packed with family and friends. We would drive bravely deep into the forest, surrounded by dense woodland. The leaves rustled as the trees whispered ancient secrets to each other, and the secrets echoed all around us - whoosh whoosh whoosh whoosh.

We drove for hours on the narrow, red, dusty tracks till we reached the safety of the forest lodge that would be our home for the next few days. Every day, we would drive into the forest, scanning the wilderness for the smallest sign of an animal – a sudden movement in the trees or the call of a deer or the cry of a langur. The scariest sign of all would be a tree fallen across the path, indicating that an elephant had been by. Then Dad and Uncle B would climb out of their cars and look for elephant footprints or dung. How big were the footprints? One elephant or a herd? Was the dung fresh? Should we clear the path and drive on, or should we return to the safety of the lodge? As long as my Dad and Uncle B were around, there was nothing to fear. They knew what to look out for. They always knew what to do. But still, I would sit as still as a statue in the car, clutching at my mother’s saree, too scared to breathe. My eyes did not stop scanning the jungle around me, my ears were alert to the smallest sound. I breathed again only when we were back at the lodge for lunch – rice with a curry of jungle fowl. Even now, I only have to shut my eyes to smell that curry - yummy, scary, exciting and infinite relief - all mixed up in that one unforgettable, mouth-watering smell! 

I would cling to my mother throughout the trip, too scared to let her out of my sight. Too scared to really take in the breathtakingly beautiful scenery all around me. Trees as far as the eye could see, of a hundred shades of green – from parrot green to olive to viridian that merged with the blue of the sky. Little brooks skipping over the smoothest pebbles, carrying berries and fruit half-eaten by birds. Butterflies of every colour in the rainbow, and never-ending birdcall. My mother always tried to distract me from my fears with tiny wildflowers she found in the grass. She taught me how to make miniature bouquets with them or ‘cook’ them like vegetables using pots and pans of dried leaves.

Night would fall suddenly in the jungle and if you looked up, there were a million stars in the sky. Owls would hoot over the incessant chirping of crickets, and wolves might call. Out would come the hurricane lanterns with cotton wicks burning in kerosene oil. If it was cold, we would sit around a bonfire, chatting. I would cling to my mother and sit watching the sparks from the fire flying in the air. My eyes burned and watered from the smoke, but I had to keep them open - my eyes did not stop scanning the jungle around me, my ears were alert to the smallest sound. And then bed, with my arms and legs slathered with Odomos which did nothing to prevent the world’s largest mosquitoes from biting.

We visited the forests every year. As the years passed and I grew up, I started feeling a little less afraid. A little more accustomed perhaps, to the ever-lurking dangers. By the time I was nine or ten, I thought I knew enough to keep myself safe. I knew the rules of the wild – be silent, be alert, be watchful. Wear covered shoes and check inside them for insects or frogs or scorpions before you slip them on. Be wary of brushing against thorny bushes. Don’t eat berries off the trees – they may be poisonous. Look for ants and spiders before you sit down anywhere…and of course, try to leave the snakes alone!

But when I was twelve years old, we moved to a new city on the other side of the country, and our holidays in the wild came to an abrupt end. We could only look back wistfully and reminisce. And I thought of all those years when I had been too afraid to enjoy the experience. But perhaps because I had always been so alert and watchful, I still carry those jungles within me. I can still see them. I can still smell them after a sudden shower – the smell of wet earth mixing with the smell of a million leaves washed clean. I can hear the twittering of the birds at dawn, and the hundred different sounds of the jungle waking up to a new day.

First written in an Ochre Sky Memoir Writing Workshop.