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photos throw light on the kind of life Veerapan leads in his
forest hideout...» |
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In Veerappan country-III
Shali Ittaman
Harikrishna's warning
had a ring of the ominous. What I did not known was that a year
later, almost to the month, the author would himself be felled.
"The elephants would not get him, but Veerappan would…!"
Warning or no
warning, I had made up my mind to go to Gopinatham. The village
was a one-hour downhill journey by bus from MM Hills. Strangely,
the only bus that went there started around 9 am and returned immediately
after dropping off its passengers. The next pick up was only on
the following day. That presented a problem, but then the journey
had to be made.
My co-passengers
of the day weren't very helpful folks… they did nothing to
calm my fears. There was also a drunkard on board who was especially
making a nuisance of himself. People initially tried to push him
into a seat, but every time the bus meandered with the road, the
poor sot would fall off his seat. When that failed, a fellow traveller
volunteered to hold him down. That ticked off the fellow and he
started calling down forefathers and foremothers of all the numskulls
in the bus. (I would say, some of the expletives were really colourful.
My vocabulary certainly stood enriched that day!)
When all had
had their bellyful, our man decided to take a walk. He got up from
his seat, took a few unsteady steps, swayed and then fell into a
woman's lap. He picked himself up from there, tottered a few more
steps and then fell face first on the floor. When people rushed
to pick him up, he pushed them aside, swore at them, and then proceeded
towards the back door, demanding to be put off the bus right then.
With things
getting out of hand, the bus conductor decided to intervene. He
coaxed, cajoled and then fixed the man with a box on the ear. The
conductor then blew for the driver to break at the first police
post in sight. Then he dragged the offender down and laid him out
for the police to make short work of him. (The howls sounded familiar…
I had seen the Delhi police at work with their seven-feet staff.
It always seemed to work.) This was quite similar.
Our sot was
quickly in the condition to resume his journey. As the bus moved
ahead with us and our precious prince, he squinted his eyes, looked
at the conductor and said: "Remember Rampura… You have
to drive by again!" The conductor stood transfixed, as if he
had heard the ghost...To be continued
Tomorrow: Nightout at Gopinatham Village
Part I
Part II
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