Several metres away, the foliage parted to reveal two horns and a patch of black larger than the most enormous tree trunk.
The animal was the size of a small elephant; its feral breathing rattled my chest.
It was a gaur, and everything shifted into slow motion on its thundering arrival.
Gaurs are the largest wild cattle in the world—a pure force of nature encased in one ton of muscle. They grow up to six feet at the shoulder and an impressive pair of horns crown their television-sized heads.
I crouched on all fours. My vision tunnelled. My heart didn't get stuck in my throat; it leapt out of my body and fled, instantly freezing my blood.
The gaur looked in my direction and snorted. Every inch of my body understood its command: don't move.
As a child, I'd read numerous colonial accounts of British officers grotesquely gored by gaurs. As I stared at black death in the face, I could see the next day's newspaper headline: "18-year-old Bangalorean trampled by gaur in Agumbe, Karnataka." Journalists would call me a foolish city boy who went to the jungle and messed with a wild animal.
The gaur fixed its furious black eyes on me. To it, I was a threat. How that massive beast could perceive my slender frame as a threat is beyond me. It was as desperate to survive as I was. And it thought I could inflict upon it the same damage it could do to me.
The gaur took a step forward. I stayed low. The gaur moved closer. The air was heavy with dread—elemental and all-powerful.
My heart was ramming against my ribcage—a crescendo I didn't want to end. I didn't want to die.
After a numbing eternity, the creature grunted. With a sweeping motion, it turned and trotted back into the jungle. A wisp of black and white was all I saw as it vanished into the foliage.
It took me a solid ten minutes to regain my bearings. My knees gradually coalesced back into shape. The panic left as a primal awareness coursed back into my body.
There is never an armistice in the wild. One must forever be vigilant. Who knows what lurks beyond the next bush?
What I did was reckless. On my stroll, after I stopped looking for the leopard, I let my guard down. I stopped paying careful attention to my surroundings. If I was more alert, I might have heard the gaur trudging through the bush.
In the jungle, every sound has a meaning. A chirp here, a tweet there, a snapping twig behind a bush—each hinting at any number of possibilities.
From then on, I vowed to always keep my ears open.
At one end of the KCRE station is an opening in the forest where a jungle stream swells into a large pond at least 40 feet across.
Trees surround it on all sides—the perfect setting for a jungle swim.
On my past visits, I spent a lot of time swimming in the pond, watching the tadpoles skitter away at my approach. It soon became one of my favourite spots around the station.
Towards my last days helping with the research, I headed there for a swim. While I walked, I kept an eye out for gaurs.
Cormorants flapped into the forest as my feet touched the water. The sun glowed, and the jungle settled into its mellow warmth. The light bounced off the water onto a dead tree submerged in the shallows. The ripples made the light dance on the tree trunk, causing a halo-like effect.
I swam towards a small set of rapids from where water flowed into the pond. Spider webs were suspended a few centimetres above the fast-flowing water—in ambush, waiting to ensnare an erratic damselfly. What confidence these arachnids had in their handiwork. One stray wave and they'd be washed away downstream.
I looked around, wondering what animals eyed me from their hideouts. I hoped there weren't any gaurs around. Still, it was fascinating to think about what lay behind the next bush, under the next leaf, and beyond the next tree. It is the very lure wildlife had drawn on to drag me deeper into their forests.
After the swim, I tallied up my species count to report to Daimler and Sujay at the station. As I did this, I knew the question that would arise—"Any snakes?"
As I thought this, the head of a checkered keelback slithered into my vision. It peeked out from underneath a log just a few feet away. Both serpent and human, in the water, sharing the same pond—meeting at eye level above the surface.
I imagined what my family would think if they knew of this close encounter. I was swimming with a serpent a few feet from me. But there was nothing hostile about that snake. Suspicion glimmered in its eyes. It was probably baffled to see a biped swimming in its pond. After a few seconds, it slipped under the log.
I thought the keelback would only hold its breath for a few minutes, so I found some pebbles nearby to stand on. There, I waited.
After five minutes, its head poked out, this time a little lower down the log. Eyes fixed on me, it flicked its tongue back and forth.
What followed was a series of back-and-forth encounters as we anticipated the other's move. I stayed rooted there, bare-chested and cold to the bone. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but the snake looked as if saying, "I will outlast you!"
Time faded into the background. Shivers ran down my spine. My heels dug into the pebbles. Static agony. At least four species of fish nibbled at my toes, whisking away slivers of dead skin.
The snake, however, showed no signs of wearing out. It stayed put, its tongue flickering to demonstrate that it was still alive.
At last, I couldn't take it anymore. My toes were so numb they didn't feel like my own. The jungle's splendour blinked in and out of focus. I had to get out now.
As I backed away, I could swear I saw triumph glint in the snake's eyes. It endured what I couldn't. Ten metres of space grew between us when the serpent turned tail and slithered off. I made for the bank, eager to get into my clothes.
When I looked at my watch, I was astonished to learn that an hour had passed. An hour spent just staring at a snake. An hour in that chilly, rainforest pond. Gosh. No wonder my skin felt icy to the touch. I would have fallen sick if I hadn't pulled out when I did.
Excerpted with permission from The Light of Wilder Things by Ishan Shanavas and published by Stark World Publishing. Buy it here.
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