My bedroom door slams open. “Didi, Didi, aajao! Didi, jaldiiiii!” (Sister come on! Hurry!) It slams shut again. Two pairs of feet race down the stairs from my room, skipping quite a few steps it sounds like.
I am in the middle of outlining the discussion topics for next week’s co-op meeting when this intriguing interruption occurs, and I don’t really want to stop what I am doing. But I am curious. Usually interruptions happen and the kids want to come into my room. They want to look through pictures or listen to music or play guitar. But this interruption was brief, and ended with the kids running back outside. I look out my window, and see everyone running to the fields. The kids, the co-op members, and even Sudhi and Devendra. I call out asking what happened. One of the kids turns back only long enough to yell “sher.” Lion. I grab my camera, and run to catch up.
Once I meet up with the crowd I get a few details. A lion was spotted in the jungle (which simply means “forest area” in Hindi) by some members of our village. It was recently dead when they found it. We walk through the low lying hill area until we get to the spot where the lion’s corpse was found. It is no longer there, I am told—they moved the body to Haripura, a nearby village. We make the short trek to Haripura and see a crowd of perhaps fifteen people that is rapidly growing. I cannot see the body yet, but I see women covering their faces with their saris, presumably because of the smell in this heat.
I do not know what to think. I have read from several sources that lions disappeared from this area in the 1930s, and so I am doubtful. But this is
So the rumor of a lion was a little inflated. I would bet that whoever found the body actually thought it was a lion, since most of the villagers do not know what a lion really looks like. Anyways, it made for a fun afternoon adventure despite the heat, which is back as if our brief two months of semi-winter had never happened.
