Dating back to childhood days, perhaps when I was 8 years old, during which time I was no better than a little stupid child wandering all over like a kid suffering from attention deficit disorder. It brings me smiles to reminisce about the past which had been full of adventures, laughable incidences and the times were sufferings didn't recognize me much(he was little foreign to me that time, but now, he is my intimate friend so hard to part)
One day, my elder brother, two other elder friends and myself went to herd cows. We were cow boys that time especially during winter vacations. As expected, we would have fun in the forests by cutting trees, chasing wild cocks(wouldn't get one), blowing flute(hardly knew), eating different types of wild fruits and not to forget fighting and so on. We wouldn't really know when to take our cattle home. None of us possessed watches that time and fortunately a bird would sing everyday almost around 4-5pm indicating that evening has come. It had been nature's beautiful synchronicity and gift for us that time , which even to these days I hear them when I get to my village..
Honestly, that day wasn't really good for us. We were kind of idiotic to have engrossed in our own worlds and when we realized, it was almost closer to twilight. We were tensed and horrified which left me blank. We started calling the names of cows, shouted at them and urged them to walk(cows are humanely and they understand human language which is amazing).
Unfortunately, the way was too small for cows to travel, and there was a big cliff all over. We were trapped in the dark valley full of trees. They almost landed up fighting each other, which if happened would have worsened the situation(little fortunate midst the dark side). My elders who were suppose to make decisions were terrified and couldn't make one. We all wanted to leave without cows but then , we couldn't because we were afraid of the dark valley where we had to cross on the way to home. It is indeed a dangerous place that I feel reluctant to travel even to this day.
It was dark by then, our cows seemingly started finding their sleeping places. We had no where to go and my elders started climbing one tree( it wasn't that huge, and luckily it didn't break). I had to follow them and obviously I was the last man from the bottom and had there been tigers around, I would have been the first one to have had fed him(just a little joke). Well, we were holding onto the small branches of the tree, and below us were some cows sleeping and happily regurgitating, thinking we were guarding them. We were all tired and almost felt like sleeping on the tree and had we fallen down, we would have landed either onto cows body or horns but fortunately we didn't(good for us as well as for the cows as it avoided grievous accident ).
It was hard time for us. We were chanting 'BAZA GURU', the only thing that we knew about religion that time and amazingly that gave us courage against darkness. I remember the palpitations of my heart, the tremor of fear aggravated by little cold breeze and it was really daunting to me being in the bottom of three of them( seems like I did little good act by lessening their fear, but this is my thought, I didn't ask them whether it did or not)
We got more and more exhausted ,but wouldn't climb down due to fear. To my surprise, it was real names of ours being echoed in the valley and I shouted. I thought I was the first one to respond but it was all of us shouting together so promptly. I remember those voices powered by hope when our parents called us and I also remember when our voices were emotional, like a crying baby who would ask his or her mother in want of milk(now imagine how it had been?). Then, after some time of waiting with confidence and happiness, our parents came to us with lights lit from bundle of spliced bamboos( try to picturesque now, it is beautiful, isn't it?) and we went home happily. It became a hard night to forget especially for me but it was a real test of adventure with nature and I am now cherishing how lucky I was not to have fallen from the lucky tree( I am planning to visit that place one fine day to see if that tree still exists or been cut).
