The hunting season was on and the hunter was oiling his much-used gun. He was quietly humming a tuneless song, the reason for the suppressed giggles coming from the adjacent shed where his daughter and niece were husking paddy. As the giggles grew louder, he became aware that the girls were laughing at his efforts at singing. So he began to sing even louder and when he faltered at a particularly high note, all three of them burst out in unrestrained guffaws; the girls even let go of the husking pestle, spilling the half-husked paddy on to the mud floor. Almost immediately the chickens hovering outside the shed flocked in, cackling in glee to peck at the fallen grain. When the girls caught their breath, the niece called out, ‘Why are you so happy, uncle? Is there a big animal waiting for you?'

The hunter took a deep breath and replied, ‘Who knows? Maybe the big boar who has been eating our best paddy these past years will make an appearance soon. I am giving my gun a thorough cleaning so that this time I do not miss his heart.’

For the last five seasons, the hunter called Imchanok had been after this particularly vicious boar which had been devastating the rice paddies of the village and in his field; the animal chose to feast in the areas where he had planted the best variety of rice. When it happened for two consecutive years, his wife suggested that they change the site and accordingly they planted this variety on the western ridge of their vast field. But to no avail; the cussed boar somehow located that very portion to feast on. The animal, sighted by the villagers on several occasions, was reported to be of enormous proportions, had a lumbering gait, and two yellowish tusks curling backwards, almost touching his hump. Not only that, he seemed to have an equally vicious nature. He ate what he could and trampled over a wide area as if to inflict the maximum damage on the paddy. Strangely, Imchanok had so far not even had a fleeting glimpse of this notorious animal, though it was on his paddy that the most damage was done. Many a night during the cold winter he had kept vigil, waiting for the boar to come to his paddy, but it seemed the animal sensed his presence from a distance and went on to other fields. As he thought of the prospect of felling this animal, whom by now he considered to be his enemy, his hands flew up and down the barrel with the greased-cloth, removing the slightest sign of earlier firings. Even the butt of the gun shone with the newly applied coat of varnish. He then stood the gun on the side of the barn and went inside to check the cartridges. He had recently bought a full packet and had lent only two of them to his closest friend, in return for which he had received a whole hind-leg of a sambar which his friend had shot. Having satisfied himself that he was ready for the big encounter, he came out to fetch the sun-warmed gun, took it inside, wrapped it in its special cloth and shoved it into the top of the wooden almirah in his bedroom.

That evening when his wife, Tangchetla, came home from the field, she found him in a very jovial mood holding forth amongst the regular visitors, sitting beside a roaring fire sipping black tea. Gauging their mood she instantly knew that the reason could be nothing less than another sighting of the dreaded boar. This animal had begun to haunt the waking moments of all the menfolk during the harvest season; whose field would be the next site of this marauder’s devastation, everyone wondered. This was now the sixth year and with every passing year they were becoming more desperate, as there seemed to be no one, not even a famous hunter like Imchanok, who could rid them of this menace. For Imchanok, it had become a personal contest, between two strong-willed beings. 

Imchanok’s fame as a skilled hunter had grown over the years. He was a teacher in the village Lower Primary School but that identity had long been eclipsed by that of the hunter. In this capacity he had also received a reward from the government when a rogue elephant had to be shot after it had destroyed several acres of farmland, many homesteads and trampled a number of people to death. There were other hunters in his village and neighbouring ones too, but every single one of them had declined the offer from the government. In fact they had all said that if there was any hunter who could match the cunning of the rogue elephant and kill him, it was Imchanok. So when the offer came to him, it was more in the nature of an order. The Deputy Commissioner sent a Dobhashi with an elephantshooting rifle and ammunition. They told Imchanok that he could ask for any assistance from the Village Council for the hunt; he was given seven days to accomplish the task. 

This was a most extraordinary situation, one for which Imchanok was totally unprepared. It was one thing to choose when, where, and what to hunt but quite another to be faced with the real challenge. Inwardly he began to fume and say to himself, ‘What do these sahibs know about the jungle? Do they think that the elephant will be waiting at a convenient place for me to go and shoot him? Don’t they know how intelligent these animals are, that they can almost think like human beings? And the area that they can cover when they decide to run?’ 

But it was an order from the government and he had to comply. Somewhere along the communication process there was even a faint hint of threat: that those who refused to cooperate in this matter might find their hunting licences suspended or even revoked! The other consideration was his reputation as top hunter of the region. Either way, he found himself committed to a hunt that presented itself in such a strange way. So he enlisted the assistance of his most trusted hunting partners and sent them out on a reconnaissance mission to the areas where the rampages had taken place. When they returned with their findings, they held what can be termed as a war council. They debated long into the night and after a few hours’ sleep towards the morning, resumed their discussion to give a final shape to their plan. All the members of this group, being skilled trekkers in the jungle, and knowledgeable in the habits of wild animals, chose a spot in the thick valley to set a trap for the big animal. They knew that because of sentries being posted at strategic points around the cultivated areas, the elephant had gone back to foraging in the deep jungle. The spot they chose was one that had not been visited by it yet. It took the seven men most of the day to dig a hole wide and deep enough to hold a full-grown bull elephant. Next, they carefully camouflaged the hole with branches and leaves brought from a different area. 

Retreating to their vantage point, they ate cold rice and drank black tea to await the animal’s visit. The first night ended but there was no sign of the animal. Towards the evening of the second day, it began to rain and the hunters hurriedly covered their weapons to keep the rain out of the barrels. Besides the official elephant-hunting rifle, three others had carried their double-barrelled guns as additional precaution; there could be other dangerous animals too. But Imchanok was praying that no other animal would appear to upset their carefully-laid-down plan. The second night dragged on; the hunters were wet, hungry and terribly afraid. Only Imchanok seemed unperturbed; he was taking imaginary aims with the gunsight, inwardly wishing that he had had an opportunity to test his aim with this unaccustomed weapon, which was in his hand for the first time. But he had enough confidence in his own skill as a marksman and prayed that there would be no distraction at the crucial moment. As the night progressed, the jungle grew quieter and quieter. Even the watchers became less alert and appeared to be in the grip of that great stillness that only a dark slumbering jungle can induce. Imchanok was fully awake; he sensed the weariness in his companions and let them doze for a few precious moments before nudging the nearest one awake with a gentle kick to his side. As the chain of similar kicks went round, everyone sat up and tried to adjust his vision in the eerie darkness that seemed to have swallowed up the lush green jungle. They waited, each lost in his thoughts. Then came the time in the dying night when you think that day is breaking but cannot see anything except darkness though the daybreak is so clear in your mind. This sensation came first to Imchanok and he silently shifted his body-weight from left to right. The one next to him caught this movement and did the same; then the next and the next until every single man held his position as if freshly energized by this slightest of movements. 

The first signal that there was other life in the jungle came from the frantic flutter of a wild fowl perched on a tall tree some distance away. The hunters tensed up in their positions and waited. The ensuing silence somehow depressed them; another day would go unrewarded. Then all at once the jungle echoed with the wild cries of monkeys perched on every conceivable tree; they were truly frightened of something. In the distance the faint swirling of mist could be seen dispersing in the retreating darkness, ushering the break of day. The screeching went on for some time before the hunters realized that there was another sound in the general din. At first it sounded like the yell of bigger monkeys, but when Imchanok listened carefully, he stood up in his place and hissed to the others, ‘He is here.’ Quietly each hunter went to his assigned position and once again stood still like a statue behind the covers erected earlier. Imchanok had the highest vantage point, and holding his rifle at the ready, he waited there to face this unfamiliar adversary.

The elephant took his own time straying to the appointed area. He seemed completely at ease, breaking a twig here and peeling a bark there as though eager to taste everything that came his way. Several times he stopped in an open space to have a dust bath, but the earth was still moist from the night; he stomped on the earth in mild irritation. He was still quite a way off and except Imchanok, the others were either too scared to look, or were unable to have a clear view of the elephant’s morning meanderings. At one stage the elephant seemed to stand still, as if in deep concentration; from the distance Imchanok saw this and became alarmed. Had he by any chance detected some tell-tale signs of their activities? If so, the animal might run away in fright or worse still, might even try to take revenge by charging at the hunters. But as he continued to watch the animal which appeared huge even from this distance, he heard a low growl which grew in volume until the animal expelled his body-waste, delicately side-stepped the lump and proceeded to demolish more bushes and branches on his way. Imchanok had seen elephant dung before in the jungle and he remembered how the huge lumps would emit a foul smell in the early morning sun. 

In the brightening light of the morning the elephant looked calm and serene, happily devouring the young plants and tall grass in his vicinity. He appeared to be in no hurry; he even tried lying down once but got up immediately. He flapped his enormous ears and began enjoying a dust bath now that the loose earth had dried up, scooping it up with his trunk and blowing it all over his flanks. From his position, Imchanok watched his antics with growing concern, the distance between him and the animal being beyond the range of his gun. Besides, the trap-hole that they had dug was too far away. When the elephant was shot, they hoped, he would head for the area where the hole was and would be trapped there. Then the final shot could be fired to his skull through the eyes which every hunter knew was the only shot that could kill an elephant. So another waiting game began.

By now it was full daylight and the other hunters too could see the animal from their various vantage points. The initial terror of the unknown was relieved by the spectacle they witnessed. Confident that at that distance they would not be visible to their prey, they began to watch him in silent fascination. But not for long, because the increasing heat of the day was beginning to tell on the elephant’s behaviour and he started to blow his trunk in distress. He rushed headlong into the jungle in search of a shady spot and moved towards the clump of bushes carefully arranged near the hole by the hunters earlier. But before entering the spot which seemed to offer some shade, he stood still in his tracks, darting glances in all directions. He was now close enough for Imchanok to attempt a shot. But the hunter was not sure if the others had already moved to their secondary positions of safety, chosen earlier for just such a moment. The elephant sensed danger and tried to retreat, but his huge body moved sluggishly. The slow turning of his head was all that Imchanok needed. Taking careful aim, he fired twice in rapid succession into what he hoped were his eyes. The first shot caught the animal full face, stunning him. He turned around and that is how the second bullet entered his brain through the ears and lodged there. Imchanok loaded again and fired two more times. At least one of the two bullets must have hit him because the animal seemed to totter. 

Imchanok watched in awe and terrified fascination the slow careening of the dying animal as he tried to keep his balance and still move away. But the bullets had surely found their mark because the huge animal toppled over with a last ear-splitting roar from his trunk. He did not fall into the hole as they had planned but was killed anyway. Later, Imcha brushed aside the praises for his shooting skill and claimed that it was only through divine intervention that he was able to fire at the precise moment when he did. A moment earlier or later, and the bullets would have simply glanced off the thick hide, merely enraging the rogue and putting all of them in mortal danger. 

When it was considered safe enough to approach the site, all of them stood in a circle and watched from a safe distance as the life-force oozed out of the huge creature, till the last great heave and the eventual stillness of the huge carcass. As he watched this mysterious process, Imchanok happened to look into the unblinking, unseeing eye of his adversary, lying there so helpless, divested of his menacing power for destruction. Was it his imagination? He would wonder forever because he thought he saw tears in those beady eyes and something else: it was as though the dying animal were trying to convey some message to his destroyer which remained frozen in time; this was to haunt Imchanok for a very long time. The experienced hunter had never once in his hunting career thought of the animals that he shot as anything but legitimate bounty. Killing the elephant however was something else. Previously, he, the hunter had been in control all the time and chosen what and when to kill; but it was not so with the huge elephant lying dead before them. The prey had been ‘allotted’ to him. The sense of accomplishment that he used to enjoy after every kill was missing. True, there was no doubt in his mind that killing the elephant was the only way of ensuring safety for innocent villagers and their fields. But why did it have to be he who was placed, in this particular instance, at the centre of the eternal contest between man and animal for dominion over the land?

Imchanok the hunter became even more famous after this episode; he was given a cash award and offered a fine gun. He accepted the money which he shared with his hunting partners but refused to accept the gun, saying that he already had a gun and one gun was enough for any hunter. The administrators were puzzled by his refusal but did not press him any further. What they failed to understand was that Imchanok did not want to be obliged to them beyond accepting payment for services rendered. He had resolved in his mind that never again would he undertake any such task, government order or otherwise. If he took the gun from the government, he surmised, he would forfeit his freedom of choice.

Whatever his private thoughts about this incident, Imcha’s present worry was the havoc caused by the old boar. The depredation of cultivated fields was a recurrent disaster for the villagers; but not on the scale of this particular animal’s savagery. He remembered one harvest season a long time ago when a pack of monkeys used to eat his grain at the half-way hut on the outskirts of the village. Before there were motorable roads, villagers used to shift the harvested paddy to such half-way huts from where the women and even children would carry the grain to the barns in the village. Since the trek from the fields in the valley was steep these halfway houses reduced not only the distance but also spared them the arduous uphill climb. In this manner, transportation of the harvest was made easy for them. But these huts became the favourite foraging spots for the monkeys because they were not afraid of the women and children who were the only ones to be found there. Not only would the animals eat and spoil the grain, they would often try to intimidate them by baring their fangs and shrieking loudly; sometimes they actually attacked the helpless women and children. There was one particularly vicious male in the group which appropriated Imchanok’s half-way hut, and it became dangerous for the womenfolk to try to take the grain out when this group was feeding there. When this was reported to him, he devised a plan to shoot the male in order to scare away the other monkeys.

He allowed the monkeys to feel free and unafraid to feed there by stopping his wife and her party from going there for two days. On the third day he went there at the crack of dawn armed with his trusted gun, and hid himself in a corner of the hut. As expected, the group of monkeys led by the cocky male came after daybreak to feast there. After scattering noisily over the mound of paddy they began their daily ritual of not only eating the same but the babies in the group even started throwing the grain at one another in play, so uncannily like human children. Imchanok was distracted by this spectacle for a while. But when he looked at the huge male, he saw that the monkey had become aware of his presence and had begun to call out in distressed tones, trying to herd them out of the hut. At the same time he was feigning attacks on Imchanok who had by now come out of hiding. Since he was not concerned with the other members, Imchanok took careful aim at the leader and pulled the trigger. But the monkey was quick in dodging the bullet which hit him only on his fat flank. Even then he did not yield; he stood there until his entire group had managed to get out of the hut through the single door. Only then did he try to get away. But the injury to his flank was serious and he became immobile on the spot where he had stood to protect his family. When Imchanok took aim once again, the monkey raised his arms as though in surrender or supplication, and slowly covered his eyes even as the hunter released the fatal shot to his heart. With a groan he toppled over on the ground and lay there motionless. After making sure that the animal was truly dead, Imchanok went to the village and sent his nephews to bring the carcass home.

There was much rejoicing in his family; not only because the menace of the monkeys seemed to have been taken care of, but also because there would be plenty of meat for them for many days. The carcass of the monkey was placed in the front courtyard for all to see. It was kept in a sitting position, its head propped up by a bamboo from behind and in this position it looked truly human! One of the nephews, a prankster by disposition, found a hat from somewhere and put it on the animal’s head; someone else brought a cigarette and put it in its mouth. The crowning glory of this circus was a pair of goggles and this was ceremoniously placed above its flat nose. The dressing-up being complete, Imchanok was called out of the house, and when he saw the transformed monkey, something burst in him. He advanced to the sitting monkey and began to slap it alternately on each cheek, cursing it all the time. With the first slap, the cigarette fell out of the monkey’s mouth; with the next, the pair of goggles, which was sitting precariously anyway. After a few more slaps the monkey toppled over once more, this time with his legs and forepaws all pointing skywards, stiff, in death. The out-stretched arms seemed to parody its dying moments when it had seemed to be supplicating before his executioner. Imchanok advanced to the grimacing animal and shouted, ‘So, you wanted to destroy me by stealing my paddy, did you? Look at you now. You scared and bullied my womenfolk; where are yours now? Another male will take them over while I cut you up and feed my people with your flesh.'

The earlier mood of noisy merry-making now gave way to one of astonished silence at the vehemence of Imchanok’s railing. This alerted Tangchetla that something was amiss and she too came out of the house. When she saw her husband’s face, she quickly grabbed his hand and pulled him into the house. By the time the monkey was skinned, gutted and cut into pieces, some communication must have passed between husband and wife because when a nephew came into the kitchen looking for Tangchetla’s biggest pot that had been used on earlier occasions like this, she flatly refused to give it saying, ‘You can use the big karhai where the pig-feed is cooked. No utensil from my kitchen will be used for this meat.’ The nephew, though surprised by this, was in a hurry to cook the meat; so he had to make do with the karhai. The unusual outburst from Imchanok, and his wife’s strange refusal to lend their biggest pot however, could not dampen the spirit of celebration among his friends and relatives. They continued drinking and eating the meat late into the night. Tangchetla refused to allow any of the meat to be brought into her kitchen and told the eldest nephew to distribute all the remaining meat to relatives and neighbours, adding that it was her husband’s instructions.

Imchanok then did a strange thing. He instructed his wife not to pick up any more grain from the hut where the monkey had been killed. She protested saying there were at least twenty to thirty basketfuls, how could they afford to lose so much? But her husband was adamant: he would not contaminate his main barn by bringing in paddy soiled by a pack of monkeys and tainted with the blood of the leader. So the half-way hut was abandoned with all the grain inside, on which birds and animals feasted for many days. Though the site on which the hut stood was most ideal, no other villager ever built another hut there. Within a year or two the hut disintegrated and was swept away by the summer rains. But villagers still identify the spot where it had stood as Imchanok’s bend because it was located at a turning of the jungle path.

The passage of years and the exigencies of a hard life in the village dulled this hunter’s sporadic qualms about hunting. Though the spectre of the ‘supplicating’ monkey troubled his mind for quite some time, he went back to his old way of thinking of hunting as a necessary supplement to gathering food for an increasingly large family. And now once again, an extraordinary situation had presented itself in the form of this rampaging boar to challenge Imchanok as a provider for and protector of his family’s very existence. Of late he was also beginning to feel his age; he was no longer as fearless or agile in the forests anymore. So he had started taking a younger person, either a nephew or a friend’s son, to accompany him on hunting trips. Also, he would spend more time in preparation for such forays into the jungle. As the boar’s depredations increased in frequency and scale, Imchanok decided to go first on a reconnaissance trip to the devastated areas which included his own ripened fields. For this trip, he asked his favourite nephew to accompany him and they set out one early winter morning for the rice fields in the valley.

Imchanok decided that they would not take the usual path but take a detour through a more densely forested area. He told his nephew that he was trying out an idea about the haunts of this very cunning animal which had become the bane of all the villagers. They walked in single file, the old hunter leading the way. His experienced eyes detected some disturbances in the shrubbery around but he did not lay too much significance on that and they marched on. The winter sun that day seemed to radiate a lot of heat and as midday approached Imchanok called for a halt and, choosing a shady spot, the two of them sat down for a much-needed rest. They ate their noon meal at leisure and the nephew went to a nearby stream to collect water in a freshly-cut bamboo container. He was gone for quite some time; in the meantime Imchanok dozed off. When he woke up, his nephew was patiently waiting with the water for his uncle. After washing his face and taking a refreshing drink, they resumed their journey.

As they neared a patch of thick forest reputed to be haunted the nephew was visibly scared. His uncle laughed off his apprehension and started to sing a song. Before he could complete a line, they heard a commotion and the young man turned on his heels and ran back the way they had come. The old hunter was rooted to the spot: the spectacle before him was indescribable. He thought it looked like a boar but no earthly boar could be this big or so black. The animal seemed to tower over everything around him, so huge did he appear. But Imchanok knew that if he were to escape, he had to stun or kill the creature with his first shot. With the instinct of the skilled hunter that he was, he aimed at the head and squeezed the trigger more as an act of self-defence than with the intent to kill. Luckily for Imchanok, the bullet seemed to have found its target because the animal took one gigantic leap and plummeted into the dark forest. There was stillness after that. Mindful of the danger of facing a wounded animal, he carefully retreated the way they had come in the morning wondering what had happened to his nephew. As he retraced his steps, he kept looking back, expecting at any moment to see the huge animal charging at him. But each time, he was relieved to see that there was nothing behind him. 

The sun was dipping on the horizon and Imchanok was beginning to feel a little cold, from the cooling day as well as from the release of intense tension. At the next bend he found his nephew, huddled on his haunches and shivering. He looked wordlessly at his uncle and managed a sheepish grin. The older man lifted him up and made him walk in front, unlike the order when they had set out from the village. Contrary to their easy banter of the morning, the two now walked on silently all the way to the village. When they reached Imchanok’s house, they found a lot of people waiting for their return, wanting to know if they had seen any sign of the beast. Neither of them responded to their queries at first; but eventually Imchanok spoke: ‘I think I have shot the boar.’ At this the entire group burst into shouts of joy and relief. They began to ask all sorts of questions, to which the hunter only said, ‘I have never seen anything like this before in my life and I don’t want to have anything to do with it.’ 

‘But you have to show us where you shot it; otherwise how can we go looking for the carcass?’ Imchanok kept quiet and when pressed further, he simply told them, ‘Tomorrow is another day and let’s wait for what it brings to us.’

The next morning the village sentries brought news that there was no sign of the boar or even the lesser ones in the paddy fields throughout the night. This was interpreted as confirmation of the killing of this menace and the villagers once more requested Imchanok to give them directions so that they could organize the search party to collect the carcass. Being convinced that the boar was indeed dead, he told them the direction that he and his nephew had taken the previous day. The villagers were taken by surprise, and an elder asked, ‘But what prompted you to take this route? Didn’t you know that it goes directly through the haunted forest?'

Imchanok replied, ‘Yes, but something inside me kept urging me to follow that path. And in fact the boar will be found right at the entrance to the forest.’ When asked if he too was going to accompany them, Imchanok replied, ‘My job is done; I want to rest for a long time.’

So a party of twenty able-bodied young men was formed to go in search of the carcass of the boar and haul it home. Before setting out, they decided that because of its bulk the animal would be slaughtered in such a way as to make four loads, each load to be carried by four men. The rest would then relieve them in turns so that there would always be four men as lookouts. The group, armed with daos, spears and a gun marched out of the village with much joking and laughing in anticipation of the big feast that would take place after their return from the successful search. They reached the general area in pretty good time because the anticipation of bringing home such a prize had put a spring to their gait. They set out in groups of five in different directions. The men going towards the entry to the forest detected what they thought was dried blood on twigs; a little further off, they discovered a spot where the tall grass was flattened in a peculiar manner. They surmised that the boar had fallen on that spot but beyond this there was no other indication to show where the wounded animal had vanished. Unable to detect any more tell-tale signs, they came back to the designated location to meet with the other parties who were already there with similar stories. Though the countryside was dotted with tantalizing bits of dried blood, there were no other promising leads to launch another foray into the jungle. They returned to the village a dejected lot.

The search for the boar’s carcass was carried on for two more days, covering a vast area but with the same result: no sign of that monster, dead or alive, anywhere. In the meantime a strange phenomenon was unfolding: Imchanok, the famed hunter who had never been known to suffer from any serious illness, took to bed complaining of severe headaches. He lay there listless and did not allow any visitors into his room. Even his own children were kept out; the only person who administered to him was his wife. His paddy was harvested by relatives and well-wishers and brought home. 

Only Tangchetla knew what went on at night. Imchanok, the fearless hunter, would shriek out in his sleep crying, ‘Look at him, he is as big as a barn and as black as charcoal.’ Then he would begin to whimper in Tangchetla’s arms, ‘I am afraid, woman, he is going to come after me.’ It took all her cajoling and consoling to coax him into sleep. This strange phenomenon was further complicated by Imchanok’s refusal to eat anything. After several nights of this, out of desperation she suggested to him that they should go to the exact spot from where he had fired his gun and ask for forgiveness from the creature so that Imchanok’s nightmares would end. At first Imchanok was sceptical and dismissed her advice as ‘woman-talk’. But she continued to nag him throughout the day and even threatened to tell his father about his strange dreams. He still hesitated for another week and the nightmares continued. After a particularly trying experience, Imchanok turned to his wife and said, ‘Let’s do it.'

So the next morning, husband and wife set out from the village, much to the surprise of friends and relatives. The man looked calm and composed with no sign of any illness, either on his face or in his demeanour. The most surprising thing was that for the first time in his life the hunter was without his gun. The couple looked as though they were going out for a stroll. When they were nearing the area, Imchanok became visibly tense but Tangchetla pretended not to notice and choosing a shady spot lay out their mid-day meal on the ground. Imchanok began to eat the simple food with relish and declared that his wife’s cooking never tasted as good as this in the house. After finishing his meal, Imchanok told his wife that he was going to the stream for a drink. Not wishing to let him go alone in his present state of mind, she followed him after a short while. When she reached the bank, she saw her husband standing in the stream holding something to his breast. She called out and asked him what he was doing. He did not seem to hear her at first. She called out his name once again and asked him what he had in his hand. This time he turned slowly towards her and held up a boar’s tooth, the aged bone washed clean by the stream, shining like ivory. Wordlessly he pointed to a nearby clump of bushes where tufts of black fur lay strewn among what appeared to be the bones of a huge animal. On their way back, Imchanok stood on the very spot from where he had fired the fatal shot and did a strange thing. He tore out a tuft of his hair and blew it towards the haunted forest, and without a backward glance retraced his steps towards the village. Tangchetla followed him, full of awe and wonder at the mystery surrounding the killing of this beast. And that night, for the first time since the boar hunt, Imchanok slept like a baby in his wife’s embrace.

Though his nightmares vanished, Imchanok was gripped by the mystery of the bizarre closure of the boar’s killing. The couple decided not to say anything about the discovery of the tooth and bones and they resumed their normal activities as if nothing untoward had happened. But Imchanok’s mind went back constantly to the day that he had stood in the stream holding the boar’s tooth and how, before leaving the forest, some inner urge had compelled him to enact the strange ritual. But the most acute of those recollections was how he had felt a new sensation, as if a new power was surging within him. Outwardly he behaved as if nothing extraordinary had happened; but inwardly he began to question the failure of expert trekkers to locate the carcass of such a big animal which had not strayed far from where he was shot. And why was it left for him, the hunter, to discover the remains?

He pondered over this for many days and inexorably all his earlier qualms after killing the elephant and the monkey returned to haunt him anew. He became listless and morose; some days he would sit by himself and re-live the life of Imchanok the hunter and his earlier sense of pride about his skill and reputation as a famous hunter, would be replaced by shame and regret. Tangchetla noticed this but kept her counsel, taking solace in the fact that Imchanok’s gun was securely wrapped in the same bundle since the boar hunt.

One day when he was alone in the house, he took out his gun from its sack, and dismantled it. The next morning, Tangchetla watched as her husband dug a hole in the backyard humming a tuneless song. And in that gaping wound of the earth he buried the boar’s tooth, the dismantled gun and Imchanok the hunter.  

 TEMSULA AO is a professor at the department of English, and the dean of School of Humanities and Education, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. She is the author of eight books, including five books of poetry and a collection of short stories, These Hills Called Home: Stories from a War Zone, published by Zubaan–Penguin (2006). A member of the General Council of the Sahitya Akademi, she was awarded the Padma Shree in 2007.