Some blokes sitting near the panchayat ghar in the dying evening and indulging in idle gossip casually talked about seeing 'Baagh' (Tiger) in the vicinity of village. Now Baagh is pretty rare these days, crores are spent on counting them and keeping them alive in reserve forests. I have serious doubt if a tiger is loose on the neighborhood. For one thing a tiger carries a bounty for poachers so sighting would most certainly attract them besides any sighting would also alert the forest officials. And secondly a terrified villager even though knowing the difference between a tiger and a leopard, may identify a leopard to be a tiger. Leopards are a lot more adaptive and deceptive to its environment therefore have survived in larger number. The village folks might have seen a leopard.....Although 'Reech' (bear) is quite another beast one can see while one cannot dismiss menace of boars in the village. Now to cultivate in a village you need to fence the field. This is too much work so nobody cultivates....Malya is an exception. With plentiful water cascading down hill I went round the village and saw barricaded field growing 'mungri' ( corn). Atop charak ki daaNd 'kaa phal' tree were also abloom but there was no time to climb up the hill... The gullibility of villagers is amazing. You have to be there to note conviction in their assertion while drawing smoke from hookah and exhaling thick dark cloud in air.......
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