The Small Tigers of Shergarh

Ranjit Lal

Description

Orphaned in a car accident, fourteen-year-old Shikha and five-year-old Sunny reach Shergarh House, on the edge of the Shergarh Tiger Reserve, to live with their uncle Binoy, an eccentric painter. In the company of Aslambhai (a retired forest guard) and his mischievous grandson Ali, the children enter a new world; that of the sights and sounds of the jungle. Encouraged by Field Director Mr Rana's daughter, Dipti, and watched over by her family, the children begin to enjoy their forays into the reserve and get inexorably drawn into the lives of the reserve's magnificent tigers; macho 'doofus'shahenshah, ferocious Sheba and even terrifying Shaitan. But then, Veena aunty, a.k.a. 'Snail Snot', turns up, a 'social worker'who is set to inveigle herself into Binoy chacha's life and who wants to discredit the reserve in whatever way she can as part of her 'Good Work'. Accompanied by her unpleasant cousin, the slimeball Randhir, and his equally dubious friends, she is determined to send the children to separate boarding schools by whatever means possible. As the two hatch their diabolical plans, the children's lives seem ready to fall apart, again. But will the doughty Shikha allow that to happen? Will Sunny, struck dumb by the shock of the car crash, stop clinging to his sister and speak again? Will the two children, who run away into the reserve pursued by Veena, Randhir and his cronies, survive the perils of the forest? Can 'the small tigers of Shergarh'turn the tables on the villains and live up to their name?

Sujets

• Young Adult
• Tigers
• Shergarh
• The Jungle Book
• Story
• Tiger
• Character
• Characters
• Jungle
• Fiction
• Le Livre de la jungle

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789351940692
• Langue: English

Extrait

About the book
Orphaned in a car accident, fourteen-year-old Shikha and five-year-old Sunny reach Shergarh House, on the edge of the Shergarh Tiger Reserve, to live with their uncle Binoy, an eccentric painter. In the company of Aslam bhai (a retired forest guard) and his mischievous grandson Ali, the children enter a new world; that of the sights and sounds of the jungle. Encouraged by Field Director Mr Rana’s daughter, Dipti, and watched over by her family, the children begin to enjoy their forays into the reserve and get inexorably drawn into the lives of the reserve’s magnificent tigers; macho ‘doofus’ shahenshah, ferocious Sheba and even terrifying Shaitan.
But then, Veena aunty, a.k.a. ‘Snail Snot’, turns up, a ‘social worker’ who is set to inveigle herself into Binoy chacha’s life and who wants to discredit the reserve in whatever way she can as part of her ‘Good Work’. Accompanied by her unpleasant cousin, the slimeball Randhir, and his equally dubious friends, she is determined to send the children to separate boarding schools by whatever means possible. As the two hatch their diabolical plans, the children’s lives seem ready to fall apart, again.
But will the doughty Shikha allow that to happen? Will Sunny, struck dumb by the shock of the car crash, stop clinging to his sister and speak again? Will the two children, who run away into the reserve pursued by Veena, Randhir and his cronies, survive the perils of the forest? Can ‘the small tigers of Shergarh’ turn the tables on the villains and live up to their name?

Ranjit Lal was born in Kolkata in 1955, and educated in Mumbai, graduating in Economics and Sociology. As a freelance writer and columnist, he has over a thousand articles, short stories, features and photo-features published in over fifty newspapers and magazines in India and abroad. He has special interest in areas like natural history, photography, humour, satire and automobiles, on which he writes for both adults and children. He is one of the few Indian journalists to write satire and humour on a sustained basis.
He has authored several books including The Crow Chronicles, The Life and Times of Altu Faltu, That Summer at Kalagarh, The Bossman Adventures, Enjoying Birds, Birds of Delhi, Birds from My Window, The Caterpillar Who Went on a Diet and Other Stories and When Banshee Kissed Bimbo . Ranjit Lal lives in Delhi.
ROLI BOOKS
This digital edition published in 2014
First published in 2006 by IndiaInk An Imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash- II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 40682000 Email: [e-mail] Website: www.rolibooks.com
Copyright © Ranjit Lal, 2006
All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic, mechanical, print reproduction, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of Roli Books. Any unauthorized distribution of this e-book may be considered a direct infringement of copyright and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Cover Design: Arati Subramanyam
eISBN: 978-93-5194-069-2
All rights reserved. This e-book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published.
1


I F ONLY THE TERRIBLE SCREECHING AND WHANGING WOULD stop echoing inside her head, Shikha thought, she might have some peace. Sometimes, it did disappear, but then always returned like some hideous and malicious banshee, especially when she lay down to sleep. At least now, the rhythmic clickety-clack of the train’s wheels drowned the sound, which was some relief. At her side, curled tightly like a pangolin, her small dark brother, Sunny slept, his long curving eyelashes fluttering slightly. On the berth across, Binoy chacha too had just woken up, his beard and hair all awry, making him look like a wild man from the woods. He glanced at her out of his intense hooded eyes and nodded, before feeling around in his kurta pocket for the first of the day’s filthy beedis that he smoked all the time.
‘Did you sleep well?’ he asked briefly, puffing with deep contentment, filling the compartment with the sharp reek of beedi. Shikha nodded.
‘Yes, chacha,’ she replied, giving him a small smile.
It wasn’t returned. Binoy chacha had put on his rimless spectacles and was getting to his feet.
‘Is the sound bothering you?’ he asked.
‘It comes and goes,’ Shikha admitted, shrugging as if it were no big deal.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said briefly. ‘You know what the doctor said … it will gradually disappear.’
‘Yes, chacha,’ she said, and glanced at her little brother.
Her uncle slid the door open and disappeared into the corridor, carrying his toilet bag with him. Shikha sighed, and looked out of the window. The sun was just lifting itself over the rim of the flat horizon, turning the scrubby desert-like countryside to gold. There were no proper trees, just thorn bushes and scrub, and sometimes a defiant acacia, all crooked and twisted by the harsh environment, being attacked by rangy looking goats. Occasionally, a few straight-backed women in flower bright ghagras – scarlet, pink, flame orange, yellow and magenta – filed past on a dusty path, carrying brass water pots, four storeys high, and never spilling a drop. A chocolate brown baby camel gambolled after its snooty looking mother, kicking its legs out this way and that, and Shikha wished Sunny could see that. The little boy stirred restlessly in his sleep, and then opened his eyes. At once, his hand reached out and he gripped his sister’s hand tightly, looking up at her, his big black eyes fixed on her face, but still frighteningly blank.
‘Hi, Sunny!’ Shikha said, wriggling an eyebrow. No smile, no sign of recognition, except that the grip on her hand tightened. ‘Come on now get up. We’ll go to the bathroom and get washed up. We should be arriving soon.’ He nodded seriously and sat up, his dark curly hair all tousled around his head but said nothing.
‘Hiya there babydolldimplechick, how’re you doin?’ That had been his appalling way of greeting her delivered in a ghastly Yankee drawl that he had picked up thanks to a recent passion for old American gangster movies. To be called ‘babydolldimplechick’ in front of all your friends by a precocious baby brother who barely reached your belly button while on tiptoe had not been amusing. But now … now he hadn’t said that for a whole month, what a relief, in fact he hadn’t said a single word at all, and that was just beginning to bother Shikha a little bit now. From incessant chatterbox to gupchup frightened rabbit – it was too much really.
‘He is in total shock,’ the doctors had said, wondering by what miracle these children had emerged outwardly virtually unscathed from the mangled wreck that had been their parents’ car. In order to avoid a headlong crash with a bus, their father had swerved to the left, the wheels on that side had hit a pile of earth and the car had flipped over, travelling and spinning a considerable distance on its roof emitting a shower of sparks as it swivelled and slid crazily all over the road at 70 kmph, shrieking protestingly before finally coming to a rest in a ditch. In the back, Shikha and Sunny had been asleep. Sunny was thrown squarely into Shikha’s lap as the car went over, and instinctively her arms had locked tightly around him, holding on to him for dear life. When there was silence and stillness once again, she opened her eyes and found herself staring at the big gaping hole where the rear windshield had been. Clutching Sunny, she wriggled out on her back, got shakily to her feet, hoisted him on to her shoulder and staggered out on the road. Already, her father’s colleagues who had been travelling with them in their car were racing towards the wreckage. She had thrust Sunny at them and collapsed – into a frightening coma that had lasted several weeks. She had awoken at last in a hospital bed to find herself staring at the gaunt, somewhat scary (and very hairy!) face of Binoy chacha, who told her that mama and papa had gone off on a journey and would return after a long, long time.
‘You mean they are dead?’ she whispered, her face going white, and feeling dizzy and faint, her heart feeling as though it had jumped off Mount Everest straight into the Marianas Trench, the deepest, darkest abyss in the world.
He nodded.
‘Where’s Sunny?’ she asked in panic sitting up, suddenly remembering carrying him out of the car, as the screeching rose up inside her head again like a shrieking banshee.
‘He’s all right,’ her uncle said. ‘The nurses are looking after him well!’
‘Is he hurt? Can I see him?’
‘Um … he’s not hurt. But he’s not well either. He hasn’t spoken since the accident.’
When they had taken her to see him, the little five year old had been tossing and turning restlessly in a cot. They had had to tie his small chubby arms and legs to the bed with soft cloth for several weeks, because he banged them about so hard he hurt himself. He saw her and leapt at her, and ever since had clung to her like a limpet. In two seconds she knew that something was dreadfully wrong with him.
Because two seconds stretched to five, to a minute, to two minutes, to ten – and Sunny had not said a word to her. He just clung to her like a baby orangutan.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ she asked. ‘Why doesn’t he say something?’
‘He’s got some sort of amnesia,’ Binoy chacha said. ‘You know when you forget who you are … he hasn’t forgotten that because he’s recognized you, but he’s forgotten how to talk.’
‘It’