::: Star Campus :::

Feature

Jungle Jeopardy

D.J. Ahmed

If you have spent a good part of your life sashaying down paved sidewalks and shiny shopping mall corridors, then you have no business traipsing about an unknown jungle without a guide, in bad light and with three other city slickers. Any fool would have known that. But we weren't fools. We were optimists. And not just any optimists, but optimists gripped by recklessness that a holiday can drum up.

We coated ourselves in mosquito repellant and assembled at the edge of the jungle, brimming with undisguised enthusiasm and well-concealed nervousness. Before setting off, we gave an once-over on the jungle rulesno plucking or snapping anything (unless it attacks you); no littering; stay together all the time; no lingering; and no poking fun at any flora or fauna.

It's true what they say about people only remembering the first and last items on a list. It took all of five minutes for WW to break Rule#3: stay together all the time! Assuming leadership position, she marched ahead in great strides leaving a faint trail of perfume for us to follow. GS scurried behind, shouting at her to slow down and bravely trying to keep up despite her bad leg. SB and I trudged at the back, eyes to the ground, muttering about 'overexertion'. When we next looked up, both our comrades had disappeared from sight. We stopped and pricked our ears. From beyond the lush fronds, we could hear GS still yelling her head off. However, this time, she sounded panicky instead of exasperated. Suddenly she burst out of the greenness, wild-eyed and breathless. WW was gone.

Since WW is more of The Simple Life type than a Fear Factor person, we worried about her plunging into the depths of wilderness. And after our search and rescue mission stretched past 15 minutes, we were forced to face the starling possibility that she may have done exactly that.

So we put on our Adrian Monk hats and began retracing out steps. We explored every fork in the trail, eliminating all those that involved climbing or wading. We kept our eyes peeled for signs, ANY signs, which indicated her having passed through that particular area. And we abandoned the golden rule of never shouting a person's real name in a jungle. According to some little old wives, if the orang bunian (spirits of the jungle) know your real name, they will mimic a familiar voice to lead you into peril.

After 45 minutes, we stumbled along on a wing and a prayer, with our feet aching, our throats sore and eyes stinging. To top it off, the evening sun had begun casting warning shadows around us. Then, as it usually happens in the last 30 minutes of a movie, we suddenly stumbled upon the trail. Energized by this unexpected discovery, we surged forward, confident that WW would be waiting with folded arms and a tapping foot. We were wrong.

Hope turned into fatigue and we were faced with the inevitable choices to continue searching and risk getting lost in the jungle at night, or returning to camp i.e. wooden chalets, to keep vigil. We went with the second choice.

We got back just as twilight dropped its curtain. As the chalets came into sight, we saw something that made us stop in our tracks.

A light shone bright in WW's chalet. We pounded on the door and WW flung it open, squeaky clean and wrapped in a fluffy white bathrobe with a matching towel around her head. Her story? She had waited for us to catch up, been scared and trotted back to camp.

Today, we can laugh about it. But that incident nudged me to review our jungle rules and make some minor amendments: No plucking or snapping anything (unless you have to throw it at a raging warthog in front of you); no littering, unless you've resorted to Hansel's plan; stay together all the time, I repeat ALL THE TIME; no lingering unless you're waiting for a comrade or the search and rescue team; no poking fun at any flora, fauna or a slow comrade.