An evening run

One evening, recently, four of us — three students from a wilderness first-aid course and one employee of the outdoor school we were at in Ranikhet — went for a run. It was past 5 p.m. We made for one of the quiet side roads. We ran past the holiday huts of the Army, down a few bends to the first of the ‘Old Grant Bungalows’ on that road, called so for their origin in British India times.

It had just rained. There was a light chill in the air. The leafy vegetation around, the trees lining the quiet road and the road itself gave off that typical post-rain smell. Several turns away at the entrance to the Chevron Rosemount hotel, one of their dogs barked to announce the approaching runners. Used to seeing runners on that road every morning, it first resorted to barking and then settled down by the roadside.

Two turns away, we passed the house of a friend who was a naturalist. Wonderful address for someone so, I always thought. We ran past the small trail cutting up the hillside, which we usually take when the daily run has to be kept short. This evening was different. The day’s classes had been intense and long. We had resolved to run a longer distance, run the full length of the road and then turn off to Mall Road and Meghdoot Hotel.

Another turn went by on the quiet road; then another. Finally we went past Adhikari Lodge, an old bungalow reportedly owned by a Mumbai business family who visit Ranikhet on and off. Although there were houses here, this area, compared with other portions of the road, was a trifle more densely green. Four pairs of legs hit the ground rhythmically in slow run. Wind in the hair; nippy air on the face, a breathing that said ‘I am breath,’ in the chest.

Absolute amazement

At the next turn, the first runner stopped. The rest of us caught up in one to two seconds. Walking diagonally across the sheltered road, with its back to us and seemingly not bothered about its surroundings now invaded by humans was a leopard. We watched it in absolute amazement.

For all of us, it was the first sighting of a leopard so; free and unfettered. I suspect it was my shoe moving ever so slightly against the sand on the tarred road that created the faint noise — whatever, the leopard caught wind of something behind. It broke its leisurely walk to glance behind its left shoulder, sensed the four humans and in a couple of elegant bounds was up the other side of the road and lost to the dense vegetation between the road and the households beyond.

We stood there speechless. It took a while for things to sink in. Slowly, our awe-struck faces broke into smiles. We shook hands. Then we resumed our slow run. Past where the leopard had been, we fleetingly peeked into the vegetation lining the road and into which the animal had disappeared. The forest smiled back as one betraying no trace.

Some strides away we reached the nearest house, about the same distance as we had been from the leopard when it was sighted. Behind the wire fence that formed its boundary wall, a man sat on his haunches calmly smoking a beedie . He seemed oblivious of the leopard although nothing blocked his view of the stunned runners and an animal crossing the road.

Maybe, unlike us, he was used to leopards.

(The author is a freelance journalist based in Mumbai)