That year, this quiet, introverted man wept when he saw how ill my grandmother was. In all the years that he visited us, that was the only time when he stayed the night. He sat down to eat with us after she fell asleep. “I would take Ammajan to her house if I could, even if it was for a day,” he told us. “It’s the people who live inside four walls, Bhaijan, who make a home in them. I know what it is like to leave one’s home behind…”

I think that was the only occasion when I heard our father say anything on the matter. “Some people cut up the country to suit their own interests, and hundreds of thousands of lives were destroyed. We were happy together in our own land, even if we did fight sometimes, none of us wanted to leave home to settle down in a strange place, among strange people. Those people fanned the fire to roast their chicken, and we were destroyed, and you too. The leaders sat down to talk to each other before they split the country, did they ask any of us even once?”

The vanayatra was part of the environmental camp. Some ten to twelve people – among them three women. The journey started early in the morning. Light started oozing slowly through the hill ranges. It was still dark inside the forest. Rain created problems, the leeches became a major hassle. The journey included all the amenities; food packets, drinking water, first-aid material and the honorary leadership of ranger Muhammad Haneefa. Two guards accompanied us for extra help.

He started to pant after two kilometers of the walk. His knees were painful. Muhammad Haneefa said, “We are crossing the buffer zone now. The three sections of the wild life sanctuary are tourism, buffer and core. The total extent is 285 square kilometers. From that, approximately two thousand five hundred kilometers are kept aside for the sanctuaries and national parks.”

I have a problem. I have had it for a couple of days now and I need to find a solution, fast. I know, of course, that everyone has problems, there is always something or the other to disturb a man's peace of mind. But then, those are usually problems one is familiar with. Sickness, maybe, one's own or one's wife's or one's son's, or maybe one's parents'. Maybe a sickness as serious as cancer. Worries bout a son's career, children's schooling, a daughter's marriage or maybe an affair, even loss of rust between husband and wife, quarrels, accusations, bitterness. All the problems that sometimes come singly, sometimes several together, and in the end people find solutions for them, or maybe they don't and the problem stays with them for life. People like us, nondescript penpushers in city offices, what else can we expect from life?

Fast asleep, I hear a gentle knock on the door. I wake up with a start. 'Who can it be?' The question and the attendant tension grip me abruptly. I remain sitting, reluctant to get up. I yearn wistfully for the person, whoever he may be, to go away after knocking.

The sound of knocking grows progressively louder. I pretend that I am far, far away – beyond its reach. With every passing second, it moves closer to me. The jagged noise swells and spreads helter-skelter all over that pitch dark room.