In the other-wise sleepy village of Loutolim where there is slumber in every corner and yet never a dull moment, the past few weeks have been disarmingly busy straight from the script tailor made for a book like the Man Eater’s of Kumaon written by hunter Jim Corbett. The village has had a few guests whose love for pork perhaps rivals that of many of the inhabitants of the village. Pigs have literally started to fly from Loutolim, eaten out of existence by one leopard, followed by another.
These leopards are pretty casual folks. The first one sauntered in, about a month ago and went about her business, getting her quota of healthy pork meat from the cashew plantations of Precioso Soares, where pigs were kept. A trap was laid though and this poor beautiful baby (of course if I were to meet her in the dead of the night driving in to the village through Devote, I may not quite get this baby’s beauty) was caught. The village turned up at Precioso’s farm on a weekday morning, creating a massive traffic jam on the narrow road leading out of the village. But it was indeed a red letter day in Loutolim’s social calendar and everyone spoke about the leopard in the cage for some time. In the process, Lotlikars caught up with each other, did their social status updates and made some mental notes before the village went back to its normal ways.
A week later, another arrived. Yes one more leopard and this time – a fellow – ambled along the main thoroughfare, gobbling up pigs for dinner, who were easy meat, much to the shock and horror of Ana Maria of Devote, who lost her livestock. The forest department did arrive shortly, compensated Ana Maria for the loss of her life stock and went looking for the leopard. At the time of filing this despatch, the status update of the leopard is “Missing but around”.
But that’s cold comfort. Of late, in the middle of the night, the village dogs, whose exciting moments arrive when a monkey teases them from atop a tree, or a fly breezes past after a momentary pit stop on their noses, have been waking up and barking in a guarded manner, as if to sound an alarm but not quite knowing who or where the enemy is. But indications are, that the missing and satiated leopard, with Ana Maria’s pigs fully digested, has been regularly coming to the village spring to drink.
The village, therefore is taking guard. Main entrances of family homes which were never shut are being closed, windows are being latched, and in homes where counting windows and doors, took up most of the growing years of those in their eighties, leaving little time for co-curricular activities, it surely is a tough ask, in these times. But suffice to say Loutolim is on guard.
However, with sadness we report that the leopards are not the only intruders though they may have well arrived before mankind did in Loutolim. One gang, or many, of very efficient robbers have made Loutolim their favourite monsoon destination. The village, its homes and its friendly people, have made this the perfect choice of this masked gang of robbers to loot and scoot. Chain snatching is done with as much frequency as Menino frying his beef samosas opposite the Church and there are break-ins on a daily basis. Some homes have reported seeing a masked man, covered from head to toe in black roaming around whether before a looting trip or just after. And with phones more dead than alive and the internet always “buffering”, communication during emergency is a challenge. But that’s another story.
For the past month, there has been a robbery or a break-in at least one every two days but there is no police patrol or even a beat police.
Locals, we have learnt are keeping a watch but they fear that if it’s not the masked gang, it will be the missing leopard. They are spoilt for choices, for sure.
While being attacked by a leopard or by robbers gives no joy, Loutolim never fails to pull you back to the sixties and seventies and if the village had it own paper, it wouldn’t need anything else to fill its pages these days.
