I never enjoy hunting. I even feel pain when an innocent animal is put to pain for whatever reason except for the purpose of feed. Whenever such scene happens for whatever reason including that of offering of animals as sacrifice, my heart instantly cry for mercy in seeing so and pray for replacing me instead of killing an innocent for one’s selfish gain.
My brother-in-law was fond of hunting and it was an intense hobby for him. One particular day I was at home during a break time in the College when my brother-in-law paid a sudden visit to our home and requested me to accompany him for going out in search of hunting in a nearby river’s origin or mouth called ‘Dekhowmouck’ one of prominent tributaries of the ‘Great River Brahmaputra’ in the district of Sibsagar, Assam. Sensing causing of displeasure to him, if refused I reluctantly agreed to accompany him. Next day early morning we drove to the location by his personal car and then shifted to a small boat arranged already for us to position ourselves a little distance away from the shore to see the birds in front to shot at close range.
It was half an hour before sunrise when we took the position in the boat. As soon as the Sunrise was taking place, the area was covered with white reddish light to prompt the ‘Nature’ to rise from the overnight sleep to enjoy itself. A gentle breeze covered the area with some stillness but it broke early enough when small birds started hovering all around crawling or singing along with the current of the water to make area suddenly warm. In the next moments we saw number of batches of white swans passing one by one over us to sit a little away from us whom my brother-in-law did not intend to kill being a difficult task to locate the kill once shot down. A little later we found another batch of wild swans landed in front of us in the usual style of landing perfectly matching with the order one after another to crowd the place with none but them only.
The scene was so beautiful I suddenly fell in love with the ‘Nature’ bringing myself out from my doing of continuous prayer inside to outside to see nothing other than the beauty of the Nature and instantly became a part of them to enjoy myself together. The swans were crawling and dancing in front of us while picking and swallowing their food from underwater and replacing the position batch by batch by others every fifteen minutes or so, unmindful of the noise produced by the repeated firing from the barrel of the gun used by my brother-in-law nonetheless the ones sitting nearby us were flown away disturbed by the vibration created by the repeated gun shots.
My brother-in-law still kept firing the birds fruitlessly for almost an hour until his entire stock of cart-ages got exhausted leaving just one without killing a single bird. He then shouted the dealer who supplied the cartage for providing him flake cart-ages charging a very high cost being the cart-ages were of much higher quality than the ordinary ones.
Ultimately most dejected by action happened, he decided to return home leaving a single cartage with him to challenge the dealer for giving him flake cart-ages in the name of highly effective ones or of much better quality at a much higher cost. I just kept hearing his shouting against the arm dealer but preferred to not to speak on the subject being knew the reason of his repeated failures. He kept telling me that he was never that unsuccessful in killing birds under such or similar circumstances and repented that his entire name as an excellent shooter shall now go waste.
Feeling pity on his remorse, I remarked that he should try his last cartage if it can kill a bird by any chance still flying high above which he immediately rejected as it is next to impossible to kill any stationing one from such a distance.
Admitting the impossibility of the situation, he regretted his failure and commented that with what honor he shall face my mother who must have prepared everything for cooking birds based purely on his assurances of bringing at least one if not many to home. I however insisted that he must try once with or without an aim for the last time with the last cartage; well knowing of the difference in the situation between now and then when we were sitting in the boat in front of the birds to see if it by any chance it hit a bird flying high in the sky. On my repeated insistence, he aimlessly fired his last shot from his two barrel gun in disgust while we kept walking to return to the parked car nearby but suddenly we found a dead bird dropped from the sky in front of us which was nothing but a miracle happened in response to my prayer inside to avert the unpleasant situation of facing my mother empty handed by him. That was the first and last time I went out for hunting with anyone.
END
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