The Great Downpour (Book) http://www.Writing.Com/main/books.php/item_id/866998-The-Great-Downpour PROLOGUE RISING WATER The man-eater of Pench had been moving restlessly for the past four days. He was a magnificent specimen of his species, and one of the few remaining tigers in the forest. He weighed in at almost 250 kilograms, and measured 11 feet from the front of his nose to the tip of his tail. A characteristic of...[Read Full Post] Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:50:56 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298043 PART ONE THE PLAYERS Chapter I The students were all gathered in a huddle in front of the main Notice board located in the central Lobby of the St. Aloysius College of Arts, Science and Commerce, Jabalpur. There were some first-years, but the majority of those aggregated and pouring over the notices w...[Read Full Post] Fri, 03 Apr 2009 04:30:35 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298044 Chapter II Rati lay staring at the ceiling in her room as she twiddled her hands around the little brown envelope that she held in both her hands. A tear coursed down her cheek as she lifted her hands and looked at the front of the envelope in the lights that shone through the single window. ...[Read Full Post] Fri, 03 Apr 2009 11:49:56 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298045 Chapter III Sundeep was in the thick of football action when his friend Yash waved to him from the sidelines. Yash had his hand up in the air and was holding a mobile phone and gesturing to him. Sundeep, a.k.a. Sunny to his friends, was a half-back in the college football team, and he was currently training for an upcoming...[Read Full Post] Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:01:39 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298046 “So, how is the plan coming along?” The teacher mopped some more sweat from the forehead. The voice at the other end of the telephone was demanding and sounded very angry. The teacher feared that the person at the other end might carry out his threat much earlier if compliance from this end did not come through quickly. “Tell me, ...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 00:54:51 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298194 Chapter V The students had all gathered in the Assembly Hall and awaited the arrival of their Principal and his staff. This was supposed to be a meeting for all those who had given their names and subscriptions to join the picnic. The students were keen to hear what their Principal and the accompanying staff wanted to tell. M...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 00:58:43 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298195 Chapter VI Pre-monsoon showers in the Pench area fell between the 10th and 15th of June and converted a large part of the National park into a lush green carpet. Wandering tourists were caught unawares by the lashing rain, but were happy nonetheless, as the brief but powerful burst of rain immediately cooled the ground and th...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:02:42 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298196 Chapter VII It was Sunday, the 23rd of June. The Durgadevi Mittal Outdoor Sports and Recreation Stadium situated just in front of the Mission School in Jabalpur was full of spectators on the morning of this day. After all, St. Aloysius was to play a game of football against St. Martin’s College of Engineering! There was...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:06:20 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298197 PART TWO THE DRAMA Chapter VIII Day Zero July 29th was a mist-covered morning in Jabalpur. It had rained in the night and the roads were wet. The temperature was in the 20’s, and humidity was nearly 65%, causing the students to fidget where they stood in the courtyard and around the bus...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:33:26 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/298198 Chapter IX The change in the weather over the last three or four days had made Rising Water increasingly uncomfortable and hungry. He killed a chinkara that strayed into his path on the morning of Thursday, and by Friday morning, he had finished off the kill and lay licking his chops, grunting with satisfaction from...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:32:45 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300062 Chapter X The buses reached the main tourist entrance of Pench National Park at around 10:35 a.m. They had covered a distance of over 100 kilometres in just over 2 ½ hours, a remarkable feat, the overcast sky, intermittent rain and somewhat poorly maintained roads with potholes notwithstanding. From the main ga...[Read Full Post] Wed, 28 Jul 2004 01:43:20 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300063 Chapter XI Fr. Anthony Mascarenhas had never, in his entire life, seen or confronted so many bad people as he had today. He was at a loss to decide what needed to be done to send these … these goons away and to make the students … his students feel safe. He was scared for their safety more than anyth...[Read Full Post] Thu, 29 Jul 2004 00:47:06 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300162 Chapter XII A wave of palpable shock ran through the crowd as the news of the death of their Principal spread through them like wild fire. The first emotion was soon replaced by sounds of denial and then, predictably, anger. Some of the students simply threw themselves at the dacoits, unmindful of the fact that they w...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:11:33 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300420 Chapter XIII This was a heavy downpour. In a matter of just ten minutes, there was water-logging in and around the area of the Reserve offices. The teachers were imploring the students to proceed towards the buses for their journey out of the park. The rope-bridge was wet and swayed dangerously in the strong wind. The ...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:22:53 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300422 Chapter XIV For almost 30-40 minutes the water carried the boys and girls farther and farther out into the jungle. Almost all of them except Nazima knew a bit of swimming, but none was an expert, so that they kept swallowing water along the way. Nearly all except Sandesh passed out completely, and their bodies were phy...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:35:32 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300423 Chapter XV Day One Nanda opened her eyes to a dawn sky with fading stars. It was raining even now, though not as strongly as it had rained the previous evening. It took her a few moments to realize that she was in the wilderness. She tried to remember how she came to be here. There were fl...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:48:18 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300424 Chapter XVI Chand and Seeta lay very close to each other throughout the night without knowing it. When Chand came to, it was a bright and sunny morning. He realized that Seeta lay next to him and she was still lost to the world. Is she alive? He sat up and put out his hand to touch Seeta’s face. It ...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 08:55:29 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300425 Chapter XVII The search and rescue team started from Seoni at a little after eight a.m. There were at least thirty policemen in the team. They were equipped to tackle all possible adverse circumstances such as heavy rain, attacks from predators, landslides etc. A truck full of rescue equipment and two fully equipped ...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:01:33 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300426 Chapter XVIII “I definitely heard a human scream,” said Bhairavi to Muhammad. The two of them had met up with each other just half an hour ago. Both of them had discovered that they were in good shape. They had each come to their senses about 50 feet away from each other. Muhammad quickly checked to see...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:14:48 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300428 Chapter XIX Rain resumed at about 5:00 p.m. in the evening. At that moment, Chand and Seeta were just getting up from their nap; Yash, Bhairavi, Sandesh and Muhammad were trying to negotiate past a small but deep cleft in the ground; Rati and Nanda were washing themselves in the river and Farhad and Nazima were just c...[Read Full Post] Sat, 31 Jul 2004 09:22:26 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300429 Chapter XX It took all of Sandesh’s ingenuity to get the fire started. Although he had been a President’s scout in school and was well aware of how to survive in the forest, he was totally at sea here on account of the rains and the fact that he was ipso facto in charge of his other friends as well. Onc...[Read Full Post] Sun, 01 Aug 2004 00:39:18 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300527 Chapter XXI Day Two During the later half of the night and the early hours of the morning of the second day of the students’ misadventure in Pench National Park, the rain came in fits and starts, but it did not pour like it had in the day time. There was now a major group consisting of six of the marooned pe...[Read Full Post] Sun, 01 Aug 2004 02:47:45 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300535 Chapter XXII The Seoni Municipal Hospital, where most of the dacoits were recovering or being treated had become a bedlam of activity. All the eleven dacoits with more than just minor injuries were kept here in a special ward, while the dacoit chief, Pahelwan Ranjit Singh, was being treated in the SICU or the Surgica...[Read Full Post] Sun, 01 Aug 2004 02:59:54 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300536 Chapter XXIII Day Three Three things happened at the crack of dawn all at once. The first of these events woke up all the eleven people who had gone to sleep the previous night under the shelter of the teakwood trees. The event was a flash of lightning that was followed by the most God-awful sound of...[Read Full Post] Sun, 01 Aug 2004 03:33:21 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300539 Chapter XXIV Carmen Lancaster flew down to India by an Air France flight and reached New Delhi at 6:00 a.m. in the morning. She had received news of Rati the day before yesterday when the college authorities had called her up to inform her about the fact that Rati had got lost with ten or eleven of her friends in a N...[Read Full Post] Sun, 01 Aug 2004 03:17:15 EDT http://www.Writing.Com/main/books/entry_id/300537