Jagannath Sharma

Dung Dung and the Man-Eater of Muni Pujari Jagannath Sharma

Muni Pujari, a picturesque village cum 'hill station' nestled in the forests of the Himalayas, was known for its utter tranquility. This much sought-after character of the village was however rudely disturbed when a leopardess was shot, and its frail cub left to die. While angry villagers thrashed the shooters, Dung Dung, the caretaker of a tourist lodge, and his family lovingly adopted the week-old cub, named it "Phoolka," and poured out their love in nursing it to adulthood. Phoolka not only became the cynosure of the family, but also of an assorted mix of people from far and near, who got deeply and personally involved with it. Like the one-time shikari (hunter) turned veterinarian and his wife from faraway Bombay (now Mumbai) visiting their ancestral village, the Delhi boys with a passion for the Himalayas, a Tibetan girl and her family of talented designers, entrepreneurs, and social workers and, of course the villagers of, and around Muni Pujari. These were all good people, who also found love and joy in their lives as they converged directly and indirectly around Phoolka's presence. In the diversity of the thinking that Phoolka's benign presence gave rise to, these good people pondered over the unrestrained advance of urbanization, destruction of forests and loss of natural habitat of wild life and its prey. But there were some bad ones too, bent on killing Phoolka's kith and kin, and humans too, whoever and whatever came in the path of their illicit trade in bodyparts of wild animals. Phoolka's life in this story epitomizes the struggle of the denizens of the forest to survive against man's single-minded rush to better his lot in life at the cost of that of all other species, and also of earth itself.