Hunger Hunt

Most of the characters in my stories will be my cousins. This time too I’m going to tell a crazy thing that I and my cousin did. After all, I love to go in a different way which others might name as madness. Luckily I got a dozen cousins who are ready to accompany me.

Well! To talk about my cousin Alaka, we both are of same age. From the day, I came to this world, we are always together. In fact, almost like a synonym, the name Alaka is never spelt without Roopa in my dad’s family. When we were kids, we used to wear same kind of dresses and ornaments. In short, our family almost treated us like twins.

As time moved on, we couldn’t meet each other. But while we get together, we always have fun in our own way. The best one among it is how we went for a food hunt on the eve of my house warming.

Seven years back, in the mid-night before my house warming, I and Alaka were busy with our own talks. Also we scared our little cousins with ghost stories and tress-passers by howling and screaming. As time passed, hunger started to bother us.

Hunger is something you can’t control. The place was so silent. We could see all other guests and cousins sleeping around. I gave the plan of searching for some eatables in the kitchen. I was sure that there will be a few varieties of chips for next day’s sadya or feast. We moved to kitchen. We were so careful not to wake any one as our food hunt was in an odd time.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any chips or snacks. There was nothing except a few raw food stuffs. But hunger was at its peak. Alaka managed to pick a packet of milk powder. And I saw some raw mangos. Whatever it is, our only aim was to fill our stomach. As my cousin opened the packet, someone screamed at us, “What the hell is going on there!”

Oh my God! It’s one of our servants. Alaka somehow managed to convince him that we came to drink water. He went back to sleep. We lavishly had Amulya and mangos. Then we actually felt thirsty. There was no drinking water. Even tap water is sweet when you won’t find another drop to drink. So we happily drank direct tap water.

When we went to our room, dad’s sister was sitting there. As she is a cool aunt, we managed to narrate our food hunt without fear. We made her to promise not to tell any one else.

Next day, we couldn’t wake up early. When we opened our eyes, we saw every one getting ready for the function. Another aunt came near us and asked with a smile, “Oh! You are so early today. We never thought you’d get up so early after yesterday’s hunt.”

For the first time, I saw my talkative cousin searching for words…