Shana- her story

Shana was sharing here tent with Cathy. Their tent was adjacent to the tent occupied by Zia ma'am and Zoya. As soon as Zia ma'am and Zoya called it a day, Shana and Cathy also decided to sleep. Shana was already tired like the rest of the students. She bid goodnight to her fellow students and Luke Sir and Sherpa and proceeded to her tent along with Cathy.

All the 5 girls were tired and wanted to sleep early. Even the boys wanted to sleep early. The long walk through the forest, then the conifers and then the reforestation and finally the excitement of coming into the alpine area had indeed tired them. But all that excitement did bring tiredness but sleep was evasive. It was just not descending into the eyes. Maybe it was due to the fact that the tent was not like home. After all, sleeping in a sleeping bag is not an everyday affair. The comfort of one's bed and one's home is the best. That is why the saying goes, 'East or West, home is the best.'

What to do till sleep would overcome and eyelids would drop down and close? There were no telephone towers and no landline cables; hence, there was no connectivity. There was no mobile data which meant no what's app, no social networking site, no YouTube, etc. Shana felt she was cut off from everyone and wanted desperately to have some contact with her family. She was an affectionate child and unlike Cathy, she had a younger brother.

Zia ma'am knew that they would be cut off from the rest of the world and had informed all of them. The SMS and normal calling facilities were also not working. So, no one could connect to family and friends or access social sites. This made Shana sad. She started wondering how people managed when there was not much connectivity. It felt like they were back in the early 1980s when there were no mobiles. Come to think of it, it was quite peaceful in a way, without disturbance from anyone. No phones were ringing anywhere. No people with phones stuck to their ear and walking around without looking. Technology has its advantages but it has its disadvantages also.

Tomorrow morning, when they all assembled for breakfast, she, along with others, would ask ma'am to try to see if the guest house had a system whereby they could contact their relatives just to tell them that they were safe and enjoying themselves. If the guest-house could not help then, of course, there was the Sat phone with Luke Sir. He had mentioned that he possessed one when they were trekking to this camping site.

Shana got into her sleeping bags, and was soon warm and snuggled inside. She tightly closed her eyes and started to count sheep. But there was so much on her mind that she kept forgetting and would keep getting mixed up and had to start counting sheep again.

She was restless but felt that she should not disturb Cathy who seemed to be all quiet in her sleeping bag. She was restless due to the unfamiliar place. No one can enjoy a good sleep in an unfamiliar place that too in a sleeping bag and that too at a camping site. She was more concerned about her family that they might be worried about her. She was missing her parents and her brother. She had stayed with her relatives in City A quite a number of times. Hence, it was not the first time she had been away from home, overnight.

She started to think about Luke Sir, that he was a nice person and he liked Zia ma'am. She felt his feeling for ma'am was more as compared to ma'am's feelings for him. Maybe he had fallen in love with her at first sight. He had seen her prior to her ever having met him. Zia ma'am was reserved and it seemed that she had met Luke Sir for the first time today, so one cannot force matters. Who knows, that by the end of this camping trip, she might really come to like him immensely which would turn into love later on? They seemed to be suited as a couple. Something like made for each.

She then started to recollect the events of her own life until today. What had happened in her life and what she wanted to achieve in her future.

Her father's name was Aditya and her mother's name was Taniya. She had a younger brother whose name was Samir who was 8 years old and he was in primary school. Her mother was a doctor and she was mostly at the Government hospital. She could see her mom in the evening. Her father was a businessman and was easily accessible to both the children.

Shana wanted to learn everything there was to learn which involved figures and she could upgrade his business accounts. He could have hired a Chartered Accountant to do all this work but he found his daughter was able to do all that was needed in accounts etc.

She had become quite independent from an early stage and could manage to look after herself and her little brother. Her father and mother were busy people, giving their children quality time and not quantity time. As after work, they had very little time to interact with their kids, both her parents were in the kitchen in the morning and at night to cook for them. The remaining time they spent chatting with their kids and during weekends they would take the kids out of the city. Money can make you hire cooks and servants but the love and affection that is transferred to the children from the parents are unprecedented. So they did all they could and the hired part-time help did the cleaning, mopping, washing, etc.

She did well in her class, especially in Mathematics and wanted to take up Statistics for her higher studies. Her father was not so good in figures and he always thought that trait came from her grandfather. The grandparents lived in City A with the younger uncle i.e. younger brother of Aditya.

She had come to this camping trip at the behest of her father and mother who wanted her to have some change and become more independent and sure of herself and her abilities. She was unsure how her mathematical abilities would prove helpful to her here at the camping site. Chris was also very good at mathematical equations and they were always in competition as to who could do the equations the fastest.

Slowly her eyelids started to close and within a few minutes, she was asleep.

It was around 5 a.m. that she awoke to a huge disturbance coming from outside their tent. She could hear the sounds of screams from one of the boys, and then there were grunt sounds as if it was a pig or a bear. Thereafter there was the sound of persons running. After that, there was the sound of gunfire. Shana and Cathy got up immediately and leaving their sleeping bags, they rushed towards the opening of the tent. Cathy quickly unzipped the opening of the tent so that they could go outside. Just as they were exiting the tent they heard another shot being fired. By the noises that were coming as they moved out, it seemed that a wild animal, probably a wild boar or a bear had made its way to their tents and attacked one of the tents. But who could have fired a shot? Hopefully, whichever animal it was, would have been scared away by the gunshot. Hopefully, it was not injured as an injured wild animal is dangerous.

The gunshots must have been fired by Luke Sir, Didn't he say that he was always prepared for any eventuality. He must be carrying a gun, she thought.