Telkoi: A woman with a silver bowl full of cooked rice is often seen wandering alone in the jungle near Purusottampur village in Telkoi area of Keonjhar district for last five days. While in the jungle, she can be heard calling someone by ‘Dhudu’. After some time, she returns home, with a sign of despondency writ large on her face.
Her story has all essential ingredients required for making a movie.
Kuntala Kumari Penthei lives in Purusottampur village. She would go to a nearby jungle under Bimala forest beat, which is under Telkoi forest range in Keonjhar district.
Kuntala still remembers the day when a strange thing happened to her two years ago. Like any other day, one day she had gone to the jungle to collect firewood. There she came across a baby boar roaming aimlessly. Assuming the shoat might have separated from the herd and fearing for the possible dangers to the animal, she took it to her house.
She took great care of it. Over the years, Kuntala had developed an emotional bond with the boar. She would call it ‘Dhudu’. Whenever she would call ‘Dhudu’, the boar wherever it might be would come running to her.
But the man-animal friendship did not last long. Getting a complaint from the people, some forest department officials reached her house March 8 and took both Kuntala and the boar to Telkoi head office.
There they briefed Kuntala about the punishment laid out in the Act for keeping wild animals as pet. Thereafter, they made arrangement for Kuntala to reach her village and released the boar in Kamalanga forest near Telkoi.
Kuntala has since been visiting the jungle with cooked rice with the hope that her ‘Dhudu’ would return to her.
PNN