My introduction to my father almost killed me.  That may sound over-sensationalised, but it was true.  At least, to a certain extent.

For several weeks the four of us, mother and triplets, roamed, pranced and skipped around the length and breadth of our father’s domain – well actually, only part of that domain.  We had our first glimpse of the wide expanse of the blue skies.  The smoky white dragons hovered graciously in the heavens.  The rain tree towered proud and ancient above us, ignoring our very existence.  The bamboos clustered in a maze to tease our curious feet.  Little animals scurried up the trees at our approach.

We embarked on a conducted tour of boundaries.  To the North was a gentle valley unmarked by any natural geographic feature.  We had to smell the boundary!  A faint old musty, arid, acid smell deposited at various strategic bushes and rocky outcrops to keep us little tots in and to keep the monsters out.  The smell of a father whom we had never met.

There was no sign of my father.  My mother made sure of that.

‘Where is our father?’ I asked, always the inquisitive one.

My mother’s ears pricked up.  She peered this way and that into the depths of the forest around us and sniffed cautiously.  Finally satisfied with the fresh chlorophyllic scent of the forest, she continued to lead us through the thick flora, sweeping her long slender tail to and fro.

‘Your father?’ she answered absent-mindedly, ‘the South Eastern slopes – he sits on a lofty rocky throne that greets the morning sun and overlooks the sea.’

‘Then we’re moving further from the East!’ I protested.

‘What’s the sea, Mother?’ Venus chipped in excitedly.

‘The sea is that vast stretch of blue you see over the tree tops.’

‘But you said the sea was to the East!’ Venus pointed out.

‘Ah, this is an island we’re on.  See that small island over there?  If you look carefully, you’ll see a pair of dragon’s teeth standing there as well.’

‘What’s an island?’ Venus asked.  She might have been an enthusiastic student of geography in her previous life.

But I did not catch my mother’s reply.  I was wondering why we could not see our father.  If he was king of this forest through which we were trampling, why were we avoiding him?

‘There, that’s the Western boundary marked by this river.’  My mother turned to Venus.  ‘Do you see it?’

We stood huddled around our mother near the edge of a wide shallow gully, gazing at the cool, serene waters gurgling contentedly in its ageless solitude below.  The chorus of songbirds and the chatter of monkeys at the tree tops was a lullaby to babies’ ears.

Mark, lulled by the gentle rays of sunlight filtering through the trees, bounded to the edge of the gully, skipped over it and skidded halfway down the slope.

‘Stop!’ my mother shouted urgently as she sprang over to the edge of the gully.  There was panic in her eyes and I was seized with a wave of fear.  What was wrong?  The river bank below was sparsely vegetated and a set of large footprints was visible on its soft muddy surface. 

Mark tried to scamper back towards us, but too late!

A pair of menacing eyes gleamed amongst the bushes on the other side of the gully.  The forest fell strangely silent.  Suddenly the eyes moved and large powerful muscles emerged from amongst the lalang.  So well camouflaged were the evil looking black and yellow stripes that they were visible only when they moved.  And so slow and deliberate was the beast’s motion that it was like a phoenix rising from some subterranean corridor of the underworld.

‘A tiger!’ my mother shouted.  There was a rustle at the tree tops.  Perhaps the monkeys and song birds were scampering fearfully to the safety of greater heights.  Perhaps they were jostling excitedly for the grand stand to get a better view.

I do not know.  My first impulse was to flee.  But my brother!  Mark was still struggling in the loose earth.  With each frantic step forward, he slid backwards two steps.

My mother reared herself to her full stature to balance precariously on the hind legs, towering above my hunched up body.  She glared and snarled at the tiger.  That was the first time that I saw her looking so tall, so fierce and so courageous.

But the tiger was undeterred.  It rose slowly to its full height like a dark and ominous shadow that grew larger and larger until it dominated the entire landscape of our nightmare.  It was even larger than my mother.  It was a monster.

I shrank into the bushes.  I shivered at the hisses and snarls that gathered in the bowels of its belly and rumbled though its clenched teeth.  My heart skipped a beat when the monster leaped onto its side of the river bed.  It paced this way and that, deciding whether to engage in battle.  Its menacing eyes gleamed as they flickered between my mother valiantly standing guard and my brother fighting his own battle with the moving earth.  Finally, after what seemed like an agonising eternity, my brother flung himself across the edge of the gully and kicked at the earth and air to wriggle the rest of his body over the edge, sending showers of earth and sand flying across the river.

At the sight of his small prey disappearing over the edge of the gully, the tiger made up its mind.  With a blood curding battle cry, it leaped across the river and up the gully, aiming its talons straight at my brother’s helpless little body.  But my mother, watchful all the while, flung herself across the path of this monstrous missile.  Their bodies collided in mid-air.  They rolled down the side of the gully, their bodies locked in combat.

‘Mother!’ we screamed.  We were too frightened to run away.

The two combatants tumbled in the loose earth.  The showers of earth, sand and water blinded them momentarily.  Unable to see clearly, they clung on to each other’s flesh with their claws.  While their eyes were blinking helplessly, their throats were vibrant with battle cries.  So terrible were their cries of fury that the grass and trees seemed to cringe at their roots.

‘Run!’ Venus was screaming.

‘Run, Mother, run!’

We were blinded with terror.  We clawed at the grass at the edge of the gully.  We kicked at the earth, as if we could lend our strength to our mother struggling below.  She was now pinned under the weight of the tiger.  Any moment now the tiger’s eyes would clear and he would sink his fangs into her throat!

Then I heard a roar.  A roar so loud and so powerful, it was as if the gods were angry and the whole mountain shook with a thunder I had never heard before.  I jumped in fright and turned to see a creature fearsome and majestic.  The fire in his eyes lept like the flames of a volcano so that his whole head seemed to be enveloped with tongues of fire flaring in the sunlight.  He was a titan in the battlefield.  So awesome was his arrival that the tiger twisted round with fear in its eyes.

With one gigantic leap, the titan flew across the edge of the gully, piercing the air with his golden body like a bolt of lightning.  The tiger tried to escape by leaping across the river, but it had no time to scale the slopes of the gully.  It lurched around to face the awesome fury of the titan and his crown of fire.

My mother, freed from her adversary, shrank from the battle and joined us at the edge of the gully.  Her place was with us.  She crouched low with her shoulders hunched to the ground, ever ready to hurl herself into the battle if the tiger should chance our way.

The tiger and the titan dashed around against the walls of the gully, trapped in a murderous dance, too beautiful in its raw power, too stark in its cruelty.  Their music was the screams and roars of pain and fury.  Their rhythm was their sporadic spurts of energy as they writhed in and out of the clutches of each other’s claws and fangs.  Their bodies glistened with a sweat that poured out not from their pores but from their veins.  The river was turning red.

The titan sank his fangs into the other’s shoulder.  There was a roar of pain.  The tiger was weakening.  It clawed at the air desperately, missing its mark.  It could not endure the fury of the crown of fire.  It could not out manoeuvre the golden muscles of the titan.  Another twist and the titan sank his fangs into the tiger’s rump.  With one last-ditch effort to dislodge the titan from its back, the tiger hurled itself at the wall of the gully, kicking up a shower of earth and sand.  The titan sprang back to shake the earth out of his eyes.  Released from his grip, the tiger fled down the gully.

The victorious titan stood at the edge of the water to watch the tiger slither up the slope a distance away.  He threw back his crown of fire and roared triumphantly.  It was so loud that my ears hurt.  I could not bear the power of his voice.  Then he turned to look at my mother.  I thought we were his next victims.  But my mother was not afraid.  She stood her ground boldly.  Her eyes shone with a strange hue.  It was admiration.  Her eyes were brimming with admiration.

His gaze fell on my siblings.  And finally his ruby eyes pierced into mine.  His eyes flared with the heat of his own fires.  I felt as if my body was melting under his gaze.  I shrank behind my mother.  I wanted to flee, but my mother held me back.

Then it was all over.  The blazing eyes looked away.  He walked slowly and stiffly down the gully, his muscles rippling on his back and shoulders with a golden sheen.  A proud and ancient race.  Never mind the bloody scratches and gaping wounds.  Never mind the pain and perils.  He was the victor staking a claim to his territory.  He wore his injuries like a coat of honour.

We stood there transfixed in the wake of his departure.  The forest slowly came back to life.  One by one the monkeys, the song birds and the insects resumed their symphony.  But I was wrapped in my own thoughts.  Who was that titan?  Why did he spare us?  And what was that strange hue that glimmered in my mother’s eyes?

‘You were saved by your father.’ My mother broke the spell.

‘Our father?  The king of the jungle?  Wow!’ Venus was enraptured.  ‘He’s so big and powerful.’  She skipped spiritedly around my brother.  ‘Did you see that crown of fire?’

I glanced at Mark.  He was quiet.  Pensive in thought.  He must have felt that same terror that I felt when those fiery eyes swept across our vulnerable bodies.  He must have quailed under his cold unflinching glare and harboured the same apprehension.  Had our mother not been there, both he and I would have ended like the tiger.  Or worse, we were utterly defenceless.

‘So why didn’t you take us to our father earlier, Mother?’  I heard my sister asking in the midst of her babble of questions.

‘Why?’ My mother glanced at my brother and I and hesitated.  ‘Your father is big and strong.  But sometimes he can be unreasonable.  So you mustn’t provoke him.  Especially your brothers.’

My brother and I exchanged glances.  We did not need her caution.  We knew.

So that was how I met my father.  So, was I too harsh on him?  To say that I almost died.  Perhaps.  But then if you had a proud and ancient warrior as a father, you might understand my fears.

L