tHe piRaNhA hUnTeR

Let’s start this story but before starting let’s understand what is the meaning of piranha. Piranha is actually a fish. Although it is small but it is very deadly. Piranha hunts in a school. It is a meat eating eating fish. It does not ever show mercy and let it’s prey go. This fish is a native of Amazon basin in South America. They are the deadliest of fishes. Although they are small in size but they exist in big schools so when they attack they don’t leave anything behind. They can eat an entire buffalo or a land animal and are very very dangerous. They don’t even spare humans. They have laser sharp teeth and when they attack they take a big chunk out of flesh of the thing they are attacking in a single bite as compared to their body size and keep on doing that until their prey is dead and there is no meat left on its body.

Long time back in South America there lived a man name Rocoo. He lived in a small village called Poonie. Where he lived was quite peaceful. The only threat that existed in that village was of piranhas.

It so used to happen there that the cattle herders needed to cross a river with their herd so that their cattle can feed upon the Pastures, which existed on the other side of the river. In that river existed schools of piranhas. Most of the time they could cross without being attacked by piranha because they were not hungry but sometimes they had to cross with deadly casualties. So sometimes out of a herd of 50 cows or buffalos one got slayed by the deadly piranha and there was nothing they could do about it. The river was quite wide and thus it was not possible for them to build a bridge over it that was strong enough to support the weight of their cattle herds. So this continued for along time. Fishermen had tried hunting the piranhas but they couldn’t. Their fishing nets were of no use against the deadly piranha because they would cut the fishing nets with their sharp teeth and set themselves free whenever they were tried to capture.

Now, Rocoo lived with his grandfather all alone. His mom and dad had passed away in a forest fire long time back and his grandmother had also died of illness quite a few years ago. Rocoo loved his grandfather very dearly and cared for him. His grandfather was also very nice to Rocoo and did whatever he could to help him out in his daily activities. Rocoo was actually a wood cutter who rarely had to cross the deadly river to get his wood a it was available in the village itself. Rocoo used to enjoy his livelihood because he earned sufficient for him and his grandfather to get a good meal at the end of the day. They lived peacefully there.

One day Rocoo went to cut wood but he did not find any. Whatever trees were left had already been cut by the other wood cutters of the village for timber. Now he knew that from now on he would have to cross the river to get the wood but he was not worried. The only thing that bothered him was that he would be able to carry less wood than usual whilst crossing river. So he would have to cross the river twice or thrice to get the same amount of wood that he usually got before he had to cross the river. The idea was that he had to raise the wood up over his head and cross river so that it does not get wet. Because he couldn’t afford a boat he had to make 2-3 rounds of crossing the river to get all of his wood from the timber cutting area across the deadly river back to the village.

This continued for a while until one day his grandfather decided to go with Rocoo and help him out in bringing wood from across the river. Rocoo told his grandfather that he did not needed help but his grandfather insisted on helping him that day. So Rocoo agreed to it. They crossed the river and Rocoo started to cut the wood and his grandfather started to collect it in a sack. So that day they made 3 sacks of wood as the timber Rocoo was cutting was quite big in size. After they had done cutting and collecting the wood it was evening and  time for them to go back to their home. As soon as they finished packing and were about to move Rocoo’s grandfather got a cut to his feet from one of the sharp edges of wood when he was trying to put the sack behind his back after lifting it from the ground. The wound was quite deep so it started bleeding. Rocoo saw that and immediately got a piece of cloth and tied it around the wound so that it stops bleeding. Then they thought it was not a good idea to cross the river because even though the wound is covered the piranhas might attack Rocoo’s grandpa and may result in fatality. Rocoo’s grandfather told him that he should not worry because he had covered his wound properly and so nothing of that sort should happen. Rocoo was not totally convinced but he respected his grandfather’s view so they agreed to cross the river and go home. They took two of the sacks and crossed the river safe and sound. After crossing the river Rocoo’s grandfather told Rocoo to start selling wood as it was already late and he would go and get the third sack of timber. Rocoo thought that it was safe for his grandpa to do so because they had already crossed the river without any attack from the piranha fishes. So he let him do so and started selling the wood there. His grandfather reached the other side of river, picked up wood and started to cross back to reach Rocoo. As soon as he entered to cross river holding the wood over his head his wound dressing slipped and went into with the flow of river. But Rocoo’s grandfather was unaware of it and continued crossing river. When he reached the middle of the river he screamed Help! and got drown into the river. Rocoo who was seeing all this but did not know what to do because he saw that piranhas were attacking his grandfather and he wanted to save him but was helpless because if goes into the river to rescue his grandfather he would be eaten by the piranhas too so he stayed there seeing the horrific scene of his grandfather being eaten by Piranha till death. Rocoo stood their and yelled and screamed and did not know what to think of. He sat their crying and was in a deep remorse. He wept the whole night and did not sleep.

Three days had passed when he did not eat or sleep properly. But at the end of fourth day he decided to avenge his grandfather’s death. He realized that piranhas were a big problem, not only for him but for the entire village. Sometimes they ate a whole cow or goat and this time they ate his grandfather mercilessly in front of him.  He then decided that somehow these fishes should be eradicated from the river because they pose a great danger to the cattle and human life. He also had known that the nets the fishermen had did not work on piranhas as they tore them apart if anybody tried to capture them. He sat the whole night and though about a way to go around this. He then decided that just like a lion is hunted similarly the piranhas should be hunted. So he went to see the village head that day and told him about his plan. He told him that if they dig along the river a ditch and connect it to the river and then make a steel gate to shut the flow of river flowing to ditch whenever they wanted they might be able to lock down the piranhas and then eradicate them from that area. This would prevent the further loss of life in that river and in their village. The village leader thought for a while and said that it was a good plan and they should do it.

The next day Rocoo took 50 men along with him to the site where they had to dig the ditch and started digging it. It took a whole day to have a sizeable amount of ditch so they would be able to trap all the piranhas in it. After the ditch was dug they connected it to the river and installed a steel gate at its opening which can shut off the flow of water or anything from the river at any whenever they wanted. Now when the ditch filled with water they bought some bait which was an injured buffalo that was bleeding and thus releasing the scent of blood in the water which would be easily be sensed by piranhas. Then they put the buffalo in the ditch where it started drowning due to the depth of water. Now as soon as the buffalo started to drown they saw a big school of piranhas entered the ditch from the River and started chewing on and eating the buffalo. When they felt that all the piranha fishes had entered the ditch they shut the ditch with the steel gate and trapped all the piranhas in it.

It was a moment of celebration for all of them. Rocoo had avenged his grandfather’s death and gave peace to the villagers but the hunting was still not complete. In a few days the water in the ditch dried and the piranhas got suffocated to death there. Since people wouldn’t let anything go waste. They then took out the the piranhas cooked them and ate them. They had a hearty meal of killing and eating their enemy and thanked Rocoo and god that day.