Walking is the most tedious task at 3:30pm in afternoon, when heat would make you perspire endlessly even when sitting idle outdoor. The weather would follow a constant pattern, heated afternoons when the sky would be clear, followed by heavy rain two days once, sometimes every day and cold nights. An ideal weather for tea plantation.
Mid-August is going on and so the army cantonment is surrounded by huge fields of tea plantations that is the small town's main economy,and fields are in their fullest capacity and will be harvested in one or two months. There are few acres of cultivated land within the cantonment, and some not, uncultivated land are infested by wild bushes but trimmed and maintained well. One such patch is cleared to make a small riding field, one round of it which makes less than 400m. Not that profound, roughly made track in ellipse shape, with grass in between and patches of grass at some places on the track. Like the track would have told you, it's not a sophisticated riding school but a nice hobby for people who would want to learn riding.
Riding school being run by an army unit as unit affair for people who were interested, they charged quite low, and such an affair in any city would cost thousands.
Ideally it should have been a hub but due to the harsh weather and unfavorable timing of the class that is 3:30pm to 4:30pm, students were very few, many would join but discontinue in a month or so.
Neha and her older brother are in the cantonment for only three months and her brother wanted to avail all the facilities for that period of time.
Scorching sun almost over head, Neha's older brother dragged her along with him for riding. It is a two kilometer walk.
“ Neha, if you miss this opportunity you will regret. You are only twelve listen to me."
“Like you are any wiser, just fourteen !"
"Just come, we will be late it 3:28 already!"
After the painful walk they reached, there wasn't any wait. There were three horses and three students. She got the laziest horse, probably seeing her disinterest.
Within few minutes they wore their helmets and sat on the horses. As they had been already coached about safety posture and riding for about three weeks they all readily moved onto riding. Neha being too lazy than any other day, she didn't even put her helmet's belt properly because it made her sweat too much. Her legs weren't even properly placed in the saddle, her toes just loosely held it. While riding especially galloping you need to constantly hit the horse's chest region lightly with one's heel at regular intervals, it is like an indication to run, the faster you do, faster it runs. The first round was walking followed by canter (gallop ).Neha being lazy after the first round of galloping she let the ropes loose and held the saddle even lighter, instructors didn't notice because one was busy addressing queries of a new customer and other still watching the first two.
Neha is third in the row. Neha became more careless and did postures of moving the body along with horse's inertia very lazily. She became careless and did postures of moving the body absent minded and didn't even hit the horses chest with the heel for quite some time.
Neha is moving her body along with the horse's inertia carelessly and all of a sudden the horse stopped! It started to graze the patch of grass on the track. Due to inertia her body moved forward but instead of getting backward push by the horse little jump, she fell forward rolling lightly upon the horse's neck and falling very hard on her right shoulder and right part of her skull, thanks to her loosely held helmet, her head was saved but she still felt the impact. Luckily nothing very serious, she just felt very dizzy and her back, head and shoulder hurt. While being helped by the instructors she felt the grazing horse innocently tell her, “Your fault not mine!!”
She knows this day would be last day for riding.
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