Tales of Daring and Danger

On a sweltering afternoon in the verandah of Colonel Hastings’ spacious bungalow at Poonah, a group of British officers and their wives relax with cheroots and tea. When the colonel’s young niece complains that the bear displayed by a fellow officer looks pitiful, the older man smiles grimly and warns that even a small bear can be as perilous as a tiger. Her curiosity, together with that of the assembled guests, draws the colonel into a story he has long kept to himself.

He rewinds to 1855, when the Deccan was a patchwork of rugged gorges known as the Ghauts and bands of dacoits roamed unchecked. The colonel, then a fresh‑hand in the army, recalls a daring chase through those steep rock fortresses, a narrow escape from a ferocious bear, and the uneasy alliance between the locals and the marauders. The tale combines the raw danger of the Indian frontier with the swagger of a seasoned soldier recalling the narrow margins between bravery and disaster.