With an average of two hours of sleep a day for four days straight, we decided to drive to the Antharagange Caves, forty miles away from Bangalore. As soon as we arrived, the sight of steep stairs rising toward a distant temple made our eyes droop in unison. Hunger tugged at the gut, zeal flickered in the heart, and so we climbed.

Monkeys dropped down around us, snatched our bottles and biscuits and vanished. The climb was taxing enough – we didn’t protest. By the time we reached the temple, counting steps like a penance, the priest told us to seek the deity’s blessing for the actual climb. With lungs puffing and bodies soaked in exhaustion, we felt we could doze off standing if the air were thick enough to hold us upright. We tipped our hats to the deity, and turned back, reserving the adventure for another day.

By the stairs, we met two young men – so lean and agile that if the wind shifted just right, they could probably climb thin air. They looked rattled, zonked by whatever they had just endured. One of them asked, “Are you guys gearing up for the climb?” We shrugged and said, “Probably not.”

They showed us their bruises, the torn denim, the shredded soles of their shoes. Naturally, we asked what had happened. With hesitation, they narrated their ordeal.

They had arrived early in the morning. Tourists are usually expected later, and it’s mandatory to trek with forest officials – the jungle is patrolled by leopards, pit vipers, poisonous spiders, and the deadliest of all: humans. Smugglers, robbers, and worse.

They had ridden there on a scooty, carrying a small bag of essentials, imagining a guided trek. When they arrived, the place was empty. The monkeys inspected them and found them uninteresting. They were too early for anything to begin. Like us, they climbed to the temple, took the deity’s blessings, and decided to trek on their own.

“We’d seen enough YouTube videos of the climb,” one of them said, almost sobbing through a chuckle.

We asked how long they’d been out.

“Ninety minutes,” one said, then exchanged glances and corrected himself—“two hours.”

“It’s nearly 10 AM,” we said. Their eyes shot open.

They had arrived at four. They’d been out for six hours.

The first hour, they said, was pleasant and danger-free. Unfortunately, in that hour, both their phones died. Turning back was an option – but not that day, not for them. They pushed on until they had to confess to each other that they were lost.

I looked up at the tall trees. Through fractal-like leaves and branching veins, slivers of sky peeked through, as if there were no real need for it. There’s something about the jungle that breathes an ancient memory into you – a summons, indifferent to your comfort. A duty that dismantles both identity and character. You stop being a you-year-old individual with you-shaped ambitions. Nobody, left to themselves, is just or cruel. Survival isn’t cruel. Survival isn’t fair. It’s simply an assignment. If I could feel all that by looking up, I wondered how disorienting it must have been to be lost inside it.

We had one urgent question.

“How did you find your way back?”

“That’s because of Bruno,” one of them said.

Bruno—the mountain dog. A free climber.

He appeared out of nowhere. They fed him whatever little they had, hoping he’d leave them alone. Instead, he sat beside them, quietly. When they got up to move, Bruno got up too, walked a different way, and looked back. The duty of the jungle. They felt it in their bones and followed him. The free climber walked with a busy nose. In retrospect, Bruno was a boon. At the time, he was just another dog, asking them to follow dog-knows-where.

At one point, Bruno urged them toward a steep right turn. They went left. They parted ways. What followed was a brutal climb that bruised them badly. When they felt lost again, Bruno returned. They ran to him, hugged him, fed him, and rested. With Bruno by their side, they could finally enjoy the cold air and walk without fear. As they finished their story, my mind drifted to the same journey from the dog’s point of view. To Bruno, the scenery, the struggle, the ascent and fall meant nothing. He sat. He ate. He showed the way. 

He neither assigns meaning to the journey or the destination, nor does he care to make it there. It’s we who live in fear – ‘will I get to the peak?’, if we do get to the peak, we complain about the path. And if both the path and the peak are kind to us, we accuse them of being meaningless. The peaks of human existence can’t be anchored in anything physical. Moving on is in our nature, and in that sense is both a boon and curse; it frees us from our monsters, but also mocks us for holding on to what we once loved. Bruno, on the other hand, follows a single directive: survive. He does not do an iota more than what is asked. The peak joy of his existence is to be fed and loved. 

In moments of trouble, I see the two climbers calling for Bruno, to sit, to eat, to show them their way. The dog had turned them spiritual. We wanted to meet him, to see if this mystery was real. By then, the forest officials had arrived, and we lacked the permit to trek. Perhaps we should have listened to the priest and gone when we had the chance.

Will I ever meet Bruno? I don’t know. But I wish to be a Bruno to the ones I love – to heed the call of the jungle, drop my excess, and simply be, as whole as a river with its feet in the ocean.