An Encounter of a special kind ( Class 10th) Online test
Read the passage and answer the following question
By this time, my parents and sisters had come out on to the veranda and were witnessing my rescue operation. Some of our neighbours had also gathered in the distance. I took the baby langur to our backyard and gently laid him on the floor inside the poultry coop. His body was full of deep bite marks and scratches. Blood was oozing from some of the wounds. The baby remained motionless. My father provided first aid to clean the wounds and stop the bleeding. I was relieved to find out that the baby was breathing, even though his breaths were shallow. Splashes of cold water made the baby stir and after a few shaky attempts, he sat up. He was in state of shock and started trembling like a leaf in the wind. His two little twinkling eyes welled up with tears and he started to sob with a muffled cry - just like a human child would after experiencing trauma. I offered him a peeled banana which he accepted with his unsteady hand and began taking hesitant bites. My attention was fixed on the revival of the baby langur. Suddenly, I had an uncanny feeling of being watched. I turned away from the coop and looked up. There sat the mother langur on our kitchen roof, watching every move I made. She simply sat there quietly, as if convinced that no harm was being done to her child. Meanwhile, the baby sensed the presence of his mother and started to sob and cry a little louder. I retreated from the door of the coop to allow the mother access to her baby. Immediately, the mother descended on the floor of the coop and picked up the baby in her arms. She gave the baby a thorough body inspection to check his injuries and then cuddled him tightly in her bosom. The baby found great solace in her caring arms. The mother sat still with the baby in her lap for a few minutes. It was almost as if she was pondering over her options and trying to figure out how she could keep the baby safe from further assault. For a few seconds, the mother langur looked straight into my eyes. Even today, I cannot forget that look in her eyes, showering silent gratitude on me for saving her child. I was overwhelmed by the emotion, the sentiment and the way she said thanks to me. There sat a universal mother holding a stricken child in her lap. Then, in a flash, she jumped with her baby clinging to her belly and reached our kitchen roof. She surveyed the area for the vicious male langur and then leapt away in the direction opposite to the place of the violent encounter. The brief meeting with the mother and the baby langur convinced me that interspecies communication and mutual trust is indeed a reality and should anyone strike the right chord, the relationship hums into action. The mother langur showed me that food was not the only means of communication between man and animal but that there were other means of establishing a bond through trust, compassion and mutual understanding. Fifty-five years have passed since that day. I am now seventy years old. But I still fondly remember that ‘encounter of a special kind’.
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