NILAH GOES IN SEARCH OF THE MYSTICAL TAHR

Nilah was sitting near the gate when she heard two visitors talking to her Appa.

“They saw a Nilgiri Tahr up on the ridge,” one of them said.

“Lucky,” the other replied. “You don’t see them much anymore.”

That evening, while helping Paati pick curry leaves, Nilah asked,
“What’s a Nilgiri Tahr?”

Paati’s hands paused for a moment.
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“It’s a mountain animal,” she said, “but there’s something about it… something quiet and old, like it belongs to the hills more than we ever could. People say they only appear when they want to.”

Nilah didn’t ask more. But the next morning, she packed her sketchbook, a guava, and Appa’s binoculars. She left a note on the kitchen counter and stepped out before the sun had fully risen.

She followed the trail behind the house, past the tea fields, and up where the grass grew tall and the wind felt cooler. Everything around her was still. She looked carefully as she walked.
She found hoofprints near a rock, a bit of coarse fur on a branch.
But there was no one else around. Later, she sat beneath a tree, opened her sketchbook, and started to draw the hills. Then something shifted on the far slope.

A Nilgiri Tahr stood between two rocks, almost hidden in the shadows. It was still, watching her. For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then it turned and disappeared behind the ridge.

Nilah stayed there for a while, quietly smiling. She didn’t try to follow.
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She walked home slowly, her bag swinging at her side.
Her heart felt full and light all at once. It was the kind of day she didn’t want to explain too much.

That evening, she showed her sketch to Paati.
“I saw one,” she said.

Paati looked at the drawing, then at Nilah.
“They’re not very common anymore,” she said softly. “But when they do appear, they leave something behind.”

Nilah folded the sketch and placed it carefully inside her notebook.
She didn’t tell anyone else.

But she hoped the grasslands would stay wild enough —
for someone else to find one, too.