"Have you heard about the missing men incident from the wooden village?"
"No, what happened?"
"You must not be leaving the village for you to not know about this."
"So in the wooden village, there have been incidents of men going missing. Now there have been close to 20 men missing."
"What! This is huge. "Why didn't anyone take action?"
"Who said there was no action? Initially, there were only five men that went missing. and slowly, anyone who went in search of them also started to go missing. "
"Now everyone in the village stays together in the centre of the village and doesn't leave the village after sunset. "Even during the day, groups of people band together to go out in the forest."
"Haven't nearby villagers come to help?"
"They did, but now even they have returned to their village. "They are hesitant to help as their men have also started to go missing."
Then one of the men lowered his voice and asked
"What about the elder of our village?" "Have they sent the help?"
The other men looked at him as if he were an idiot.
"Don't you know the rules of our village?"
Then both men sighed and looked towards the west, where these incidents were happening, and shook their heads in pity.
"I just hope they come to our village for help."
"Yeah. "It's for their own good."
These kinds of discussions were happening almost everywhere in the village. It was spreading like wildfire.
.....
Inside a meeting hall.
There was a pin-drop silence. Everyone in the room was as if thinking of a solution.
It was a hall with three old men and three older women sitting, while six tall men were standing beside them.
It was the village head and different elders of the village.
If Ram had been here, he would have been able to recognise the village head, the middle-aged merchant, whose name he didn't know, and Hanu and his five brothers.
"So, we all know about the wooden village incident. What do you guys think?" The village head, also known as the elder, asked everyone present.
What incident? An older woman, who was responsible for the nutrition and food supplies of the villagers, asked and looked around.
Then what were you thinking initially? at the beginning of the meeting? Asked a middle-aged merchant named Kabir.
"I was thinking about the food distribution and management work; why would I think about anything else?" replied the older woman named Anna.
After hearing the reply of elder Anna, everyone present looked at her as if amused by her simplicity and answer.
"We will give you the gist of what we know," the village head said, looking towards Hanu.
Hanu nodded and stepped forward.
Every person present in the hall looked towards Hanu.
Hanu, after bowing towards the elders, gave the gist of the information.
To the surprise of Hanu and his five brothers, there was not only Anna, who was surprised, but also another elder.
Hanu couldn't help but twitch his lips in understanding that there was not only one elder without the information.
And surprisingly, the village head had no reaction to this. It seems the village head was also aware that there was definitely more than Anna, who was clueless about the situation.
So, let's begin.
"What do you all think?" asked the village chief.
"What is there to think about? Let's go and help them," replied Anna.
"We can't just ignore the rules of the village," answered Kabir.
And surprisingly, all the elders present were also in favour of Kabir.