The Mystery of The Missing Buddha

Meera walked slowly behind this party. She could feel the tension in the air as opposed to the excitement of yesterday. Her eyes caught something appearing and disappearing amongst the trees ahead of her. She slowed her pace to catch a better glimpse, it seemed as though a blob of maroon was moving. ‘Was it the little Lama again?’ She felt a strange sense of fear as she tried to follow the moving figure. It went inside a group of trees. She kept following it, moving as fast as she could. After a brisk walk of about five minutes, the moving figure stopped and looked back at her. It was still too far from her to make out if it was the same Lama, but it was certainly a young Lama. She started running towards him, hoping to catch up with him, now that he had stopped moving. He went behind a tree as if to tease her. She was where he had been, but now she couldn’t see the Lama anywhere. She looked around hard, behind trees and big rocks, but it was as if he had disappeared. ‘What is going on here? This is weird,’ she thought. She looked around for a few moments. There was no sign of anyone, and she had not only drifted away from her group but also lost track of the person who she was following for no apparent reason. She was alone in the middle of the forest . ‘Great!! I am definitely in trouble!’ she thought, and as she started tracing back her steps, she spotted something black on the ground. She picked it up and found that it was a rexine travel pouch. She opened it to find some documents and some foreign currency and…a passport! She heard someone calling her name, “Meera, where are you? Meera! Meeeerrra!” “Please come here…”she shouted back. After a couple of minutes she heard footsteps approaching her. “I’m here, look what I found,” she shouted again. The group joined her, but no one shared her enthusiasm. “Meera, you know better than this! Going into the forest on your own can be dangerous!” Her Uncle was clearly very angry. Tara too gave her a mean look. “I’m sorry, Uncle, but I was following a young Lama. He ran away but look what I found! Travel documents, a passport, and some currency!” She had everything lying open in front of her. Inspector Kumar took the bag and opened the passport. He went strangely silent for a few seconds and then started placing orders, “Seal this area; mark the spot where we found this pouch and comb the area with more men and get two sniffer dogs… ” “What is the matter?” Uncle Jeet demanded. “The passport belongs to the missing French tourist,” Inspector Kumar said in a low voice.