When a leopard entered the room of a couple on their wedding night

In India, the wedding night is a big thing.

Culturally, whether one's old school or new school, the parents are pretty clueless and assume the pure virgin status of their innocent children. The bride and groom, having spent hours at the elaborate wedding functions which take days to finish, are mostly exhausted.

Though a bed of roses awaits them to "consumate" the marriage, the thrill of socially-approved sex on the wedding night is more lore than reality. Most times the couple is damn tired and goes to sleep. (You may swear by Ekta Kapoor serials but have Google on our side.)

But then, what happens if you try to be good Indian cultured kids and attempt consumating it and then, wait hear a roar? Yup, this is what happened to a couple honeymooning in a Nainital resort.

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A leopard crashed their night as it jumped into their honeymoon room (not a suite, it's not always a suite) through the window and made a dash towards the bathroom with the dumbstruck couple still in their bed.

Sumit Rathore and his wife Shivani then tried to lock the leopard inside the bathroom and successfully raised an alarm.

A forest department team arrived with a cage and a tranquiliser gun to trap the leopard, but the beast was too clever and got away.

A report said the the leopard had jumped inside the room to "save itself from stray dogs".

Weird, weird night for the newly wed couple. But something that set theirs apart in a Jim Corbetish twist.

But the subtext to this "weird story" is terribly sad. Recent instances of wild animals straying into residential areas or high-traffic roads and highways tell a terrible tale.

Also read: Blame not the leopard if he enters the school

Depleted of their natural habitats, with jungles and forests being cleared at an exponentially high and ridiculously unsustainable level, these animals, often top predeators in the food chain, are found loitering in villages and cities, with unfortunate consequences for both the animal and the humans they unwittingly end up contronting.  

An incident of lions just walking on the road like bosses in the middle of the night in a residential area was reported last month. Another leopard related incident took place in February when a stray leopard sneaked into a Bengaluru school and mauled six people.

The honeymoon couple story though takes the cake, but it's a very bitter one.