ninavu onlinemagazine from cet alumni in UAE

"I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture
of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by
any of them. Mine is not a religion of the prison house. It has room for the least among God's
creations. But it is proof against insolence, pride of race, religion or color." Thus spoke the father of
our nation, the great Mahatma Gandhi.

I am not a Mahatma, but I too didn't want "my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be
stuffed" for quite a different reason. I love the fresh air and nature. Being cooped up in a house where
all the doors and windows are closed suffocates me. Hence I had a penchant for keeping my doors
and windows (of course except the entry door to the house) open during the day time. This landed me
in giving "room for some beasts among God's creations".

One day, all the household chores over, I was waiting for my kids to be back from school. Welcoming
them back from school, serving them food was a dream come true for me after the busy working life. I
still remember those days, with pain, when my daughter used to cry over the phone " Amma, please
come home. I am lonely." or "I am hungry" or " Chettan fought with me, I don't like him".

Comfortably lying down on the sofa I dozed off watching the TV. The ringing of the doorbell woke me
up. I opened my eyes……Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek …………….I shrieked loud enough to wake the entire
neighborhood from their afternoon siesta. There, perched on my dining table, were two Langur
monkeys with a half eaten banana in their hands. I looked at the fruit bowl. One Kg of bananas and
the only piece left was held by my simian cousins who were watching me nonchalantly, finishing off
what was left in their hands.

My daughter was frantically knocking the door. "There are two monkeys in here" I shouted. "There are
two waiting outside too" joked my son. Luckily I managed to lay my hands on a matchbox and the
simians zoomed away as soon as they saw fire.

After this incident I didn't have any choice but to keep my balcony doors closed since I realized they
were regular visitors to our neighborhood filled with guava, chikkoo and mango trees. It was fun
watching their antics through the window. Many a time their swinging on the cables disconnected my
telephone. I envied the way they could jump from tree to tree and across terraces (monkeys don't
need a civil engineer to build bridges for them, right?)

They used to come in groups, sit on the trees, pluck and eat the fruits at their leisure and then push off,
maybe to their next destination. The baby monkeys hanging on to their mothers looked really cute.
Any sign of danger and the mothers would clutch their babies tight. The little ones would explore a bit,
but not more than a "tails" distance when the mother monkeys would pull them back by their tail. ( Oh,
I wish our kids too had tails that we mothers could pull!!)

Yet another day I saw this young monkey climbing up, holding the telephone cable with one hand and
the TV cable with the other. "Oh no…not again" I sighed. The thought of getting the lineman once
again to repair the cable crossed my mind, when I saw it answering natures call from above. The
droppings fell on the poor unsuspecting maid who was washing the vessels at my neighbour's house!

They caught me unawares once again as I left the door open, when a monkey came into the kitchen
and left with two potatoes. After chasing it away I closed the door when I saw another one peeping
through the window grill. He seemed to be telling me " My friend has got something delicious, where
is my share?"

The monkey menace continued unabated with them practicing long jumps and high jumps on my
maruti car, dirtying my balcony. I called up my hubby dear for advice " These monkeys are troubling
me …" I wailed over the phone. " What again? Last time I had advised them, just give one of them the
phone" he ordered. I laughed out as I said " I am talking about the real monkeys not our children".

On my mothers advice, I even made an offering of a large vadamala to Hanumanji at the nearby South
Indian temple. As days passed I got used to their monkey ways and we learnt to live in peaceful
coexistence. I took solace in the fact that as per Darwin's theory of evolution, they are my ancestors.

One day as I picked up the phone I heard my hubby dear asking " Shiv who is chattering away on
your mobile?" As I looked through the window ……there, perched on the branch of the guava tree,
was a monkey with my mobile in his hand!!!!