Chased By A Monkey
A rookie mistake...
Hey friends,
Greetings from Ashoka University, India!
My university is located outside Delhi, the national capital of India. It is surrounded by agricultural fields, and has many rhesus macaque monkeys that live nearby. Here’s a story of how I engaged with these monkeys when I first came here.
As I settled into Ashoka, I started taking a few hours out of my day to study the rhesus macaque troop outside the campus.
Monkeys are one of those animals in the liminal spaces between forests and urbanity. While they are found in some metros in India, they are prevalent around agricultural spaces. At the very least, the monkeys here still have a bit of wildness, the natural instinct absent in city monkeys. They still forage for their food, like leaves and fruits, unlike their urban counterparts that consume chips and ice cream.
Monkeys play a unique role in India's cultural imagination as symbols of the prominent Hindu god Hanuman.
But this godly association does not make them in any way benevolent. These rascals steal food from pushcarts and street vendors. They have gotten bold and clever enough to sneak into houses and steal snacks.
On the first few occasions, I maintained a safe distance from them. I'd long since heard about their aggressive nature, how they weren't like the placid bonnet macaques I was used to back in south India. When threatened, they mauled people with their long canines, delivering a rabid bite.
Every animal has what I like to call its safety perimeter - the radius around it, which is its personal space. As long as you stay out of this circle, you're fine.
But once you cross this invisible line, you enter its territory. You are now challenging it. It must decide whether to flee or stand its ground and take you on. With formidable animals like the rhesus macaque, should you ever accidentally cross this line, your best hope is that the monkey flees.
However, the troops outside my university seemed to ignore me during my visits. So I inched closer. And closer. On every occasion, I narrowed the distance.
They didn't seem the slightest bit perturbed. Perhaps I looked so monkey-like that my presence didn't disturb them. I have been reliably informed by my teachers and peers of my monkey vibe.
Receiving no animosity from them, I concluded that everything I heard about these monkeys was wrong.
Overconfidence is a dangerous drug, which, with wildlife, can prove catastrophic. I seem to have ample amounts of this drug in my system. Luck, favouring me until now, thrust a spoke into my wheel. One day, I took it too far, taking that fateful step forward.
Terrible mistake.
At once, their heads swivelled towards me. The females sprang to their feet, clutched their babies, and bared their teeth at me. The younger ones scuttled away.
It is the alpha male's duty to protect his troops from harm. Instinct told him that I was a threat. His lips curled into a sneer.
And then he charged. Seven kilograms of angry monkey barreled at me. His bared canines meant business. His shrill screams of 'Kree! Kree! Kree!' shattered the silence.
Sheer terror lent unusual quickness to my feet. My body catapulted backwards as the alpha burst through the parthenium weeds. It was a feat of gymnastics that even left the macaque in awe.
For a moment, he wavered, never expecting a miserable human to be capable of such manoeuvres. He gawked at me as we waited in that tense silence.
At last, after several tense seconds, the alpha concluded that he made his dominance clear. He strutted back to the troop. Then, they abruptly resumed their activities, like grooming each other. Business as usual. It was like the confrontation never happened.
I didn't visit the monkeys after that.
Postcard
Sadly, monkeys are illegally kept as pets in some parts of India. Here, a rhesus macaque baby sits tied to a metal railing.
Favourite Quote
Deep in the forest a call was sounding, and as often as he heard this call, mysteriously thrilling and luring, he felt compelled to turn his back upon the fire and the beaten earth around it, and to plunge into the forest, and on and on, he knew not where or why; nor did he wonder where or why, the call sounding imperiously, deep in the forest. —Jack London
Have a creative, wild and inspiring week!
If you’re new, welcome to The Owlet! My name is Ishan Shanavas, and I am an Artist, Photographer, Writer and Student of the Natural World.
Here I talk about my work, along with curating the most interesting ideas on the internet. I confine them to topics like Nature, Culture, Photography, and Art but often fall prey to other genres.
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That was a great story Ishan! So well told, with endearing facets of your character shining through. And I loved this line. "But this godly association does not make them in any way benevolent."