The Monkey and Me

As I was watching the epic scene of the fight between Akshay Kumar and the monkey in the Bollywood movie Housefull, I remembered an incident that happened few years back with me.

Though I was born in eastern Bhutan, I grew up in western Bhutan, Paro and we hardly see monkeys in Paro or the nearby area. And when I joined my university in New Delhi which bore favorable conditions for monkey’s livelihood, my eyeball popped up so many times to get a glimpse of the creature whenever I saw one around. Since the monkeys and apes are a close relative of the human species, it always interested me to see this relative of mine as there were so many similarities we shared and of course the monkey behavior catching up so many attentions. Though we describe their behavior as reckless, for them it is their fundamental right and nothing offending to anyone.

So coming to my incident, it was one morning in my hostel room when my friend was still sleeping on the bed. I opened the balcony door to get the broom to clean my room. After inspecting the balcony I noticed that I needed to mob the balcony as it was really dusty. So I directly went to the washroom to get water and rag. But unknowingly I left the door to my room opened after bringing in rag and water.  

When I was back after getting the broom from the balcony, I was stuck to see an unfamiliar face in my tiny room. It was then that I realized that he wasn’t my friend or relative. Monkey is a monkey and he was there doing exactly the thing expected: he was busy feasting on my huge watermelon I bought the previous day by paying INR 50 from the Alaknanda market. Both of his hands had been assigned in filling his mouth simultaneously. There was not even a moment spared in spitting out the seed. This seriously offended me and I found myself shouting at him to leave my room and watermelon. Hahaha…and he just ignored me and continued his business with my poor watermelon.

Not knowing what to do, I shouted to my sleeping friend, “Yangzom”

She looked up from her pillow and followed my index finger where her half-opened eyes suddenly widened and I saw a clear fear pulling her to reality which was expected obviously.

But to my dismay she directly exited herself as her bed was near the door leaving a completely lost and scared friend (me) alone with the ever-ready-to-attack creature. I was really pissed off with that. Not knowing what to do, I again called her and she came back running.

Noticing my terrified expression, she told me to calm down and not to jump or say anything to the monkey. Seeing her confidence, I stood still on my spot as she went out to look for help. Within few minutes, she came with the supervisor and few men who brought cricket bat along with them. And within all these time, my watermelon was all engulfed by the witty monkey. Seeing the men with bat, the monkey fled my room within seconds.

With him gone, I gathered the left-over watermelon and cursed myself for not eating it the previous night. And then I joked myself that perhaps this was the most special way to gift my special relative with whom I have never met or known much.  

When I later narrated the whole incident to my Bangladeshi appu Labiba, she pitied enough to promise me that she will bring a watermelon as a replacement to cheer me up.

Though the whole incident seems bit funny, I am really thankful that the monkey didn’t jump on me or caused any harm because from what I have heard from others later, monkeys can harm and scratch our faces when shouted on them. My tasty watermelon kept him occupied and didn’t allow him to deal with me in that way. So that saved me luckily.