TROOP HEIST

The thudding sound of the roof sheets and the cries of people and animals caught my attention one fine afternoon, when I peeped out of the window and saw the troop. It was spread all over and looking for possible targets to hit for. People here and there shouting and asking their dear ones to be aware of the attack which was going to happen.

And then in a minute the action started first, with signal among the members which obviously we couldn’t understand because of our evolution. Asking each and every one to be ready and hold their respective grounds and do as planned. The target was the general store which was at the ground floor of my apartment. The attack was planned in a sense that some of the soldiers will make the move, with two of them sitting on the roof of the store and two at the side hiding behind the parked vehicle. The shopkeeper as usual displayed the chips packet hanging on the hooks of the roof, bread kept on the counter with trays of egg and his balance. The first among them made a move by leaping for the packet of bun and as soon as the shopkeeper noticed that he started screaming and hushed away the monkey, this opportunity was made use by the one hiding behind the vehicle to take the eggs. And the one on the roof with his flexibly moving body showcased the stunts to fetch the packets of chips. In the meanwhile I heard that there was also a heist at the vegetable store and the things handpicked included tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. The interesting part is all the participants can be seen sitting on the terrace of the locality and feeding on the heist made.  

  

I still remember an incident that happened when I was in school and in the age group of 5-6 years. One fine morning I went up on my terrace as I liked to play atop there and feel the morning breeze, suddenly I saw a monkey and was fear stricken, the reason was the terror in those days regarding the mischief and monkey bites in our area. But to my surprise something happened which I still doesn’t understand why? The monkey leaped over the wall and landed on my shoulder and then to my surprise kept its hands on my eyes and with its legs caught my ears … in a role play of what Gandhiji’s three monkeys resembled. The one with eyes closed, the other with hands on its lips and the third one with hands on the ears. In my situation, two were my eyes and ears and the third one the monkeys mouth with which it started calling its friends.

But to its surprise, my mother noticed that I was nowhere in the house and the terrace door was open. In search of me, she came up and saw the whole scene and made the monkey to run away leaving me in the baffled situation without knowing what exactly did happen there. This was my first face to face encounter.

In the later years, when I used to go to shop with my father, we could see a band of monkeys sitting on the road and terrace spread across an area as if they have conquered the same and wish no one to intrude. But defying all there rules, my father would hold my hands and tell me the hidden truth, “if you don’t harm them, they won’t harm you” and we used to walk past them without any damage. These lines are something I still follow in my life and are the ones my father used to tell me in my childhood days whenever we encountered situations of this sought.

Years passed by and I grew up, shifted places and regions finally settled down at a place. And here I witnessed the heist by the monkeys, it was the troop of monkeys which would amaze me every now and then. The strict order of their hierarchy they would follow when they move over the terrace walls, the novice in the tribe moving on the wires and cables to cross the roads as if moving over the over-bridges doing all the acrobats they would. The leader of the band upfront followed by his wife with the child hanging on her belly, followed by the ladies and the other men as soldiers moving in a line, with some of its scouts scouting the area before the boss arrives.

There play and fun is also worth watching wherein they climb over the neem trees in the parks and try to jump of its tall canopies to land down by holding on to its branches as if they were Tarzan’s trying to cover the whole jungle of a forest(here a tree) by holding on the twigs and twins. The heist here is for survival, and that too can be clearly seen that the ones who get hold of something clearly eat it up and others try to get hold off it resulting in a chaos. The causalities’ in all these is the broken eggs in the trays, broken cables of telephone and internet broadband along with monkey bites on  humans. These monkeys with no place to live in can be seen lying down on the stairs and places which provide them with cold surface in the scorching heat of the sun. But we in fear of the causalities’ try to hush them away beating them with rods and throwing water over them. Leading them to get angry over us humans and biting the ones who pass nearby them knowingly or unknowingly.

But have you imagined what has led to all these monkeys out of the real forest to the concrete jungles. Yes, the activities of men. In search of prosperity man has been converting the forest lands into residential areas, building his own by destroying theirs. It lead them out to the open in search of a place to stay and some food to eat, leading them to attack us in their defense. The picture above was shot by me at Jim Corbett National park during a visit there, a natural habitat for the animals and the carefree look on the face of the creature is clearly visible which is totally different from what we witness in the cities.

 

“ Zindagi ki khashmakash mein sabhi lage hai

Itna toh lehza inn bejubano ke liye rakho

Kitna bhi aage badh jaoge dusro  ko dabakar

Rahoge phir bhi inn hi ke vanshajh sabhi”