Skip to main content

And I still love monkeys too…

While on the topic of scary-funny animal incidents, let me share this one too.

This dates back to when I was 8 and my brother 4. We had gone to Nagpur to visit my father’s parents.

They lived on the first floor of a bungalow. There was a terrace attached to their drawing room.

One morning, my father and grandfather had gone out and my grandmother and my mother were busy in the kitchen cooking lunch. My brother and I were left to our devices.

We were rummaging through grandfather’s wooden cupboard taking advantage of his absence. Suddenly I saw a very old matchbox. I read the year written on it. It was nearly 30 years old. I opened it and to my pleasant surprise, I saw that it was full of matchsticks. I was very curious to see if they were still working. I wanted to light at least one. So I told my brother. He too got very excited.

Then, somehow, and thankfully, I got the feeling that my mother wouldn’t be too pleased if she caught me lighting matches, especially inside the house. So my brother and I went to the terrace. Excitedly I opened the box, took one matchstick and was about to light it when suddenly, there was a thump very close to me. I looked up to see this a huge (at least that is how it seemed to 8 year old me) monkey right in front of me ! I simply froze ! I don’t remember my brother’s reaction. Then the monkey grabbed the matchbox from my hand.

I was so scared ! I grabbed my brother’s hand and rushed inside the house and with a loud bang shut the door behind me. My mother heard the noise and came to see what had happened. She saw the two of us standing next to the door and looking very scared. We told her what had happened. She carefully looked out of the window next to the door that opened out into the terrace and saw that the monkey wasn’t there. Then my fear subsided and guilt took over…I had managed to lose my grandfather’s carefully preserved matchbox of thirty years :(

I rushed outside to the terrace to look for the matchbox and to my great relief, there it was…exactly where I was standing ! Phew ! As I picked it up off the ground and looked up into a tree right in front of me, I saw the monkey sitting in the tree and staring down at us ! But this time I was brave…mother was with me. So, showing great ease, I slowly walked back in…and didn’t venture out of the house alone at all for the remainder of the day :)

P. S. Wish you all a very Happy New Year ! May this year bring all of you peace, joy and abundance :)

Labels:

Comments

Noisy Quiet said…
Smart monkey :) Your mother probably spoke to it earlier and said "keep an eye on the kids while I make lunch and don't let them get into any danger!" ;)
3 January 2011 at 22:10
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘Geographically challenged’

I laughed my guts out while reading this . Then I had another bout of laughter thinking of all the incidents that happen with me. For a long time now I have known that I am, what I like to call, ‘geographically challenged’ :) Situation 1 - If I go inside a building (happens mostly with residential buildings), then after I exit the lift (elevator) or come down the stairs, I cannot quickly locate the gate ! Situation 2 - If I am inside a building, I will routinely point in wrong directions to indicate places outside the building. Situation 3 - I am presently at office. I have come here from home. Now I have to go to some place where I have always gone from home and never from office. What do I do ? I go home first and from there I go to that place. It doesn’t matter if it is a longer distance or takes more time. I have to do this, because simply have no mechanism to re-align my mental map to my present location ! Situation 4 - Another thing is that if I have come to your place in ...
11 comments
Read more

The balance of nature

The Japan earthquake and tsunami managed to bring tears to my eyes. It is terrible to see the amount of damage …to humans, to property, to the landscape…to lives…and it will take ages to restore some sense of normalcy. Life as they knew it before this disaster is lost forever for all the affected people…those who are still alive. :( Call me weird or naïve or stupid or un-informed or anything, but I really believe that we humans have managed to bring things to such a level where Nature has to act to restore the balance. How else does one explain the rise in the frequency of natural disasters and the increased intensity of the damage they cause each time they occur ? The uncontrolled population increase over the centuries itself has been responsible in robbing the Earth of its natural resources. Add to it the greed of humans…we can’t take just as much as we need…we have to take more and hoard. We don’t think of preservation, of regeneration or of repaying what was taken. We cross the ...
8 comments
Read more

Love in the rains :)

Heart shaped ditch on a construction site next to our office building ! Closer view of the 'heart' ! You can find love in the most unusual places ! :)
7 comments
Read more