Saturday, August 29, 2009

Monkey business

Dhan Te nan.. No.. this song is in no way related to the current post. But its just that,it keeps circling inside my head like flies do on a piece of shit (yuck.. what a "shit" comparison). But I recite the whole song "dhan te nan" either in my mind or sometimes loud enough to scare the neighbours, atleast twice a day. You dont get to hear such songs often do you?

Now, last week, I had an unvited guest at my room, that too in the form of an animal - a hungry monkey. Well, no need to use the adjective hungry because it seems they always are. Before describing my encounter with how our ancestors were some thousnad years ago, let me first describe how the maginficient house is built where I live.

This house has 2 rooms plus a room where we dump the dirt in our body (aka bathroom) and the room that we always like to keep dirty (aka kitchen), all in the 2nd floor of the building. It is followed by lot of open space in the front with no roof, for what the owner calls as "hall". Wonder if the owner was thinking about Mallika Sherawat stripping when he built this house, taking the inspiration too seriously, he decided to "strip" the roof!!! This gives an open invitation for crows, pigeons and recently bandar babu, to use our kitchen and bathroom in case we forget to lock it.

OK.. When this bandar (or is it bandariya?? I never had the guts to check that) decided toenjoy its weekend at our kitchen, I spotted it just like journalists spot the celebrities meeting secretly. I went to scare it with no weapon in my hand. Seeing an unarmed man with no stick but who himself looks like a stick, bandar babu decides to pounce on me. Frightened, I ran for my life into the room but the monkey had no ideas to give up its revenge. He promptly followed me to the room making me jumpon the bed. After all its a monkey and decides to showcase its talent and he too jumps on the bed. The distance between us is just 4 feet.

I had never seen a monkey that sat so close to me. For 10 seconds, I went completely blank. Later I realised that I had been cornered and had no space to escape. A cornered animal is dangerous but a cornered Anil never is. I just stood there with my legs shaking. The monkey decides to attack me but I somehow manage to stop grabbing a pillow in my hand. It opened its mouth wide as if it was saying "look at my teeth you little peacock". Yes boss. Its teeth were surely sharper than mine, so if its succeeds to get my meat in between its teeth, I would certainly lose some good amount of weight. I then realised that Harbahjan Singh had rightly referred Andrew Symonds to this animal.

3 minutes passed and all frightening thoughts started bubbling in my head. What if the monkey pounces on me and scratches all over my body? Not a problem.. there is a clinic nearby and a quick treatment is somewhat assured. But whats the worst that can haapen? This monkey can take a bite of my flesh and at the worst, can kill me. Thats all isn't it?? Its OK man. We all have to die one day or the other.

WHAT THE $#%&??? Did you just think you will be killed Anil? 24 and a half years of struggle and this is the way I end it? Bitten by a stupid 3 foot tall monkey. Common. I still haven't lost my virginity and here I am, staring at my death that is 4 feet away. My death is going to be as uninteresting as my life. I would rather die due to swine flu than like this. What would tomorrow's newspaper talk about me? 'Monkey tears a man to death'... How timid that would be.

Meanwhile bandar babu decides to have another go and tries to snatch the pillow from me. I took a step forward to scare it and aila... that worked. Then I realised, this world only scares the fellows who get scared and animals are very much part of this world. With all the courage that was hidden deep inside my soul, I took a deep breath and shouted "ssshuuu ssshuu manga" (manga is a Kannada word that means monkey) and there it goes. He runs for life this time showing his back. In no time he was on the terrace giving me the look of a defeated soldier. And I, like a cunning winner, showed my middle finger to it. Huh.. That was not so difficult mate!!!