February 25, 2011
Monkey Menace in New Delhi
Indian capital, New Delhi, has remained infested with thousands of rhesus monkeys for decades past. According to a Hindu legend, the simians, descendents of monkey god, Hanuman, are as sacred as cows. Culling them is therefore not an option.
“Please do not feed the monkeys”, implores a sign at Raisina Hills, the complex of colonnaded buildings that includes the President’s residence, Parliament and Cabinet offices. Ignoring the sign, worshippers reach the Raisina Hill every Tuesday handing out bananas. The monkeys love the free lunch. Their credulous devotees go home elated by the thought of having earned the blessings of Lord Hanuman .
The thousands of officials who work in the government buildings face a different situation. They have been bitten, robbed of their lunch boxes, their files ransacked, their window panes banged, and the saris of lady workers pulled off for the sheer fun of it perhaps.
The marauding monkey gangs have enjoyed tearing up official files in total disdain for the Official Secrets Act . That has in a way expedited the disposal of government business. For, nothing often comes out of the official labyrinth of red tape!
If his senior pulls up an official for sitting on a file, he could sneak into a corner, tear the file up quietly and attribute his own impish dexterity to the hordes of monkeys in the area. Animal activists would be at a loss to defend their protégés in such cases.
They keep arguing that the media hype about the simian ‘havoc’ is giving monkeys a bad name!
The main problem, they insist, is not the rising number of monkeys but the growing population of humans. “We have encroached on their homeland, we have taken away their fruits, we have reduced their water resources, and we are trapping them from their home range, from their forests; so they are coming to urban areas”. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
The Government , the ultimate repository of national wisdom, started thinking of ways and means of killing the snake without breaking the stick, that is without offending the religious susceptibilities of any community. Some scientist came up with the plan to scare off the monkeys with ultrahigh frequency loudspeakers. It did not work: the monkeys followed the formula of in from one ear, out the other.
It was then decided to trap and ship them to distant regions and states. Some 400 monkeys were caught at Raisina Hill and moved to a holding area on the outskirts of New Delhi to await their return to forests in neighboring states.
That too didn’t work, as no local or state government was willing to accept the transfer of the ache to their own heads. We have a whole lot of monkeys of our own, each one replies.
How about the devotees of Lord Hanuman? They were willing to feed bananas to their deities every Tuesday but lacked the resources to build a haven for over 5,000 of them; nor were they willing to accept the saris of their womenfolk being pulled off in public!
The rhesus macaques fear the fierce looking ape called langur. Some people train these apes to hold shows at street corners to collect money. These langur-walas saw an opportunity to make some extra money. They moved with their acrobatic langurs into New Delhi and started scaring way the much smaller rhesus monkey , but for a fee. This developed into a langur squad. But, it too did not work as the smaller but perhaps smarter monkeys would move away temporarily from the area of langurwalas. In the evening they would return to their old haunt.
Then a few years back some prankster saw a good opportunity to pull a fast one on the Delhiwalas. He would don a hairy costume, put on steel claws on his fingers and start scaring pedestrians in dark alleys. The terror caused by this nocturnal ghost, part-man, part-monkey, was reported to have struck at more than 65 locations in the city. Two persons died trying to escape the monkey man . Many have reported having received scratches from his claws. Sketches of this creature carried by the press, put him at 5’ 6’’ with long black hair or clothes, steel claws and a helmet.
Those claiming to have sighted this spook were unable to give a cogent picture of what they say. One man said that he looked straight into the green eyes of this creature and when he tried to get a hold on it, it turned into a cat and slipped away. Another said he bumped into it but could not recollect its looks as he was sleep walking!
Los Angeles Times’ New Delhi Bureau reported on May 21 / 03 a very amusing aspect of the story: “Leading Hindu nationalists insisted that the military intelligence agency (ISI) in Pakistan had sent the monkey-man in a sinister plot to destabilize India. Several members of Parliament demanded that the government send in crack paramilitary units to catch the ape-man.” The LA Times report further said that the New Delhi police force had accordingly deployed 1000 officers, many of them posted on rooftops. A reward of $1,000 had also been offered.
As for the allegation against the ISI, it would suffice to quote Times of India columnist, Siddhart Vardaragan, who said in a write-up: “Reviled, feared and fantasized in equal measure, Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is one enemy India loves to hate ….Many in India believe the ISI is only slightly less omnipresent than God…. Even the demolition of Babri Masjid has been attributed to the ISI. … The only terrorist crime in modern India that we can say with certainty not the handiwork of the ISI was the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi on Jan. 30, 1949. That too only because the dreaded intelligence agency did not exist at that time.”
Reverting to the subject of monkey, let us remember that modern day historians tend to give a logical interpretation to the description and role of Hanuman as presented in the epic, Ramayana. It describes him as a monkey ruling over vast legions of his species in South India where prince Rama of Ganges basin was sent in exile. There his wife Sita was abducted by Ravana, king of the ape-like crude, black-skinned and wild beings called Rakshases. Noticing the misery and sorrow of Rama, Hanuman offered to help him retrieve Sita from the clutches of Ravana. He did succeed in that and was consequently raised to the status of a deity.
Historians agree that a king Rama probably existed in ancient India, particularly as almost accurate description of the location of Lanka is given in Ramayana. Hanuman was a human being as he is presented conversing with Rama. Ravana too was a human being. Being of Dravidian race, both were dark-skinned, hairy and of short stature. Poetic liberty of the tall, fair-skinned Aryan composers of Ramayana turned them into monkeys. But, Rama’s immense gratitude to Hanuman led to a place being allotted to him as a sacred deity in the Hindu pantheon.
The continuing monkey menace in New Delhi might lead to a reconsideration of the sanctity attached to this animal. Why not capture the vexing critters and ship them to China and the Philippines. You know what they do to the monkeys there. That should put an end to the menace in New Delhi. (This is a repeat column)
Arifhussaini@hotmail.com
