Monkey business!
"Uth jaayiye...bandar aa gaya!" (Wake up! the monkey has arrived!) were the words ushered to me, as I was forced to forfeit my siesta on a lazy afternoon. The tone was akin to that woman whose sons had finally arrived on a fine summer morning -- all set to continue the "bhangra paaley" they'd left off a couple of decades ago. Well, the news of the arrival of this distraught-but-acting-voracious primate spread like wildfire in our (non-)cooperative housing society -- thanks to our smartphones and having little better to do, apart from watching scripted "reality" shows. Moreover, seems it was also a welcome departure, from the usual "very relevant" topics of the society WhatsApp group -- like how to save the millions they'd put in PayTm, if and when it suddenly becomes a bank!
So anyway, I was my unamused self and headed towards the balcony, where this distant, unevolved, relative of mine had chosen to spend his afternoon. I saw it getting more intrigued by the enactment of the last scene of 'Sadma' movie that my wife and daughter were putting up to shoo it off than they were with his. I am sure, it'd have ordered a popcorn and soda, given a chance.
As I bleh-ed the overhyped situation -- of the red-corner notice issued on the society WhatsApp group -- I felt sorry for the two pot-bellied security guards with their lathis, clueless about dealing with this unwelcome refugee. I felt even more sorry for the bewildered animal, of what all it's being made to endure -- "I hope it finds a safe exit".
For the next two days, we kept hearing reports about the antics of the monkey in various locations throughout the society. I am sure, there'd been a lot of "selfies" clicked as well. Though I am not very sure about who ended up more entertained at the end of it all -- the monkey or yours truly.