Man Vs Monkey

1990s

Then I was a school kid. And, we lived in university quarters (and still we do live at the same place) - my father being a faculty at a medical college. You can imagine the quarters to be a couple of flats - the typical one you must have seen in some movie where lot of kids have fun playing cricket and breaking the window panes of houses [I can cite one movie atleast - Anjali]. And, as my mother often says, "the best part is that you can find no kid at the playground the moment the glass is broken". Every house had a balcony in the front - adjoining the hall. And, some houses like mine had a balcony at the rear end of the house too - adjoining the kitchen. The balcony - I suppose - is meant to serve as a means to sit out leisurely in the evening to enjoy the breeze or the beautiful view of the moon - something the flat system deprives otherwise - as compared to those who stay in an individual house. However, in our quarters it served several other purposes too. One use of it was that it served as a means of communication - telephone having not made its way into the middle class homes then. Kids and ladies - equally - would be seen talking to their friends from the balcony. Another use of it was to wash the utensils - the kitchen being nearer to it. And, some others even washed their clothes there. Usually, those houses where they washed the clothes/utensils in the balcony would have a tap brought out to the balcony from the kitchen so as to avoid carrying water in a bucket every time.

All was well - with the balconies being a important area of the household - till the time the monkeys found their way to the quarters - in search of food. They would come in large numbers and enter into the house either through the balcony door or through the windows - if they are open. Now, the balconies which once served as the means of chit-chat among the ladies and kids turned to be the way to communicate the arrival of monkeys. Often someone would be shouting out aloud,"Aunty onga veetla korangu" [translates in English as, "Aunty, there is a monkey in your house"]. But as the monkey menace increased, a request was made and all the houses soon had a wire mesh door for the windows [so that the main window would still be open for air to come in but at the same time the monkeys cannot enter the house]. Now, we kids had fun looking at the monkeys sitting outside. And, one such day - as I was watching the monkeys, something caught my eye. A monkey that was sitting at one of the houses was trying to open the tap that had been provided to wash clothes. I was amazed that a monkey had the brains to know that the tap - if opened - would provide a means to quench its thirst. I called my mother and showed it to her. She replied, "Yes. I have seen it opening the tap several times before". As I watched, the monkey successfully opened the tap and started drinking water. I was awe-struck and started to wonder if the monkey had so much intelligence, can it do whatever man could do? I was confused as to what exactly differentiates the monkey from a man - if it could THINK! By that time the monkey had finished drinking water to its need and then it happened... The monkey started moving away - without closing the tap. Immediately, I got the answer to my question. The monkey's thinking was driven by need. It had seen water flowing out when the knob was rotated. It learnt it because it needed water. Once its thirst was quenched, there was no "need" to think. In fact, this cannot be thought of as a process of thinking. It is a natural instinct ("a survival effort" - if I have to quote it the way my father would have referred to it!) that drove it to open the tap. It was just a simple event - but it stayed at some corner of my mind through the 90s and into the 2000s when something prompted it to pop out from the corner where it was lying idle all those years...

2000s

Throughout the 2000s I stayed away from home - doing my B.E, working in a software firm for a year, doing my M.Tech and currently doing my Ph.D. And, much of these years were spent at hostels - at three different institutes (at three different states) - all government institutes and were supposed to be places were some of the best minds of the country studied. It was at these hostels that I was reminded of the monkeys now and then. At times (in my B.E it was "many times"), there used to be water shortage in the hostels and one would wake up in the morning to find the taps dry. As I have seen - in all the institutes that I stayed - invariably, one would find many people not closing the tap after seeing that there is no water. Especially, if the water had stopped in the night, it would be those few people like me who wake up early - who would have to run around closing the taps. Now, this reminded me of the monkeys - monkeys that did not close the tap once they had their need satisfied. One of the characters that separated it from human community. I wonder if one did not have the common sense to close the tap foreseeing the water that might get wasted once water was available, what difference do they have from those monkeys? It is not just about closing the tap. I get angry seeing people who just care for themselves and not bother about others - those selfish people who do not think beyond themselves. The people who park their vehicle on the way obstructing the path for the others in my hostel basement and in the mess, the people who do not bring shuttles to the badminton court just because the shuttles are costly, people in the lab who would not bother to switch off the lights when they are the last to go out, people in the lab who do not wish to do anything that concerns the lab (and think that "someone" would do it), people who leave the lights on in their room, the list goes endless. It is not just the institute I talk about. You can see selfish acts of humans at every public place you go. I feel that common sense is an important character that alienates us from the animals. When that is lost, man is still just a monkey wearing a dress and moving around in a scooter. And, it is a pity that many times, education takes away the "common sense" man otherwise naturally has [To put it the other way, once educated - a lot of people become more concerned about themselves and themselves alone]. Next time you do something, just for a moment - think if you would like to be a MAN or a MONKEY.