Palmgrove Road Monkeys

Palmgrove road is a broad avenue with a large tree in the middle of the crossing at the beginning of Bangalore's 'Ding-town', Victoria layout. It has a four-storied apartment block of some Bank Officers’ Co-operative. I had rented the South corner flat on the top floor. Right in front of my balcony was a huge Mango tree which gave fruit round the year. My favorite Sunday afternoon, after a leisurely breakfast at Hotel Victoria was to laze in the balcony and read.

It was a winter afternoon and I was deep into Irving Stone’s Passions of the mind, when I saw a family of monkeys playing on the tree. One naughty little fellow jumped onto my balcony and sneaked away with my pop-corn. As he reached back, his mother slapped him hard. My maid said ‘Saab, these fellows are rowdies to be watched from a distance.’

Something happened that day. I still don’t know what. After my maid left, I spent the next hour carefully making a noose and testing it. I laid it on the balcony, threaded it from a loop on the overhang and pulled it into the kitchen. I left some stuff to eat on the balcony and waited. The Little fellow saw his mother had dozed off and ventured on to the balcony. As he stepped into the noose I pulled hard. In a second, he was strung by his hind leg and dangling in mid-air.

Soon the tree was rent with cries from the entire arboreal family. I had locked all my doors and windows. My balcony was thumping with the weight of over ten monkeys. They were jumping up and down, trying to reach out to the kid. Nothing worked. I watched from the darkened kitchen. At about mid-night I woke up, after checking if any of them were still around, I pulled at the tug-knot. The monkey went into a free fall from nearly fifty feet and fell to his death on the concrete floor.

I went on a tour next morning and came back after a week. I heard that monkeys had gone on a rampage for the next two days and residents’ committee had to call helpers from the Zoo to get rid of them. No one understood how the little monkey fell off the tree and why the clan kept jumping on to my balcony angrily.

I do not know why I did what I did, also why was there a subliminal spread of warmth and happiness whenever I thought about it. I tried to observe my behavior but could not find any anomaly. I was pretty normal, worked hard, was good at my work, loved playing with children, loved to go out for a beer. There were a few girls in office, somehow I had never gone out with any but was quite friendly with all of them. Like I said, I was pretty normal kind of a guy.

Since that day however, I occasionally hear the thump of the monkeys jumping on my balcony.

******

I distinctly remember it was the 15th of August. All children in the building were playing and making a racket in the corridor. I heard the thump of the monkeys again. I went out and bought a few kites and thread. I made it a point to walk through the swarm of kids. Then I left my door open. Around Five O’clock two little boys walked in. They must have been about seven or eight.

‘Uncle what is this?’
‘Have you never seen a kite before?’
‘Of course we have and I can fly one too’.
‘Do you both want to try your hand at it? I also have some Coke and pop-corn. We could go to the terrace and have a kite picnic’

Off we went. The building’s terrace was never used and the door to it was jammed. With a little bit of pushing the latch fell off and we were out. It took us all of fifteen minutes to thread the kites and they were away. I taught both of them to hold the thread taut, pull and let go at the right time. There weren’t too many kites in the sky but we were able to cut a couple and felt really happy.

I was silently watching time. It was almost dark now. I peered over the parapet and could see the children’s parents speaking to the guards. I opened the Coke bottles and brought out the eatables. Both of them were having a ball. Our kite was still up.

‘Mom will scream at me’

I ignored him and brought out my special kite. It had fluorescent colours and a string of LED’s along its spine, powered by a tiny battery. Its shimmering long tail made it look like a UFO in the dark sky.

‘Wow! Uncle where did you get this?’
‘Do you want to give it a try?’

With screams of excitement we set off our UFO. It soared immediately. Handing it to the boys, I went to the edge of the terrace and looked down. There was a Police jeep there now and I could see a lot of people milling about. I pulled my head back quickly. It was Eight by now and quite dark, the only light on the terrace was from other buildings. We were having fun.

‘If you all want to continue, I’ll go bring some Maggi noodles and Coke’
‘Yes. Yes. Yes’ came the chorus.

I went down to my flat and cooked some noodles, took out more chips and a large bottle of Coke. By the time we were done with all the food our kite was blazing across the night sky. It was getting cold now and I decided to call it a day. We brought the kite down, rolled up the thread, picked up the basket of food and empty bottles and came down. I had purposely left the TV on. Cartoon Network was showing Tom and Jerry.

It was nearly eleven when the two boys left. Their parents were at my door in five minutes flat. Their anxiety ridden faces were to be seen to be believed. Police came in another fifteen. We had been flying kites, there was clearly no case. I was asked to come to the Police station and give a statement.

I still could not figure out why I did it but the parents’ faces had at least put the thumping monkeys off to sleep.

******

There were to be many such escapades in my life. Each time those rowdy monkeys had jumped angrily in my head and each time there was a feeling of slow exhilaration afterwards. This one made me appear in court, only on suspicion mind you.

On Church Street, off Brigade road, was a pub called Pelican. It was a small place with narrow floor plates stacked up and a circular stairway. Their music always brought a very distinct crowd. My favorite was Jim Morrison. Beer was cheap and a pan-shop there used to sell Hash. Once you got in you were left to yourself till early hours. At Pelican, one Saturday night the monkeys became very agitated.

I noticed two blond girls smoking a joint. I sidled up to them and struck up a conversation. Lydia was German and Monica was Dutch. The duo was back-packing around India and had met in Delhi last week. They had just reached Bangalore. At about 11 PM, when I ran out of money, I offered to continue the party at my house. We tripled on my bike to my Palmgrove road flat. With two girls in my house, high and willing, you would have thought my evening was complete. But monkeys needed to be calmed.

I had by now figured that they did not know each other well and were on their own to explore India. We had a great time for the next couple of hours. I had taken out my cache of triple zero proof AK47 aka Maroc aka Afghani Hashish. All of us were semi-delirious when I suggested,

‘Y’all want to come to Pondy?’
‘Yea’, came back a chorus.
‘Right now’
‘Sure, I am game’ that was Monica. ‘How? On your bike?’
‘Of course but Lyd will have to catch a bus’

So it was decided to send Lydia on a bus, while I and Monica would come on my Bike. We left home at about 2 O’clock, went to Majestic. I asked Monica to go and put Lydia in the Pondicherry bus. I handed her a bottle of Fanta mixed Vodka and a cigarette rolled joint for the bus journey. I stayed out of sight while Monica came skipping back soon.

I kicked my bike and we took off, stopping on the way to buy Fanoos-rolls. Monica was hugging me hard and the wind was blowing on my face. Gradually the affect of booze and hash wore off. When I passed a sign, Mysore 90 Km, the monkeys were smiling.

Monica was disappointed that I had taken a wrong turn-off and landed up here instead of Pondy but she was enjoying the adventure. After a week, when she wanted to go on to Kerala, we exchanged phone numbers and I promised to let her know if Lydia called.

The game however had not gone as per script. Lydia died on that bus journey to Pondy. She was asthmatic and the excess of Hashish and liquor had been too much for her. I came to know two weeks later, when Police came looking for two foreign girls from the watchman in my building. The rascal had no hesitation in pointing towards me. I went with the cops and told them that she went to Pondy while I went to Mysore.

Its been two months and they have not been able to find Monica to refute my story. They suspect some foul play and can’t figure out what happened. In my mind I am clear it was just a prank. I did not mean for Lydia to die, even though I had seen her use the asthmatic pump and had emptied it before we left for the bus-stand.