You can only imagine how many people forwarded me the story about a gang of monkeys attacking and killing the deputy mayor of Delhi, in India. Apparently this had “my kind of story” written all over it.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7055625.stm
According to the BBC, devout Hindus think monkeys are the manifestation of the monkey god Hanuman. Allow me to digress right here and confess that I could type the words “monkey god” all day long, and doing so would make me happy each and every time. For some wonderful reason, that combination of words – monkey god – releases a little snort of serotonin directly into the part of my brain that likes it the most.
Monkey god…monkey god…monkey god…Aaaaah, that’s what I’m talkin’ about.
Anyway, devout Hindus often feed nuts and bananas to the monkeys. So it should come as no surprise that monkeys will occasionally jump on your balcony, grab your nuts, and try to get their paws on your banana. This is why the phrase “had it coming” was invented.
The Indian solution to the problem involves training large monkeys to beat up the small ones. This can’t end well. In my country, we complain that defense contractors are drumming up reasons for war. In India, it looks like the monkey training industry is getting too influential. Their solution to every problem is larger monkeys. But you need to breed ever larger monkeys to beat up the previous monkeys. That’s all well and good until one of them climbs to the top of the Taj Mahal and starts swatting jets.
If I were invited to the funeral, or whatever they call it in India, and I was not a close friend or relative, I don’t know if I could behave myself. Let’s say I was the deputy mayor’s driver, and I was friendly with the dearly departed, but not friends. I think I would spend the entire ceremony going up to different family members and asking, “So, how did he die? No one mentioned it yet.” My entire objective would be to trick a great aunt into saying, “The monkeys tried to grab his nuts, but he didn’t have enough nuts to go around. A scuffle broke out, and he went over a railing.”
I don’t know how reincarnation works, but I’m guessing the deputy mayor will come back as a monkey hater. He might not be too fond of me either.
In unrelated news, my new book, based on the funnier posts from my blog, is available in local bookstores and on Amazon at…