Hyderabad, January 2009I had just arrived in India. A group of my fellow study-abroad students and I had decided to go out and enjoy a trip to the movies. It was meant to be a real Bollywood experience for a group of wide-eyed India newcomers. Before the movie we decided to eat next to the theater at Domino's. Going out for a movie and eating American pizza with American pop-music playing in the background all felt so familiar and easy. "Surely, this India place isn't that different from America!" we thought. We ate our pizza congratulating ourselves on our ability to acclimate to this new cultures so quickly. Then, a rumbling from the roof and the crashing of a ceiling tile to the floor. The hind-legs and tail of a screeching monkey swung through a vacant hole in the ceiling. We looked on, startled. The creature scurried back into the hole never to be seen again. A Domino's employee came to sweep up the broken pieces of ceiling from the floor. The customers returned to their pizza and the Americans in the room returned to their culture shock.
Dharamsala, April 2009
After a semester in India I was escaping the stress of school and the deadly heat of Hyderabad by taking a relaxing-ish ten-day trip by myself through India's Himalayan region. I had been enjoying the laid-back atmosphere of this tiny, Tibetan Buddhist, hill town. I hadn't ever felt this relaxed in Hyderabad. I was even inspired to take a leisurely stroll through the forest! I brought a book with me! I breathed in the clean mountain air! After a while on the road I spotted a bench! A bench?! In the shade?! With no one sitting on it?! This is the rarest thing in India! I was amazed. I sat down, opened my book and began to read. After a while, a cute little Tibetan boy wearing a backpack came and stood near the bench waiting for his ride home from school. It all seemed so charming. I read on. Then out of the corner of my left eye I spotted some movement. "Pay it no mind," I thought, "this bench is too precious to give up." Then out of the corner of my right eye, I noticed more movement. I tried to remain calm and keep reading, but the little chirps and screeches that I was now hearing wer
e becoming hard to ignore. I lowered my book and over the pages spotted monkeys--at least four of them--sitting directly in front of me laughing. Then I looked to the left where at least four or five more were sitting. To the right, the same. "This little local boy doesn't seem to be panicking," I thought, "maybe he'll protect me from this impending monkey attack." I tried to keep reading but I couldn't stop imagining how monkey bites must feel and I had the feeling I was being watched. I looked behind me only to find myself face-to-face with the patriarch, a giant monkey with a red, puffy butt and pointy teeth. These were not cute, fuzzy, little Hyderabadi monkeys; they were hairy, scary, Himalayan-sized beasts. I stood up slowly, crept out of the circle of primates closing in around me then began power-walking away from the scene saying a prayer that the little boy I was leaving behind on his own could fend for himself and would not be eaten due to my wimpiness.Rishikesh, July 2010
Rishikesh was crawling with monkeys. They were on the roofs, in the trees, and always swinging from the industrial-sized wires of the big suspension bridge over the river in the middle of town. Rishikesh was also crawling with cows. Every city in India has cows, but in Rishikesh they
were really everywhere. Since it was extremely hot and I was recovering from a sinister bout of Delhi-belly, having to dodge cows on the road every ten feet was especially displeasing to me as I was walking around Rishikesh one day. On my walk I came upon a temple. I was hot and hungry and tired, but I mustered up the energy to stop and take one picture. A monkey and a cow were having a staring contest on the temple's steps. It seemed like too much of an "only in India" moment to pass up, so I weaved through the cows, the monkeys, the motorcycles, and the crowds of people and made my way toward the two animals to take a picture. I got out my camera and held it up waiting for the perfect moment when all of the sudden I felt someone touching my butt. WHAT?! I turned around ready to start yelling at someone only to see that no one was there. I looked down to find the offender was actually a baby cow curiously nudging me with its head. My "Only in India" moment had just become a little more authentic.
It seems as if you don't like the monkeys.
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