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Monkeys in India The holy thugs of Pushkar... Ayun Halliday writes... "The best thing about our Pushkar digs was the band of black-faced white monkeys who hung out on the roof. Pushkar is India’s second holiest city, and don’t think those monkeys don’t know it. Thanks to their address, they enjoy complete immunity. No matter how calculated and deplorable their antics, the devout must treat them as Brahma’s favored lap dogs. We spent many entertaining hours watching the monkeys hurl fistfuls of tiny, white candy onto the heads of the pilgrims who had come to make puja on the banks of Lake Pushkar. The monkeys weren’t the only creatures to share the ersatz patio outside our quarters, a small adobe room built directly onto the flat roof. The family who owned this house, living in the downstairs rooms that surrounded the parquet courtyard, had a small, tan dog, a friendly-faced mutt whom everyone ignored. We adopted the eager-to-please little fellow, whom we called Doggiepants. I think Doggiepants was relieved to have some human allies, since the monkeys used him as their whipping boy. He’d be napping on the charpoy, a surprisingly comfortable wooden cot with a mattress of crisscrossed strings, when three or four monkeys would bound over the wall and shamble up to him in the time-honored tradition of bullies the world ’round. As we watched, one of the simian toughs—always a medium-sized henchman, never the biggest one—would grasp Doggiepants by the ruff and fling him unceremoniously overboard. We weren’t foolhardy enough to challenge the usurpers on his behalf. We were three times their size, but they outnumbered us. If they whistled, hundreds of long-tailed, opposable-thumbed relatives would come flying from the neighboring rooftops. They were buff, aggressive, familiar with the terrain, and beloved of Brahma. They were unparalleled specimens of grade-A prime ass kicking monkey flesh. Greg and I adored them. We loved Doggiepants, too, but he was like we were: weak. Pushkar has a well-earned reputation as Rajasthan’s favorite backpackers’ haunt. While Jaipur has exquisite miniature paintings and Jodhpur has forts, Pushkar has ease. It’s easy to navigate on foot, its narrow streets all leading back to the lake. Restaurants are plentiful, as are stalls where even the most tentative bargainer can snag a silk blouse cut from a secondhand sari for less than a buck. Naked sadhus patrol the streets, as dignified as elderly lions. It’s an Indian vacation within India, a temporary reprieve from the big city baksheesh and the exhausting tourist hustle of other picturesque spots. Pushkar gets a fair share of Indian visitors, too, devout Hindus, some of whom are but cremated remains. Varanasi, the famous city on the banks of the Ganges, is the primo ash-scattering spot, but... Lake Pushkar was good enough for Gandhi, and that, my friends, is good enough for me, particularly if you toss in a couple thousand monkeys. 'Why do you think it is that there are a bazillion temples to Ganesha and barely any to Hanuman?' I asked Greg. 'Hanuman’s the coolest, man! When Rama’s brother-in-law kidnapped Sita, that monkey saved the f*cking day! He flew around with an entire forest on his arm!' 'Remember those swimming monkeys in Ubud?' Greg interrupted. Nonsequiturs like this are the norm when one person bears the daily conversational burden that at home is shared by at least a dozen. Beaming, I nodded, breast-stroking furiously in place. Greg, a far more accomplished mimic, upped the ante by climbing a tree, diving into a drinking trough, holding his breath for the underwater crossing and popping up at the far end, his eyes wild, his wet fur plastered close to his body. 'How about Hanoi?' I giggled. Greg pretended to pedal a miniature bicycle around a circus ring. When his comrades broke ranks, he seized the moment to hurl his bike at his whip-cracking trainer, a valiant rebellion, considering that he was still chained to it by the neck. 'Oh my god, I thought I’d die. We were the only ones laughing.' 'Or the one who stole the cherries?' 'He was such a thug,' Greg remarked admiringly, having imitated both the rubber-faced bandit who helped himself to a heaping armload of fruit from a vendor’s cart and the victim, shaking his fists as the thief sat impassively on a telephone wire, spitting the pits onto the man’s head. 'Where was that? Manali?' 'Dharamsala,' I said, wiping my eyes. Late that night, someone punched the heavy double doors to our room wide open. I jerked upright, too disoriented to wonder why the medieval-looking bolt hadn’t been fastened the night before. A giant monkey strode in on his knuckles, testicles swinging, contemptuously surveying the scene. 'Greg,' I peeped. Groggily, he lifted his head a quarter-inch off the pillow and went back to sleep. 'Shoo! Heeyaw,' I ventured, clutching the sheet to my unclothed bosom. The monkey strutted over to the windowsill and knocked a packet of incense to the floor. Oh no, he was a hood! The door gaped open, admitting a pearly predawn light. How long until the others of his band came streaming through? All quiet next door at the temple. No signs of life from the family downstairs. It was up to me to defend our territory. I grabbed one of Greg’s rubber flip-flops from under the bed and chucked it toward the monkey, missing by a mile, thank god. I don’t like to think about what he would have done to me had I scored a direct hit. 'Go on, get out of here,' I pleaded, lobbing the second flip-flop. The monkey scratched his ass, seized both shoes, and loped out of the room.  When we returned to our room the next day, we found that the monkey had left a calling card, perhaps a warning of the kind of misfortune sure to befall anyone foolish enough to tangle with him twice. The mangled upper portion of a flip-flop lay on our doormat, chewed well past the instep. Greg leaned down to pick up his souvenir, cradling it gently like the sacred relic it was. 'Look,' he intoned, 'you can see the teeth.'We examined the ruined shoe, whose twin would be discovered later that evening, abandoned in similar condition on the upper roof. I fully believed that the missing part had been eaten. 'God,' we chimed in unison, 'monkeys are so cool.'" This extract is taken from Ayun's book, A Sarong in My Backpack: Adventures from Munich to Pushkar. Click here >> to see a review or buy a copy.  Click here >> for more information about backpacking in India Click here >> for gap year placements working with monkeys |
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