In The Company Of Primates

My laptop screen had turned on me. The soft inviting light that had dutifully supplied endless hours of information and entertainment was now methodically burning through my eyes and leaving behind a sharp pain deep within my temples. Pushing away from the desk with a brisk shove of divorce, I rolled towards the middle of the office and came to a rest near the balcony door. I stood up and walked outside.

It was a still afternoon in Ahmedabad and the sandy backstreet of Sarvajal headquarters was nearly silent aside from the inescapable shuffling of life and happenings that permeated every niche of the city. Three children screamed excitedly amid the swings of a cricket bat and falling of a wicket; the raspy note of a scooter came and went; a fruit cart dealer down the road echoed his sales pitch to the neighborhood. I grasped the thick black railing with both hands and felt the pin-point spots of rust against the soft underbelly of my hand. Leaning forward and pushing my shoulder-blades together, I took a close-eyed inhale and pause before re-opening my eyes and seeing I was not alone.

A family of monkeys sat in a nearby tree quietly but in plain site, staring at me for a brief moment with eerie half-human scrutiny before continuing their snack of thin leaves and small white flowers. I froze and was obviously more concerned with their presence than they were with mine. The mother and father crouched calmly and observed the surroundings as their child crawled, climbed and explored without relent through the cross-hatch of thin tree branches. Their limbs were long and lanky, covered in grayish hair and ending with blackened hands and feet. Not standing more than two or three feet high, their heads were on a slow but constant swivel of scrutiny, their small black eyes nestled in the shallow circle of black hair that was their face.

Oddly similar to the monkeys I had seen in the Ahmedabad Zoo not one month ago, I observed them with curious caution for some time until noticing their friends...and their friend’s friends. On ledges, in other trees and on the stairs below they all sat and crawled and climbed - I was surrounded. About twelve monkeys in all, I suddenly felt gravely outnumbers and bizarrely out of place. At what seemed like calculated intervals, they would take turns looking at me between bites of leaf and acrobatic vaults of strength and agility. My grip had tightened on the railing and I could now feel the spots of rust beginning to push small uncomfortable indentations into my palms. They were small creatures, barely over 30 pounds with delicate limbs and wispy white hair, but I could see the unpredictability in their eyes and they could see the caution in mine.

But without reason or communication, the twelve monkeys turned into 10, and 10 into 6 until they were gone. Crawling into the bushes and trees they disappeared without show or display, leaving my balcony and its surroundings as silent as they found it. Comfort and ease slowly crept back into my stomach, and I could hear the sharp smack of another wicket. Scrapping my sandal along the clean concrete of the balcony, I pivoted around and made my way back into the office and towards the soft light and predictability of my computer screen.