The rivals to mankind's inherent sense of mischief and nuisance

 

The monkeys leave me fuddled with vexation many times. The swaggering simian sense of mischief leaves this taciturn and tottering poet flummoxed beyond limits. They have to temper with normalcy all the time. The rest of the species are after food and mating. The monkeys know how to enjoy life beyond this realm. So they move assuredly, vivaciously with errant finesse. For example, beyond picking—sorry tearing—fruits from trees, they are aware that more fun can be drawn by spraying mugfuls of rascality among the branches and decimate the canopy. Looking at them I know exactly from where our rioting sense comes from.

I’m feeling the affable touch of early morning monsoon breeze, a sense of equanimity resonating in my being. It gives a meditative experience. I would say it’s almost a walking meditation. Eh… pah… so much for the prancing merriment of the monkeys! It’s a group of three young troublous wastrels—goondas even from the normal simian standards. Their chief jumps with a lacerating sense of criminality. My sonorous spell of ease is shattered. A big bough of champa, fully adorned with fragrant flowers, cracks and falls with a painful thud. The murderer is jubilant and jumps on the roof of my little car as if trying to squash it to junk like a nefarious press machine. Luckily, the car doesn’t break like poor champa, so he is sniveling and sharply livid. I stare at him with copious loath. There I see him confidently cantering home, fleeing with glee. I’m wincing with impotent hate, the flowery big bough in my hand. What egged him to this rascality, I wonder. I inhale the fragrance of champa flowers to douse the whirring oblivion of hate. In what delirium these desperados carry out such normalcy-slaying attacks?! Pah… ! I think they are excellently accustomed to the elements of chaos and disorder. So many times they’ve broken into the house and robbed fruits in broad daylight, leaving me feeling like a half-wit. After the raid they vanish all exultant and gay, while I stand morose and desolate.

Their flagrant digression into illegality hit a new high the other day. Any chance of India coming near winning a bronze at the Olympics embraces us with sparkling courtesy. I’m lost in the bronze medal match on the television. There he hits below the belt again, the head hoodlum; thus disfiguring morality forever. My cheering for the Indian player has come at a cost. He has smartly opened the door, opened the refrigerator, rummaged through it, without making the slightest sound, and not finding anything to its taste there enters the other room and opens the other refrigerator. He hits gold here. Our player has missed the bronze. I’m shocked, my words are frozen in the air. I’m stunned and surrounded by the walls of silence. It’s a proof of the culture of violence challenging any sense of peace. The mangled, pulped mangoes are littered around, many just bitten once and thrown away, their pulp oozing out on the floor. It’s a pulpy yellow mayhem. The shock waves hit me. He looks relaxed and unbothered. I let out a terrifying verbal innuendo. Hearing the echo of my own words, I lose self-esteem and dignity that still remained. He gallops away with glee, leaving the mess behind for me to clear. My confidence is crippled and maimed. What glorious freelancing of illicit fun! He stops to give me a horrid angry snarl from the wall and turns his lurid pink bottom towards my face and gallops away to further glory.

I have seen The Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes movie. And looking at the putrescent remnants of his rascality, cleverness and smartness, I have no doubt that what is shown in the movie will be reality some day. I look on helplessly. He is industrious, in full earnest, mischief egging him on forever. After the mango-slaying feast, he is huffily trying to pry open the lid of a roof-top water tank. I cannot just twiddle away time by impotently staring at errant monkeys. I have better things to do. Already the fleas from the entire neighborhood have arrived to enjoy the funfair. I have to clean the mess. With throbbing, pulsing verses of mute anger, I get down to the business—to put the house in order so that he can slay it again and bring disorder with his pink bottom.