Author Arefa Tehsin on the Grand Human Safari: when gibbons and tigers went on a tour

Picture this: A few jeeps squeak to a halt outside your window as you get up with a yawn, your hair imitating the African bush. A pride of lionesses peeks at you starting your day with a small prayer to god to put you back in your 32-inch jeans. One lioness whispers to another, “As if god doesn’t have better things to do!” Why whisper, you ask? Well, they have got to follow the rules of keeping quiet in a human jungle.

Binoculars come out as you go into the bathroom to brush your teeth and take a shower. An elephant in a camouflage cap whispers to her daughter how much better their trunk showers are than yours, “Uska to na bad luck hi kharab hai”. Trying to observe the colour of your plop deposit, they argue if you had a pizza or plain old dal-chawal last night. “Respect humans! Don’t cross the line!” Gibbon the guide cautions. A Hanuman langur bares his teeth at him, “Hum jahan khade ho jaate hain, line wanhi se shuru hoti hai.”

A saras crane starts making a reel as you have a finger up your nose. When you put on your clothes a chameleon asks, “What’s this camouflage?” A butterfly replies, “It’s fraud metamorphosis”.

A bear’s butt butts out to get a better view of your ma and pa as they join you at the breakfast table. “Kitne aadmi the?” a fox keeps asking whose view is unfortunately blocked by the bear. The bear plonks her butt further in the fox’s face and cautions, “Har team mein bas ek hi gunda ho sakta hai…”

Jeeps jostle and jerk as you walk out of the house to go to the bus stop. “Keep distance from humans!” Gibbon the guide, in his ranger hat, squeaks. You navigate streaks of garbage and get into a bus packed like a can of sardines. Two humanist deer, disguised as potted plants, note: “It made it to the bus. All izz well!” A cheetah asks, “But dudes, why do they call it ‘rush hour’ when it’s sloth slow?”

A tiger remarks as you go to a restroom, “I’ll be darned! They all mark their territory at the same place!” Gibbon the guide cautions again, “Bhai sahab, do not provoke the humans. They don’t bite, but they fight.” To which the tiger replies, “Darte toh hum kisi ke baap se bhi nahin hai.”

“You need to be patient to see humanlife,” whines the guide as you binge-watch a rom-com on your office desk secretly without moving a muscle. A young rhino shakes his head, not agreeing, “Thakela, pakela, boring log cigarette se bhi zyada hanikarak hote hain.”

You head home bleary-eyed, a limp burrito in one hand, scrolling your phone with the other. “No feeding the humans, how-much-ever sorry you feel for them!” The harried Gibbon the guide continues, “…and absolutely no attempts to ride humans like in those viral videos. We’re here to observe,

not interfere.”

You slump on the living-room sofa. Your tired mum, who has also just returned from work, places cups of tea in front of you and your dad. A parliament of owls in a jeep, most active now, ruminate aloud seeing the sight: “Thank nature, we don’t have ek chutki sindoor…”

The assembled creatures nod thoughtfully, scribbling away their observations for future generations of wildlife. Gibbon the guide gives the speech he has given a million times over, “We should strive for humans to one day have homes bigger than pigeonholes (no offence intended to my feathery friends) and not live in such barren, dirty places. We will one day set up a preserve where they can roam free without passports and visas…”

“But when?” asks an old mongoose. “Tareek, pe tareek, pe tareek…”

Arefa Tehsin is a Colombo-based writer and environmentalist