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Journalism of Courage
After an enforced gap of almost three years, I recently revisited my old stamping grounds: the Northern Ridge (aka the Kamala Nehru Ridge) in Old Delhi. Driving down Rajpur Road, I got the first indications that something had radically changed. There were vendors selling bananas in carts strung all along the road, and on the boundary wall (the fence is mostly down), the monkeys squabbled and waited. There have always been banana vendors on this road, but never as many monkeys-in-waiting. They are smart: apparently, they don’t harass the vendors; they wait for customers to buy the bananas and give them to them and there is no shortage of patrons. No point killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Also, it’s not only bananas that they are treated to: one lady apparently unloaded a crate full of imported cherries from her car for the simians – and I couldn’t help wondering what favours (or atonement) she was seeking. Papayas, mangoes, paranthas – the monkeys get them all.
My suspicions were well-founded. The sloping road leading up to the Flagstaff Tower, was teeming with monkeys, the whole area reeked of them – like the monkey enclosures in the zoo. Worse, this was the breeding season, so tempers were flaring incandescently. You had to be doubly careful as you threaded your way through them up the road, not to get into the way of a bellicose, balled-up Rambo bouncing after a lesser lout with the intent to kill. Screams and shrieks rent the air and there was panic or fury in the eyes of the simians as they sorted out their love lives. Mothers with babies slung under their bellies tried slinking out of the way, and as usual the adolescents were the most misbehaved, and obstreperous.
In the past, I have watched urchins battle it out with the monkeys for the bananas, and the donors’ sympathies lay with the simians as they tried to drive away the little boys. This evening there was a group of adolescents vilely cursing the government for its apparent favouritism towards girls (leaving them, no doubt, to loaf uselessly with the monkeys!).
I sat at the Flagstaff Tower for a while, watching the mayhem – here aided and abetted by a pack of a dozen dogs, which ran urgently from one side to the other mostly in complete silence, which was unnerving.
Certainly, there seems to be a serious problem of simian overpopulation here, bringing with it the tensions associated. At the best of times the rhesus macaque is not the most laid-back of simians: always teetering at the edge of panic or a vicious meltdown and these ones were extremely on edge. Their blood-pressure and pulse must be yo-yoing like crazy during the course of a single day: they seemed to suffer from chronic in-your-face hypertension!
It’s claimed that apart from us only chimpanzees and ants go to war. A student studying the Ridge monkeys, years ago, told me that she had identified seven distinct groups, which had their own territories, the sovereignty of which was sacrosanct. And yes, occasionally one group might raid the territory of another, with the idea of seizing it. During one evening walk, years ago I saw this in action – and it was blood-curdling. My path ran through a section of the Ridge, on one side of which, the land sloped upwards into what I had dubbed the “wild section”, which had been left to its own devices. On the other side of the path was the landscaped section, with its ornamental plants, park benches and gazebos. Here a group of monkeys were feeding quietly.
Suddenly from the hillside an avalanche of simians charged down screaming with rage: they swarmed across the path in a torrent and set themselves upon the feeding group, which shrieking and panicked, fled incontinently in every direction. Caught in the melee, I could only stand stock still until the chaos died down.
Of course, it’s not all murder and mayhem. I have walked through a group of 50-odd monkeys, who just eyed me curiously as I threaded my way through them, keeping my eyes fixed ahead. It was not an experience I enjoyed, nor would repeat! But I have also watched grizzled godfathers goof around with thrilled adolescents who had stars of hero-worship in their eyes! Apparently, this is the equivalent of politicians kissing babies to win favours: an alpha-male macaque can only wield power if he has the support of a sizable number of ladies, so he has to pretend he loves their brats!
The problem of course is what is to be done when there are far too many monkeys around? They can’t be touched, and we can’t let loose a couple of leopards in their midst either! The langurs and langur-men have been ineffective in scaring them away (and anyway where would they go?); the rhesus disappears when the langur does his round and reappears immediately afterwards. If people were to stop feeding them (which is highly unlikely) they would probably simply raid the houses and shops across the road. But yes, if you stoutly defend your kitchen and garden (with rottweilers) and no longer dole out crates-full of cherries; over a period of time, their numbers might reduce. (Or put contraceptives in the cherries!)
Put too many rats into a confined space and they will turn on each other and rip each other to shreds. This seems to be the direction the Ridge macaques seem to be heading towards right now. And no, I would not like to be caught in the crossfire!
