The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : It's monkey trouble in Yelahanka

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

It's monkey trouble in Yelahanka

Divya Gandhi

About 20 monkeys ripped through every edible item in the kitchen

Bangalore: A hapless resident of Yelahanka rubbed her eyes in disbelief when she returned home from work one evening and pinched herself to make sure it was not a nightmare.

But for a dozen mangoes that had fallen inexplicably from the tree at the gate hinting at a possible monkey attack, nothing could have prepared her for the vision that was about to unfold on the other side of the door.

Indeed, the work of 20 monkeys who push open a window and spend many happy hours in the house ripping through every edible item in the kitchen, eating some and saving the rest to play games with, cannot be a pretty picture.

A uniform carpet of flour torn out of a new packet covered the floor from the kitchen to dining table, foot-printed by frantic monkey paws.

Over this, a generous smattering of moong dal emptied from a bottle.

Bottles of pickle and jam, which to the monkeys' frustration perhaps could not be opened as easily, were effortlessly broken and their insides licked clean.

Mango cobs and banana peels, noodles — hakka noodles their clear favourite — had been munched on, and the rest saved up for a take-away, as an empty packet fluttering on a tree indicated the next morning.

A lesson was learnt: these precocious simians with their opposable thumbs can clearly do more than they will let on. They can cunningly work their way around tetra packs of badam milk and orange juice, they can open taps and empty out entire water tanks as they did on this occasion.

And they can most delicately unravel chocolates of their individual wrapping without as much as a tear in the foil. Even as the resident, blood boiling, saw visions of bumping off them with a shot gun, a quick consolation came in the fact that even though the monkeys were pitilessly thorough in their destruction of edibles, there was no collateral damage to furniture, upholstery, books or any other property.

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