All Creatures Great...

Monkeys are revered in India - after all without the great monkey king we would have lost our Helen. But they’re feared too for practical reasons (rabies) and otherwise. A couple of years ago rumors of a half-monkey, half-man creature that stole babies spread through Delhi. Mobs lynched suspects and the old city lived in fear until the hysteria passed.

Outside Shiva’s temples for a few coins cobras will dance for the charmer or a giant creature will wrap itself around you. It’s my weight and at least twice my length but its head is as light and fast as a feather, it’s eyes unflinching. I would have fallen with Eve too.

But it’s not just the great creatures that leave an impression. In Bodhgaya I counted the bites left by mosquitoes and bedbugs and lost count after a hundred every time. In Rishikesh I escaped both except there was a giant cockroach in my room. Ahimsa. Non-violence. We left each other in peace.

Then one day it took off. It could fly! But it was like a drunken pilot, unable to control itself in the currents of the ceiling fan. I dove under the sheets every time it swerved near. Ideology was quickly discarded. But perhaps it wasn’t its time, perhaps fear made my aim poor, but it would live in the room a lot longer than I.