Of Monkeys and Men

Title credits - John Steinbeck

Recently, after a long hiatus, I have resumed my morning walks. The hope is to graduate to running, but the walk routine keeps getting interrupted before a momentum is built. Anyway, that's another story. This is about an epiphanic observation I had, in the quiet of the morning.

The trouble is that our colony is infested with rhesus monkeys. I am sure that, in an age where finding deities in animals is a trend, many of the readers' colonies would be so infested. For some reason, they are en masse on the colony roads in the morning. Maybe the daytime is still too hot for affording much movement. May be it is their biological clock. Anyway, for some reason, whole families of these creatures are there in the roads - some are crossing it, some are sitting on it, and some are (shudders) perched on the house boundaries and overhanging tree branches.

Now, those who are not familiar with these monkeys should know that they are quite aggressive and dangerous. They are known to bite, and chase down unsuspecting humans. They are known carriers of rabies. I have, as an SDM, seen cases of fatalities where women in villages have been chased off their terrace, plummeting to their death.

I have no personal experience of being attacked by these monkeys. However, every morning is a mental ordeal. One has to keep a very alert eye for the fear of running into one of these beasts. Especially the kind perched on walls and trees. If one of them is sitting in the middle of the road, one has to squeeze oneself on the sidewalk and pass, lest one gets too close and provokes them. One has to be cautious and watchful. Carrying a big stick is an option, but that precludes the possibility that the walk would graduate into a jog someday. Hence, most days one is unarmed and vulnerable. A relaxing exercise is turned into a nerve racking vigil. This breeds resentment for the monkey. For no attributable direct cause, I resent him. For making me feel unsafe. As James Potter said of Snape - because he exists!

Well, that was not the epiphany I was talking about. That part came when I passed a rather large family of rather large monkeys very closely. My wary eyes looked a them for a long time - and I was astonished to notice their -

absolute nonchalance, with regards to my existence! 

They just went on picking bugs out of each others' coats, and looking threatening as ever. But they cared two hoots about my passing them. All my fear of them, and all my resentment of them did not matter to them. So I was forced to look at their perspective of it. From their view, it is us, their distant bipedal cousins, who have removed the famous Lucknow orchards on whose branches they would have rather swung, as compared to a spiked wall. It is us who are interrupting their morning grooming session, or their transit route to wherever they want to go. Even then, as long as one does not get too in the face with them, they dont care. Yet, here I walk, resenting their existence, feeling very frightened, nevertheless.

What would my thoughts and reactions be, if these monkeys were sapient, and they did notice me walking around the place? If they were capable of knowing that I mean no harm, even if I strayed too close and provoked their instincts? What if I myself had been bitten/ assaulted by a monkey once or twice prior to this, and still I was compelled to walk these monkey infested paths?

Suddenly, I understood the female rage!

Understood - not approved of.

Let me clarify that I am not a feminist, and this is not a feminist (and opportunist!) post.

This is just an effort to understand about why my facebook wall is so clogged with posts that seem to insinuate an innate criminality to half the population - the half to which I belong.

If a non sapient crowd of creatures, which are known to harm humans occasionally, (but have never harmed me personally) could arouse such resentment in me, one can imagine what someone, who almost surely has faced some kind of unwelcome behaviour once in her life, from someone who is sapient enough to understand that the behaviour is unwelcome, might feel for an unnamed crowd of men. After all, I did not care that not all monkeys bite unsuspecting humans. (Or maybe they do, I have no clue, and am not a zoologist.)

The crux of the matter is that we have failed to impart a sense of security and safety to women. It is not about the individual instances of depraved behaviour, which are covered under the definition of crime. It is a broader, much subtler miasma of insecurity. It is not that only women notice it. Men too notice it, when the women they care about are out there, alone (and in some cases, even when they are accompanying them, even more sadly!) Nothing overt has to happen to cause this feeling. Our collective behaviour till now has made it ever present.

What can be done about it? This is something which cannot be simply legislated away. In our country, anyway, the way we legislate on such issues (dealing with the welfare of vulnerable sections) leaves much wanting. We essentially turn a slow, unresponsive, out of tune, and hence unjust machinery of Criminal Jurisprudence on its head - essentially ignoring that the machine is still slow, unresponsive, out of tune and unjust. We just replace the injustice towards the complainant with injustice towards the accused. What is to be done with this system has been a part of deliberations, and will be a part of more such deliberations. However, law can punish deeds, or attempts. It cannot punish a feeling.

Again - in the terms of Potterverse - we don't need an Avada kedavra, we need an Expecto Patronum!

Unlike most of my articles, this one cannot prescribe a general solution, or even outlines for the same. If I could, I would make a killing on the stock market - since the thing underlying the behaviour of the stock market is the same - collective feelings, and collective signalling.

However, any collective starts with an individual.

Let us begin with the Hippocratic oath that medical students take - first, do no harm! There is a practical side to this advice. The laws are loaded very heavily against you, and it is hard to where the boundary, between whatever you are doing and statutory crime, is situated. Of course, lesser instances of such incidences would also go a long way into clearing the air.

However, better results would come if the right minded are proactive in making the womankind feel safer than they do right now. It is here that our sapience, so long exposited in the preceding paragraphs as a liability, comes to our aid. We can actually think, and try to make the scene better. There are two ways to go about it. The first way is that of the plain old chivalrous behaviour. If done right, there is no better substitute. Then, again, in today's world, it is hard to pull off without the risk of projecting collateral creepiness, unless you are groomed for it, either by birth, or by training, as given in our Defence Academies. Plus, this behaviour would be objectionable to extreme feminists. (I would not call them feminazis, that's just offensive!) However, even those of who are not equipped with the faculties of chivalry can be proactive in cranking the creepiness down. It can be done by practising the simple art of noticing. Noticing if some behaviour of one is making someone else uncomfortable. If it is, then the best course is to avoid that behaviour. Unless, of course, the behaviour is unavoidable - in which case, one must apologize to those affected by it, and explain why it is unavoidable. Explicit mention of intent behind a seemingly disturbing behaviour shows that one means no harm, and that one cares. That goes a long way into dispelling insecurity.

Finally, if one is challenged by even the above task (but still one is pure and harmless at heart), the remaining option is to give a wide berth. One would do it to beings one doesn't want to provoke needlessly - say, a wandering bull. Or for that matter, a pack of monkeys sitting on the road. Just extend the same courtesy to your fellow human beings. As they say, no harm, no foul!