Writing about simians when many in Delhi still live in fear of the 'monkey man' seems slightly insensitive, I know. But Sarayuites and monkeys share a special bond.... Sarayu Hostel, the official residence of some 400 young women at various levels of academic pursuit in science and technology, is at the heart of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. Forest cover was carefully cleared off in parts to build this institute. So was much of the fauna. But the deer, monkeys and the like stayed on to grace this sylvan setting. The monkeys chose to stay near the fairer sex. The nature of higher research is such that there can be no valid grounds for imposing curfew times like in other 'ladies' hostels across the land. Caffeine stops are short bike rides away. Cheerful, nocturnal souls drunk on coffee or chai haunted the halls at all hours till dawn -- during exams, before, and after. Like untethered donkeys, the elders in my family would have remarked. Sleeping really seemed such a waste of time when there was so much to do. If the entire hostel did take a collective break it was only on Sunday afternoons. Except that, like unwanted relatives, the unofficial residents of Sarayu, the monkeys chose to drop in on us at this very hour. Their entry was always marked by the piercing scream of some hapless soul awakened by a hairy apparition. And that just seemed to spur them on to more misdemeanours. A noisy lot out to forage. Emptying the trashcans along the corridor, sampling everything, including the cake of soap set out to dry on the windowsills and chucking it away in apparent disgust -- all was part of their act. The raids took place particularly in rooms with unshared goodies from home. You simply had to admire the poetic justice of it all. They did hang around at breakfast time clutching their little ones to their bosom, but they never descended on the dining hall en masse or plundered the mess storeroom, if I remember right. It did not seem as though their survival was at stake here. If anything, it did seem like a brief training session for future pickpockets. With elders watching on indulgently, the younger and nimbler members of the troop slipped in and out of rooms picking up anything they were "instructed" to... No, this talk of thieves doesn't actually seem appropriate for what were essentially high-spirited capers, an outing of acrobats. They were gone in a short while, back to their arboreal abodes, and we would troop down to an inadequate tiffin of sundal spiced with soaked grams. They sometimes showed up on other days, rather early. There used to be one particularly strict professor who wanted to instil in us the value of punctuality. If you were even a minute late you had to miss his hour-long lecture. There was only one excuse that made him falter: "Sir, there was a monkey in the corridor." Ninety per cent of the time it was true too. Some brave person would finally peep out to see if the coast was clear and Sarayu would rumble on. In his new book, A Primate's Memoir, Robert Sapolsky talks about the time he spent in Kenya's Serengeti over the past 20 years, researching a troop of baboons. We never did work up the courage to study the primates in our own backyard. Did they have a complicated social hierarchy or were they a democratic bunch? Could they actually see their reflections as they stopped to check themselves out in the dressing mirrors along the corridor? Why did they hang around only the girls' hostel? What did they think of us? So much wasted opportunity! Remember The Murders in the Rue Morgue? The screams and struggles of the old lady when her hair is torn from her head had the effect of changing the pacific profile of the orangutan into that of wrath. With one sweep of its muscular arm it nearly severed her head. The sight of blood propelled it into a frenzy. Is it a rogue monkey this time or a human? I wonder what it will turn out to be. Personally, I hope it is not a monkey. Vijaysree Venkatraman has flown abroad, true -- but her heart is still at Sarayu. Illustration: Uttam Ghosh Tell us what you think of this diary
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