The incident dates back to July 2011. I was heading a Bank branch in Mysore at that time. It was the first month after marriage and my husband had just relocated from Kolkata. I had a strange obsession with finding an accommodation near my office. Thus with every transfer or job switch, my address kept changing. The house where we resided as tenants were barely two kms from my Bank. Mysore was a town that thrived on human interactions, so almost everyone in the neighborhood knew about my doctor husband and his banker wife.
As per our daily schedule, my husband had to leave quite early in the morning while 8:45am was when I usually took an auto to the Bank. This made locking the house my responsibility. We occupied the first floor of the house and it had two open balconies. The front one led to the main entrance and the one at the back faced an area designated for a park. It had a large number of trees. My house owner had warned me about rechecking the locked status of both the balcony doors before leaving the house. It was for our own safety, he had wisely said. Unfortunately, I neither had a chance nor considered this piece of advice important enough to pass on to my husband.
It so happened that on a particular morning in July, I had to leave the house much before my usual time to attend a meeting. I had wrongly assumed that he would check and lock both the doors before moving out. The meeting had been a full day event and I returned home directly from the venue quite early in the evening. My house owner, who was generally a pleasant man had a very disapproving look on his face. Without thinking much, I walked up the stairs to open the door.
The word ‘shock’ would be a very mild term to express my reaction next. For every nook and corner of my apartment was occupied by a bunch of monkeys. They seemed to have had a satisfying meal of fruits, chips, biscuits and whatever they could lay their hands on. The flat resembled a house struck by a tornado. I let out a scream while wondering how to get rid of the monkeys. In a while, there were neighbors from the surrounding areas near my apartment churning out ideas about how to chase the monkeys away. Some of these ideas were so bizarre that they could put the word ‘innovation’ to shame. To anyone willing to lend an ear, my owner kept talking about how he had cautioned me about the danger of keeping balcony doors open. I honestly had no clue that when he spoke of how unsafe it was, he had monkeys instead of humans in mind.
Half an hour had passed and the monkeys couldn’t care less. They had comfortably settled in. I was getting worried about the uncertainty of being a resident here anymore. Suddenly I spotted my husband getting out of an auto downstairs. I started rushing down the stairs. Mysore was still considered as a conservative city with a good percentage of my neighbors falling in the category of senior citizens. I knew that at that moment they were looking, but I didn’t care. I ran to him anyway just like Kajol in the climax of the Bollywood movie DDLJ. I couldn’t resist myself from hugging him tight though I knew we were in the streets and all pairs of eyes were on us. My husband was still not sure why there was a crowd in front of our house and my sudden public display of affection but the actions of newly marrieds are rarely justified. He had attributed it to my overflowing love for him while in reality, I was breathing a sigh of relief that I finally had someone who would probably be a little less scared than me.
Finally one of my office boys arrived with a group of people who managed to drive away the monkeys out of the house. They grudgingly left but not before eating away all possibly edible items, throwing away quite a few things including one of my oldest mobile phone sets and creating havoc in the house to such an extent that the effort required in fixing it led to a slipped disc injury in less than two weeks. But that’s a story for another day.
‘This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.’
P.S. – I love all animals as long as they are not in my vicinity.
soniasmusings 
Oh my God !! That would have been a scary and unexpected experience. But interesting too 😉
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Oh it was a nightmare initially but later on, we couldn’t stop laughing about it.
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hi Sonia,
Nice piece ,loved reading it.The way u tell ur story is really good.
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Thank you Debidutta. Hope things are going good for you too.
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😊personal life is good but not blogging space not able to devote time. I really admire your hard work and dedication and the way u r earning a name in virtual world. You inspire me, keep writing.
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Thank you for the kind words. I’m sure things are going to get better soon.
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Some incidents leave you speechless and i will consider this one in same category !! #myfriendalexa #fotwreads
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Ha ha, well said. It rendered us speechless as well for a while. Thanks for reading.
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Monkeys can be SO scary! I have had bad experiences in Delhi, Sevoke, Puri. Sigh!!!
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Thank you for reading.
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I am actually thanking those Monkeys. Imagine this, had this not happened would you have got a chance to cherish those memory now 🙂
Hey, it also gave an opportunity to be the Kajol.
Good take on the prompt. Loved reading.
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You are so right. We reminisce those memories and laugh at them today but it was so scary then. Thank you for reading.
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This is so much unexpected …Nicely penned!!
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Thank you for reading
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Oh my my! A real life horror story! Shooing away the monkeys is no monkey business, for sure.
Your words transported me to the scene as if I was one among the bystanders around your house Sonia. A WOW tale!
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Oh yes, the whole situation was super scary. Now we can’t even control our laughter discussing it. Thanks for reading.
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Oh lord, those monkeys were bandits. But the DDLJ bit got me–newly weds are so precious.
I’ve never had monkeys invade my home, I’m not sure how I’d react.
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I can laugh about it today but it was really scary at that time. Thank you for the support and encouragement always.
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oh my god! Never expected monkey menace…thought it would be a burglar warning…Quite a scary experience i would say! but things happen for a reason…see how aptly this fit into the prompt statement! haha…
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Oh yes, it was really scary then. Looking back now, we always have a good laugh over it.
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That brings sus to another same pinch. I have spent some 6 months of my life in MYsore. Your post brought back beautiful memories of my time their. We were in the Infosys campus, but visited the city almost every weekend.
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Oh wow. We have so many common things now . Thank you for reading.
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Hahaha well I have had monkey issues too in my college. I loved how you brought in some humor with DDLJ reference!
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Oh I’m sure you can emphatize with my situation then. Thank you for reading.
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OMG…I hope you have completely recovered now…loved reading it though…
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Fun read..I too was ‘shocked’ to read ‘monkeys’ and my thoughts transformed me to Ahemdabad. I too had similar experience but just 2 langurs messing in the balcony trying to get inside my house. It was scary. Finally few people helped us to get rid of the langurs. Enjoyed reading.
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I’m sure you understand my Plight better. I laugh about it now but it was really scary back then
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