by Kanika Satyanand
I am a morning walker, and the DDA Park has been my haunt for well over three decades.
On the morning of October 15, I sat down as usual on a concrete platform encircling a tree to do my daily routine of meditation, eye, and neck and breathing exercises. Seated beside me was another morning walker, also doing her morning exercises. The spot where we were seated is a little off the beaten track, but not isolated. About five minutes after the other walker had left; I felt a thud on my back and a sharp shooting pain. I looked back, and to my horror, right behind me was a troop of 8-10 monkeys. I realised that I’d been lashed out at and bitten by one of them. As I tried to get up from the platform, one of the monkeys lunged at me; I lost balance and fell down. I managed to pick myself up and started to back away gingerly. I waved my scarf to shoo them away, but with bared teeth, they kept advancing towards me. Once I had regained my composure, I mustered up the courage to flee from the spot, and raced towards the park exit.
A friend rushed me to hospital where, after being administered first aid, I received the prescribed immunoglobulin, anti-rabies and tetanus shots. The hospital was well-equipped to treat me as they had dealt with a rising number of cases of monkey bites (including another one while I was there). Later in the day, I was informed of a statistic on the net according to which Delhi has around 1,800 cases of monkey bites every year.
I have often seen monkeys in this park, but never such a large, aggressive troop. Ever since my sister-in-law was bitten viciously by a monkey in the same park a few years ago, my antenna goes up whenever I spot one or more of them, prompting me to change course.
One could say that the attack on my sister-in-law was “provoked” by the fact that she had inadvertently come between a baby monkey and its mother. What is bewildering about the attack on me was the absence of any provocation whatsoever. After all, I was sitting still and silent, absorbed in my eye exercises, when I was pounced upon from behind. Family members and friends who have heard my saga are equally perplexed. One of them wondered whether this troop of monkeys had been heckled or tormented by someone further up the walking trail. I wish I had the language or tools to get inside their heads to decode their aggression towards me.
So, will I venture again into this part of the park, or even into this park? Or, like many who reside in the hills that are riddled with a “monkey menace” (read Kasauli, Ranikhet, Satoli), never leave home without a walking stick? I don’t know.
Do I harbor any resentment towards my simian aggressors? None whatsoever! After all, we’ve destroyed their habitat, and continue to do so unabashedly at an indefensible pace and scale. Animal-human conflict is the price we must inevitably pay for gobbling up forests and disrupting nature!
My wounds will heal soon, as did my sister-in laws’. But what of the deep ones we have inflicted on Mother Earth?
Answers, anyone?”
