For residents of Sector 15-A, Chandigarh, monkeys do not figure high up in the list of fascinating wild creatures and cute street animals. An avid food-blogger and professor of physics, Ritu Nanda, wryly expressed her predicament on the neighbourhood coming under siege from monkeys. Nanda preferred not to rave and rant about monkeys or use foul language in keeping with her polish and academic lineage but her agony was palpable.
“There are a large number of monkeys in Sector 15-A, Chandigarh, where I live. Their numbers are growing by the day and could easily be near about 60. Though it’s fun to watch their antics at times, at most other times they are making life difficult for residents. They leap onto terraces unexpectedly, ravage plants and sneak into the house, too, if given a chance. We need help in this matter,” Nanda told this writer.
The monkey malady took on a particularly anxious turn for the Nandas last Sunday. A monkey seemed to have got trapped and stuck in a stand supporting the neighbour’s air-conditioner on a wall 15 feet above and had “perished”. A troop of monkeys collected around the spot and got visibly agitated. The neighbour was not in town and the Nandas had been tasked to keep an eye on the locked house. Assistance from the administration’s rescue teams was a far stretch due to the Sunday relaxations of officialdom. Fortunately, the rescue team of the forest and wildlife department responded to her urgent calls though monkey rescues fall under the purview of the municipal corporation following recent amendments to wildlife laws.
The rescue team had a tough time getting the agitated monkeys to move away. A female monkey proved to be the most obdurate. The assembly of monkeys was quite like a bunch of gawking spectators loathing to disperse from the site of a gory road accident and let the medical relief squad get about their task. Once the rescue team managed to drive the monkeys away, the mystery of the female’s vehemence unfolded. A team member climbed to the air-conditioner and out popped a baby monkey. The little fellow had wandered into the air-conditioner’s stand and got so nervous that he/she did not know how to make an exit. The agile fellow leapt onto the terrace and made a quick exit from the scene, much to the relief of the Nandas. Well, that was that and the Nandas’ neighbourhood may have not heard the last of the pesky rascals, whose habits, braininess and opportunism remind us more of ourselves than any other creature this side of Mars!
{{/usCountry}}The rescue team had a tough time getting the agitated monkeys to move away. A female monkey proved to be the most obdurate. The assembly of monkeys was quite like a bunch of gawking spectators loathing to disperse from the site of a gory road accident and let the medical relief squad get about their task. Once the rescue team managed to drive the monkeys away, the mystery of the female’s vehemence unfolded. A team member climbed to the air-conditioner and out popped a baby monkey. The little fellow had wandered into the air-conditioner’s stand and got so nervous that he/she did not know how to make an exit. The agile fellow leapt onto the terrace and made a quick exit from the scene, much to the relief of the Nandas. Well, that was that and the Nandas’ neighbourhood may have not heard the last of the pesky rascals, whose habits, braininess and opportunism remind us more of ourselves than any other creature this side of Mars!
{{/usCountry}}Meanwhile, serpents heaved a sigh of relief at the rains and staged multiple appearances much to the consternation of the suited and booted citizens. A spectacled cobra was rescued from a washroom in the IAF residential colony on Chandigarh’s outskirts. The blackish serpent was virtually stuck as it was unable to slither forward on slippery washroom tiles. It seemed in the rescue photograph an exceptionally long specimen, exceeding the standard size of 4-4.5ft for an adult cobra. A Russell’s viper of similarly disproportionate length had been rescued from Mauli Jagran police station. The two specimens set the tongues wagging on record Indian lengths for such serpents, seven feet, that when uncoiled and stretched straight are taller than most humans!
Lengths of seven feet are of freakish specimens that have taken advantage of exceptional food availability, habitat and climate. Since government teams do not measure specimens as part of standard rescue and rehabilitation protocols, rescuers tend to make tall claims. I consulted an all-India group of snake experts and the considered view that emerged on examination of the Chandigarh cobra /viper rescue photos was that both were not more than five feet in length though they may have appeared far longer due to photographic aura and the way the dangling serpent was positioned by the rescue team.
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