“Anugandika Hills are dying a silent death!” A smartly dressed female news reporter says on the TV, just as I am about to switch the channel.
She is talking about the vast mountain range forming the northern border of our city that overhangs the titanic desert beyond our fertile land. Beset by the news, I quickly sit up on the three-seater sofa, perk up my ears as I increase the volume, and gluemy face onto the TV screen, like a cat suddenly awakened from its doze.
“Forty percent of the Anugandika range is at risk after the recent classification, says conservation groups. As per the new definition, hills above 50 metres will be considered mountains and henceforth will be protected. Hills below the 50-metre-elevation threshold will remain open to mining and stone-crushing.”
“Did you hear this? What’s the difference between a hill and a mountain?” I ask my husband, Neil, who is busy scrolling through his phone, comfortably settled on the diwan toward the wall, behind my sofa. In our post-pandemic, masked environment, my techie husband makes a trip or two to his office every week. The rest of the time, he works from home, mostly engaged either with his phone or laptop.
“Hmm!” He replies, without lifting his eyes from his cell phone. “It’s the real estate business. They need to measure the height from the sea level and not the foothills, which they aren’t doing.” He adds with clenched teeth.
“Real estate erasing the hills? Encroachments? And what about the ecological collapse it will entail?” I briefly scan my yellow fingernails, recognizing the gauntlet being thrown down here.
“What’s the matter, Ma?” My 12-year-old son, Kunal, gives an enquiring stare with large cartoon eyes, lifting his pen from the notebook.
“You concentrate on your studies.” I give a sidelong glance at him, seated on the other side of the same sofa, and flutter my eyelids like an impatient mother force-feeding her child.
The kids need a distraction to leave their homework and indulge in chatting. With great difficulty, I try to recall the last time he had given considerable attention to his studies.
I take a peek at Kunal’s notebook. His handwriting seems like a bird’s messy footprints etched into the fine layer of dust on a handrail. We were introduced to the fountain pens after our long odyssey with pencils, much before we were familiarized with the ballpoint pens. Today’s children are straightaway handed over gel pens that never bleed over paper.
“Kids are using gel pens instead of fountain pens. Blackboards are replaced with computers at an early age.” I turn my face toward Neil, while Kunal looks on.
“Old methods don’t work now. Moreover, that’s progress. Isn’t it?” Neil responds, turning sharply on me.
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“At times, an earth track offers the primal, heart-warming aroma of nature that an asphalt road denies, being cold and scentless.” I cocoon myself in my solitary allegiance to the lofty ideal, on noticing that I have lost the attention of both.
I ruminate upon an insomniac thought. The horizon is an endless wave of breathing mustard-colored haze, with the active desert slowly moving in. Nothing to pin the sand down. Blustery and icy, the airstream conquers. Bereft of a green cover and the brown barrier, thick dust is lifted in gusts into the air. Now saturated and whitened, the wind is wing heavy, noisy as the gramophone needle stuck in a groove.
Stinging, the dust abrades human skin, blankets roads, fields, and even the sky.
The news goes on, while a line of sweat appears on my forehead. The offenders have a strange immunity that restricts us from reacting suitably, let alone suspending the robbery that they are up to. If we ever lose our way, will it be possible to find our way back?
It’s almost the end of December, and we have left the glass sliding door to the balcony wide open for cool air. A persistent warm wind stifles the chill in the air, similar to blocking a valve in the air conditioner. Whatever is left of that air, is it really fresh? The entire city seems to be an enormous sagging lung breathing hard. An ordinary mask is lying on the centre table. Neil always leaves his stuff here and there. I have told him several times to use the N95 one, but he never listens.
A sudden cawing of the crows and loud banging somewhere outside draws my attention. I rush barefoot to the balcony. A horde of crows is perched on power lines as far as my eyes can travel, their voices a raspy chorus against the otherwise calm environment. The silvery-white sky waits in quiet contemplation, whether to reveal a cerulean blue morning, and quite unwittingly, allowing in a pale tumult of wind.
Out of nowhere, a troop of monkeys of all sizes, like a flash mob—from young infants to adults—emerges on the mango tree a few houses away. What I supposed to be a small group turns out to be a never-ending bunch of great, heaving multitude pouring in, perhaps in hundreds, slowly proceeding toward our house—chattering, whooping, screeching, howling, grunting, squeaking, and barking at an unaltered pace, confusing my comprehension of the very intention of their presence. Motionless, the stray dogs are looking where the simian action is going on like breathing stones. I run inside and close the sliding door with a thud.
By that time, Neil and Kunal have stopped their respective activities and are gawking at the black plum tree adjacent to our house and visible through our living room glass door. Several monkeys have pitched up—one almost on every branch—as if given limitless free rein to exert their dominion. Their garrulous assemblies, as it seems to me, all the primates of the universe, stir my first sensation of fear. Every now and then, when I glimpse a figure clinging to the branch that leads up to our balcony, a throbbing occurs deep in my veins.
They are almost everywhere I set my eyes on. Somewhere on a terrace, they are fidgeting and straining power lines, cable wires, and Dish Antennas to the splitting point as if the potential energy of an elusive, invisible gale has entered them, enabling them to burst with madness. Over the houses, on the roofs, their fury has penetrated in the form of drumming the water tanks incessantly and hammering the water pipes to and fro. At the balcony opposite our house, they are pulling the clothes from the dryer, along with other decorative pieces, throwing them helter-skelter as if in a belligerent mood, openly mocking us and in a stance that shifts toward a royal battle between man and animal.
“They come here often but I haven’t seen them in such large numbers. Isn’t it?” Kunal says all of a sudden, breaking into our silence.
Neil and I glance at each other for a moment, as the sudden siege by the primates leaves us feeling unmoored. Our insides yawp and whistle like a stove, as if a cast of crabs is scuttling within.
“They’ll go away.” Neil’s voice sounds loud and instantaneously, cracks like a finger squeak on a guitar. His orbs roll down upon the overcrowded tree and remain stuck as if grappling with a horror seen.
Mrs Sharma, our middle-aged, friendly neighbor, calls on my mobile.
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“Did you see that, Amla?” She says from the other end.
“Aren’t they really great in number? Haven’t seen anything like this before.” I say, wondering that for the first time we are into something other than neighborhood gossip or just shooting the breeze.
“Yesterday night the leopards were here. There were about 10 or 15 of them. I woke up in the middle of the night on hearing someone pounding on our front door. On checking our CCTV camera, we saw one of them up to this mischief. It was there all through the night and only went away at the crack of dawn.” She goes on, a few decibels higher than her usual volume, while I imagine her otherwise-pleasing face cloudy with unease.
“What are you saying? God knows why they are here.” I startle while pacing back and forth in the room, observing my outspread hand quiver.
One of the monkeys is now on our balcony. Oblivious of our presence inside, it’s pulling all the plants from their pots and devouring the flowers, awkwardly rattling its tongue, inelegantly baring and covering its teeth as if muttering a gibberish of curses.
“There is a thin line between our world and theirs. We have already crossed the line.” I stare at the glass door between the monkey and us.
Unexpectedly, the monkey picks up a flower pot and hurls it at the door. The glass splinters into a thousand pieces with an ear-splitting noise, just like my courage that I had gathered in my palm, now existing in useless fragments. It gapes at the shattered glass scattered everywhere on the balcony and the room,and sprints in an attempt to cross over.
“Ah…no…” Screaming at the top of my voice, I close my eyes in trepidation.
“What is it?” Mrs Sharma yells.
On opening my eyes, I find the glass door intact and the monkey still at the other side of it.
“Nothing! Everything is alright.” I utter a sigh, as if exhausted from talking my palpitating heart through to slow down.
“Really a matter of concern. The forest department won’t be here until evening. My husband just got the news from a friend working in that department. They need orders, etc.”She informs before hanging up.
“Thank God it’s Sunday morning,and we don’t have to go anywhere. Or else…” I tell my family, watching the goons prominent on the peripheries of our house, an unrestrained invasion of perhaps the entire colony, and most likely, the whole city.
*
At around midday, the music of the monkeys ceases, though the accompaniment of the surrounding noises has long died away. Are they really gone? Neil is watching a TV show, and Kunal is playing video games on my laptop. I stand by the entrance and listen. A strange noiselessness haunts. Gently opening the door of our apartment,I go downstairs without making any unnecessary clatter, wondering whether I will meet the monkeys bunched up there. As I reach the parking area, a faint scent of earth wafts in the atmosphere, but there is hardly any plant there, leave alone the existence of soil.
Our front gate is left ajar. In an impulse to close the gate, I proceed toward it. I notice an elderly male monkey sitting on the hood of our car in the parking area. On seeing me, he doesn’t move. Unlike their mischievous and mindless conduct, he appears like a Zen Buddha. Hesitant, I survey him for a while. Backing off the fear of danger, something in me says that I can walk toward him.
When I am almost a foot away, he shuffles and rearranges himself. Suddenly he jumps down and clutches my dupatta. His hazel eyes are lost in meditation. A sudden, trembling glimmer within him lits up his eyes, presenting a curious spectacle. As I plumb the depths of those eyes, I see thick, dry deciduous tropical woods on the illimitable Anugandika Hills and their foothills—simple, yet splendorous in their intricate, pendulous bouquets of existence. Braving the rigors of climates, there is the never-ending repetition of trees, shrubs, and bushes I know not about. Practically impenetrable to man as the forest seems luxuriant and deep in all comprehensible shades of green and earthy brown with occasional hues of yellow, orange, and red, their rich, varied palette reflecting life, growth, and the cycle of decline and renewal.
Their leaves and blossoms intermingle in undying friendships and uniform tempi of their lives. All through the vision of the serenity, the expressive, soothing background orchestra of the wind flowing through the forest, along with the operations of Nature, reigns. Enamored by the freedom, the style, and the kineses that exist in the awe-inspiring Nature, I stand transfixed.
Unexpectedly, the wind-blown symphonies lose rhythm, become out of sync, lose the groove and turn into moaning sighs.I close my eyes. An incessant earth-shattering vibration dwells. A deep, plangent, rumbling roar like an engine, combined with heavy metallic clatter and grinding of metal on metal, dominates the soundscape, while a tingling sensation persists all over my body with every loud scraping, digging, and heaving sound. Is it for real or a mere fragment of my imagination?
Just then, breaking into my hypnotic trance, the monkey pulls my dupatta as if asking me to follow him, appearing like a plenipotentiary envoy in an attempt to thaw our uncompromising views for one another through the way of his blandishments. Though not meant for heroic deeds, I choose to heed the call.
Crossing the main gate, we walk by the jungle of concrete, our seemingly habitable abode with negligible greenery. After walking together for about half an hour, we reach the far end of the city, and see the wilderness of monkeys upon the hillside again.The golden light of the sun plays along the desolate hills, while the strong winds buffet their fragile slopes. Leaving behind the realities of our urban existence, I start viewing the beginning of what seems to be a remnant forest where most of the big trees—neem, sacred fig, babul, button tree—have been mercilessly hewed and the floor cleared of vegetation, as if an unholy war has been waged against them out of mercenary motives.
Appearing as if a giant carcass of an unknown animal—the bare logs disorderly stacked like a framework of bones as white as ivory, the leaves and branches piled here and there like the moldering meat—the forest lies in neglect, heartbroken and estranged from its threatened soul. Filling the space with dread and confusion, the once-alive inhabitants painted in decaying green are silently screaming and making bold proclamations. The ground seems parched for want of emotive moisture, as if a gaping wound that has remained unattended for long. If only the plants could migrate, the unfortunate occurrence wouldn’t have been there for me to witness. But the animals aren’t saved either.
Are they?
The monkey’s eyes don’t leave me for a moment, as I sense mine welling up with tears. The sound of my plaintive sobs is absorbed by the wind that has seen the fall of leaf after leaf from every tree, as well as endured the hurricane of their catastrophic fall. Wandering through the devastation, I lose sight of the monkey.
With invisible eyes fixed on me in a leaden glare, the forest keeps looking at me with forlorn astonishment and ire, like one with a speeding wheel of punishment on its head, bound to transfer soon onto that of humankind. The darkness herein refuses to degenerate but wildly ferments like food that has failed safe, proper storage. Saturated with thoughts and worries that run in the margins of that great concern, I return home with a heavy heart, wondering why my fellow tribe has engaged in such questionable practices.
*
The next morning when my eyes open slits, I don’t find Kunal in his bed. I wake up Neil and inform him about it.
We look for Kunal everywhere in the house, the terrace, the front yard, but he is nowhere to be found.As we are about to go to the police station, my mobile chatters. It’s from Mrs Sharma.
“Kunal is missing!” I say breathlessly before she speaks.
“So is my child, my daughter. She has never done this before.” Mrs Sharma breaks into a lamentable cry, with a shriek of pain.
“Even Kunal never left anywhere without informing.”
I recall my brief rendezvous with the Zen Buddha monkey the previous day. Has he turned into the vindictive piped piper who tricked the kids to oblivion?
“Switch on the TV, Amla. My husband says there is something we need to see. Oh my god!” Her tone changesas the words come speedily, intermittently pausing as if to swallow some bad medicine, followed by coughing and choking.
I press the remote button in such abysmal fastness that it almost slips from my hand.
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On the TV, they are showing the human-wrecked land—a disheveled forest—on the foothills of the Anugandika range, where I had been yesterday. A few remnants of trees and shrubs appear like a crescent of white hair on an old man’s head, with a bulging, empty bald patch on the crown. Several children between 10 and 15 years of age are carrying plantlets in their hands, along with water bottles wound around their necks. They prod the soil with their hands, establish the plantlets, and pour water from their bottles. Their intent rings loud as if with thunder, syllabizing in all directions. The dancing throng of tweens fills the azure sky with a peal of merry laughter—decked with munificent splendor, bubbling with innocence, full of life and vitality like the young saplings.
A flash of happy verve produces a mild, inward convulsion. Shock waves of surprise spread to our whole forms, as we pronounce bodily noises like wind catching a set of bells. Neil and I momentarily stare at each other, as we think we know who they are. They have understood what the adults have refused to realize. The predaceous enemy of man is man himself.
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Bowing our heads in reverence to the little angels, we know they have matured taller than their grown-up neighbors and stand erect in their inspiration, faithful toward amaranthine beliefs of peaceful coexistence. We know their plants will one day turn into giant trees, with towering branches soaring high up against the sky. Both plants and animals will thrive there—an unsaid understanding of sustainability bound and content by their mutual atmosphere.
**
