Be kind!
Hey! No! I'm not yelling at you. 😅
I'm just saying that the world we live in belongs more to the animals and the plants than to us.
So, this sweet thing was found wandering about the Apartment complex around the first week of August. It has been raiding dustbins on balconies that have easy access to the utility area. As usual, the apartment folks were unsettled and were wondering what to do about the rogue monkey. Wild animals are often carriers of disease and the chances of being bitten by them is a real risk. A few residents took it upon themselves to track the movements of this monkey upon pipes, balconies and the stairwell. That's how I got hold of the dustbin raiding image. It was shared on the residents' WhatsApp group.
While they gasped and scampered about the campus looking for it, the group chat was abuzz with monkey sightings. "It's climbing up the pipe on the sixth floor! said one resident. Now, it's closer to our balcony! said another." And so it went on until the next few days when I saw the monkey with my own eyes as I stood in a socially distant queue to buy vegetables. A vegetable vendor who visits our apartment twice a week, was busy bagging leafy greens for an elderly woman when her brother cried out in surprise. He noticed the monkey pawing a tomato from the crate and picked up a stone to shoo it away. The monkey got scared and quickly climbed up the apartment wall and turned around to look at all of us. The vendor woman, who was also pregnant at the time, noticed the monkey's belly and found herself flushing with compassion for the docile animal. She ordered her brother to step away from the fruit crates and requested us to make room for the monkey.
The poor dear understood enough to climb down from her perch and walk around the fruit crates. She went straight for the mango crate, sniffed for a good one, grabbed it and moved away. She then peeled and ate it as quickly as she could as we watched her in silence. I put my bag down and took a quick shot of the scene before the monkey left the stall.
It was a beautiful, tender moment, to be honest, considering all the havoc that was spilling over on the group chat. Everyone around the stall had forgotten their fears and witnessed the random act of kindness in awe. I said a little prayer for both the souls and continued shopping.
If you are a fan of Simon Sinek and watch a lot of his videos like I do, then you may have seen the one where he talks about the effects of Oxytocin on the one who performs an act of kindness, the one who receives it, even the one who witnesses it. A ripple effect of this kind is what we need in abundance. So, please be kind! Show some compassion and you'll see your fears melt away like dew in the warmth of the sun.
I know it's tough to feed every hungry mouth during these tough times. May be a mango will do! It's not much but it may be enough for a starving animal. Be kind!
"Anna daata sukhi bhava!" ಅನ್ನದಾತ ಸುಖಿಭವ
-- The Happy Brahmin
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