For all those people who might be wondering what this Mangana Kelsa is all about.. Mangana means "Of a Monkey" and Kelsa means "Work"... so, Mangana Kelsa means "Work of a Monkey"/"Monkey Business"
I googled to find if there is any softcopy of the article available on the web, but could not find any to give a link here. However, the article is on Page 8 of Bangalore Mirror with the title as "Manga checks in" - in the lines of "Dunston Checks Inn".
As per the article in the news paper, the monkey menace is mostly in residential areas affecting households but today morning's incident made me think that the monkey menace is much deadlier than that. The article says that there is only one monkey catching squad in Namma Bengaluru. With BMP changing to BBMP, having only one monkey squad is not good. Even in a small city like Mysuru, where I did all my schooling and spent the golden days of my life, there were 3 monkey squads.. (I am talking abt a period prior to Y2K).
We had a huge house there with 3 coconut trees and the monkeys used to loot the coconut trees.. and we were not scared of them coz they never used to harass any human.. We did have some funny moments with the monkeys by either throwing them a ball to catch which the monkey used to catch, try to bite and then, throw it back at us; or by leaving a mirror outside on the Pyol of the houses so that the monkey used to look at its reflection and get scared the first time, then, enjoy its looks and finally, keep the mirror back there from where it took the mirror.. and we used to see all these from the next window. It was real fun.
Now, due to the encroachment and the rapid development, Monkeys have considered Humans a threat and are now attacking the humans. We are also responsible for the "threat" of monkeys as we did feed them and we do tease them or "threaten" them with stones/sticks. As far as I know, no animal "attacks" unless provoked - and the only animal who is known to attack without getting provoked is "Homo-Sapiens".
However, as recently as a couple of months back, a two-month old baby girl was mauled to death by a few monkeys in New Delhi. That might have caused chaos in Delhi and surrounding places and in the mindsets of the people having accessed the news which was indeed glorified by our esteemed MEDIA!
There was this guy coming in a bike from Teachers College Signal towards the Lalbagh West Gate Circle when he was "approached" by two monkeys crossing the road. This guy was forced to apply brakes and the result was that the monkeys got away, but our guy faced it literally. It all happened in a split second. The monkeys crossed the road and entered Lalbagh, our guy was found sprawled on the road gasping for breath and nursing some serious injuries on his arms, face and legs... His bike was spoilt - got scratches all over it and lost its good looks. Thankfully, he was wearing a helmet and nothing untoward happened there.. But the pain of the impact is going to remain for a very long time and I am sure he would remember this incident forever, and he would become hostile towards Monkeys just because of this incident.
Who was responsible for this incident? The speeding guy or the innocent simians who crossed the road or the person on the other side of the road who felt threatened by the monkeys and shooed them away?? That was what I was precisely thinking all the way to my office.
This does not mean that we need to love the monkeys.. We could be atleast so good to the monkeys that we leave them alone instead of disturbing them and "threatening" them...... And coming to the topic of loving them.. Never Ever Kiss a Monkey coz..............
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