Monkeys of the human kind

I was at Hampi last weekend and I noticed an odd phenomenon for a tourist spot in India – bands (12-15 strong) of young men perhaps in early 20s roaming around being rowdy and obnoxious, especially towards women. Now if you’ve been in India, you’ll know that this is a common sight on Indian road-sides. But this was my first sighting of this at a tourist spot.

So you can imagine my first reaction to sighting packs of these, umm…, men.

On our third day at Hampi, we decided to go to the ruins but do our own thing. Out of our group of 5, two decided to climb a hill, two decided to go birding and I decided to go spend some time at an amazing spot next to the river.



It is a rocky spot with giant boulders strewn every which way, giving the spot a feeling of being an animation rather than real-life. The river which is dammed further up, flows down some of these rocks, with the flow controlled by flood gates at the dam. The previous day we had watched salmon trying to jump upstream over a one meter water fall. And, to make it even better, there is a one meter high rock sitting all alone on a flattish rocky surface. All in all a perfect spot for spending an hour daydreaming at 8 in the morning.

My plan was to go sit on the rock for some time and after a while go stand in the river with water up to my ankles.

When I got to my rock, as I’d come to think of it by now J, I noticed a pack of 15+ of these men about 20 feet downstream, generally enjoying themselves in the water. I figured if they want to run around in their underwear at a public place that is their problem not mine. I decided to perch myself on the rock and admire the rocks on the upstream side. After staring at me for varying amounts of time, these men decided to go back to playing in the water, which was just fine with me. This is roughly what I had hoped/expected.

Such packs of men, in the words of Douglas Adams in the “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy”, are “mostly harmless”. Though you have to keep repeating that to yourself if you find yourself alone with over a dozen of them.

Hardly 5 minutes after the first group had left, a smaller set of 5-6 descended near the rock. They also found the sight of a woman sitting peacefully a few meters away too hard to ignore, but again they lost interest after a few minutes and decided to catch some fish with their bare hands from the river and transfer them to a tiny shallow pool formed at the side of the river.

I descended to the flat rocks and stood for some time with my feet in the water. It was quite fun as the officials at the dam upstream were varying the flow of water. The water level at my feet would change from 2-3 inches to about 8-10 inches within a matter of minutes, and then go down again.

All was well. The fish-transporting operation had stopped. The men had decided to show off their bravery by crossing the river which has a bed of flattish slippery boulders.

I returned to my rock for a final round of day-dreaming before heading back. That is when the final group of another half-dozen men arrived. One of them just could not stand the fact that a woman was sitting on a boulder minding her own business. First he walked around the boulder once about 18 inches away from the edge. Then he came back and stood leaning against the boulder three feet away. Then he decided that was too far and inched to within a foot and a half and stood looking away towards the river. I continued to ignore him.

Then he turned around slowly and started addressing me. First something in Kannada. Then I caught “Hello”. “Sister”. Then something else I don’t remember. Full sentences in Kannada were coming my way. I didn’t utter a word or change my expression but was rapidly thinking whether I could reach my hiking boots quickly enough and hit him on the head which was at my knee level in one smooth move. More wishful thinking than anything else J, but it never hurts to have a backup plan in case things get worse. I also looked around to see if there was any civilized person in sight who may give me a hand if needed. Just when I had mentally perfected my move, the guy decided he’d had enough and moved to watch the hoopla around the few fish in the puddle.

By now it was time to go back and I was sick of these…men. And the two more rowdies I encountered on the steps back would surely have gotten one in the ribs if they had come any closer.

The whole episode had one positive side-effect: it increased my resolve to go work out at the gym more frequently than the 2-3 days a week I’ve been doing. Aah, but like all good-intentioned resolves, it disintegrated once I got back into the daily rhythm of work in Bangalore.

But the time I spent enjoying the view at the banks of the Tungabhadra river with water running over my feet will remain with me for a long time.


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