Mon-key Baat

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Imagine this: you wake up on a Saturday morning, open your room and see 10-15 monkeys sitting on the clotheslines staring at you, anticipating your move. Imagine such an incident occurring on a weekday when you are having a 8:30 am class in the morning. These days, students in some hostels, especially 5, often wake up to the chaotic sound of monkeys than their own alarms. Be it morning, afternoon or evening, one often witnesses these creatures patrolling their wing corridors.

Over the past few weeks, instances of monkeys wreaking havoc in hostels 3, 5, 7 and 9 have been recorded by hostel residents. Such incidents were also witnessed during summers as mentioned by some who stayed back in insti during the holidays.

And if one ever forgets to properly lock their room or keeps it open, these monkeys completely change the orientation of rooms destroying clothes and valuables. Incidents of monkeys playing with electronic stuff kept in rooms, trying to find something to eat, have been recorded so far. Students also found monkeys sleeping on their beds in their hostel rooms. They also upturn waste-bins and scatter the trash in the entire wing if they don’t find something to eat in them.

“They often cause trouble during cleaning routines”, report some PHO workers. “They even throw away the clothes hanging on the ropes. This makes the wings very dirty and also increases our work”. On speaking to a few inmates, we understood that these monkeys also attacked a few students in possession of eatables. It has also been advised to students to carry a small stick to freely roam around in the corridor.

Despite repeated complaints to the maintenance council by students, the sole reply obtained has been “don’t feed the monkeys.” The only thing this achieves is that it leaves inmates wondering why anyone would imagine they feed monkeys at 8:30 a.m, when they are rushing to classes, without having breakfast themselves.

The latest development is that the General Secretary of Hostel 5 has given an application to BMC through PHO office. Bursting crackers in wings has been recommended as a temporary solution to this problem as of now.