How to be a monkey
On adapting to current realities quickly
In India, the streets are a lesson in attention.
I carefully avoid the cow pies like an obstacle course across the crooked cobblestones, my flip-flops offering weak protection.
You must be able to quickly move out of the way of all the various street denizens.
Bulls with their rack of horns.
Motorscooters incessantly shrieking shrill high-pitched ‘Mmeeep-Mmeeep.’
Babas cloaked fully in orange rags shouting "Hari OM!" in your ears, asking for money.
Bicycles dinging their bells.
Cars full of the wealthy spiritual tourists, insistent to get to their destination.
Frequently, you must press yourself into the wall to make space for decorated trucks lumbering down tiny alleys.
And, of course, watch out for the monkeys.
Monkeys who will grab your sunglasses from your head, or steal whatever you carry in your hands if it looks good to them.
Don't make eye contact. They get aggressive.
After the dusty assault of the street, I slip into the embrace of the open-air Gange View Cafe.
I'm perched 150 feet above the Ganges river, a chill minimalist space with low-slung couches and Lofi beats thrumming quietly.
I order a salty lime soda, no ice. It arrives, the glass reeking of sulfur from the black salt.
The blue and white paper straw hits my lips, the drink pouring down the sandy desert of my throat like amrita.
I sink into the couch, looking out over the river, and let my eyes drift one thousand miles, ten thousand miles.
Don't worry; this isn't going to be a piece about me finding a guru in India and reaching enlightenment, even though I just used amrita, the Sanskrit word for nectar, pretentiously.
It won't be a travelog attempting to make sense of the vastness of this experience or give you spiritually inspiring platitudes from my elevated consciousness here in India.
Instead, it's a small, humble story about one monkey.
The monkeys are everywhere in Rishikesh.
Large grey ones with long eyelashes.
Short brown ones with red rumps.
Tails of every length and color.
I'm enraptured by their faces and how they hold their feet with their hands when sitting—the familiarity of their faces.
I keep a respectful distance between us, though.
Monkeys are more feral than me and not afraid to fight.
Which they do frequently; the noise is abysmal, like car metal scraping on a guardrail or the wails of the starving ghosts emanating from Hell.
It's chilling, something my bones recognize.
I know the sound in an ancient part of my brain. You'd know it, too.
From my observations, I know monkeys live in small groups.
Mama monkeys raise their babies together and take turns watching them practice climbing trees and grappling on the grass, but they don't stray far.
Any hint of danger, the mamas grab their babies.
Monkey mamas hold their babies just like I held mine; cradled in their laps.
At the ashram where I'm staying, the group I watch the most has several large males who guard the perimeter, quickly and with great hostility chasing away interlopers they perceive as threats to their...herd?
Pack?
Tribe?
I'm not sure of the right word for monkey groups, but regardless, family dynamics are pretty straightforward.
They cuddle, groom, get pissed off, fight, and make up.
Just like us.
From my repose sipping my cool bevvy, the Ganges unfolds against the backdrop of the foothills of the Himalayas like a postcard.
The turquoise water is wide across, maybe a kilometer, broad as the Mississippi.
This time of year, not monsoon season, the current is said to be less robust.
But even so, the river rafters float past ever so quickly.
Late afternoon finds the monkeys heading to wherever they go for the night, the trees, I suppose.
I hear them before I can see them, the screeches and howls telling me they are fighting as they scramble along the steel cables running beneath the incomplete pedestrian bridge of Laxman Jhula.
They are so agile, running and swinging beneath the bridge with great ease and dexterity.
Something glaringly apparent in India is you never know where your day is headed.
Today, for example, I received word there is a cyclone hitting Chennai, the city I am flying to tomorrow.
Well, hopefully flying to.
Being flexible and open to what comes is not just a Shanti vibe, it's a necessary life skill.
Things change, often and quickly.
You're supposed to go to lunch with your friend, but then your guru offers a teaching, and there is no way you would miss it.
Oops, this is not a story about a guru, don't know how she slipped in.
"Look at the monkeys," I say to Livia, who's joined me at the cafe.
We look across the river, where the light softens to early evening, the sun dripping down behind the foothills, casting angelic and blissful golden light.
Yeah, for real, I just used the word angelic to describe a place. I promise I'm not enlightened.
At first, the light shining between the tiny hand and the bridge is slight.
The monkey's paw grabs for the wire now inches above its head, just out of reach.
But with each millisecond, the clear space around the small brown body increases.
Twisting, the monkey falls, still reaching, trying to regain purchase.
Slow motion, a body spinning through air, dark against the sky.
Light in our eyes, it could be a bird disappearing from view beneath the cafe's railing.
We don't see the monkey hit the water.
We are too far away to hear the splash, and wouldn't anyway over the river's roar.
But there is only one place to go: the blue-green bejeweled Goddess Ganga.
Seconds, no more than four, have passed in the cafe.
"Did you…" Livia's question trails off.
I nod.
Certainly, I've seen things die before, but this, the clear blue of the air, the small brown body with which I share DNA spiraling and tumbling, is nothing like this.
Something aches in my gut.
One hundred fifty feet above the current, the other monkeys fall silent.
They've lost one of theirs, likely forever.
Livie and I sit quietly, too, private grief or recognition sweeping through us both.
We both know loss like this: sudden, catastrophic, final.
In bed that night, I will replay the image again and again.
Perhaps monkeys can swim, I think.
But I think of my body in the river's swift current, anchored by a heavy chain to keep from being swept away as I make a pilgrim's bath, and know the truth.
Even if somehow the monkey managed to find an edge and cling to a bank, it would be miles from here, from its tribe.
Can a monkey survive without its family group?
Could it find a new family, if their old one is gone, lost to the flow of time, the current of the river?
Some days it's like this.
You are going one way, fighting and fussing.
Maybe your attention is distracted, and you misstep, or the solidity of the bridge is less than you thought.
Or perhaps the Goddess decides this is your moment.
Then you are in the river, sink or swim.
FYI, Glitter Joyride will be on vacation until January, 2025.
If you have topics you want to read about, send me a message.
I’ll be dreaming into what I want this space to be in the coming year.
I'd love to hear from you.
And until we meet in the new year, I send you sparkle and pleasure.
May your life be full of magick and surprise, and your heart be open.
aaaahhh i love this ! thank you for writing from your travels