Lauren

Monkeys in the Kitchen!

My first ever morning waking up in India started of being very relaxing. My husband had gone to the office and my mother-in-law and I were sat in the living room, we were getting to know each other. My mother-in-law can understand English, but finds it hard to find the words to speak it, whilst I struggle to even count to ten in Hindi or Marathi. Communication is difficult but fortunately we both laugh in the same language, and we laugh together a lot, mostly at the fact we are constantly misunderstanding each other.

I told my mother-in-law that my little sister was learning Arabic and she suddenly started to march on the spot. I was completely confused to why she started exercising randomly whilst I was mid-sentence. Was this a kind of Arabic dance she had learnt somewhere? What actually happened was that she thought I said my sister was learning aerobics! 

A couple of minutes of laughter and tea passed and then suddenly her eyes widened, ‘Lauren, get out of the house’ she shouted! My first thought was that there was a huge spider or maybe a mouse, but no… MONKEYS. There sat two monkeys happily eating our food, one on the dining table and one of the top of the fridge. There were monkeys in the kitchen!

We both ran out of the house and my mother-in-law told our gate-keeper about the monkeys. Our gate-keeper is a funny and fearless woman, she grabbed a stick, puffed out her chest, rearranged her saree and bravely ventured into our house. She then chased them both out of the window. 

The excitement reminded me of the thrill of when a bird would accidentally find its way into our house when I was a child. The cheeky monkeys had managed to get in by jumping from our neighbours tree to our balcony and then causally walk through the door. My husband told me it has happened a couple more times since this occasion but when I was in England.

Meanwhile, I continue to daydream that one day a monkey will come into our house, abandon its baby and then I have to raise it has my child. I would probably call it something obvious like ‘bananas’.

30 comments

  1. The monkey story brought back a lot of childhood memories of encounters with monkeys when my family visited my grandparents in North India. In fact last summer when we visited my parents in India we ran into a dynasty of monkeys at an ancient temple. Love the Arabic-aerobic anecdote. I also enjoyed reading your guest post that you shared the link to on FB. I definitely want to visit UK in the future. While I did live in England (New Castle) as a child, I need fresh memories as the old ones have become quite blurry. Love the history, castles, English country side. Can’t wait to visit.

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  3. Wow, Lauren, you certainly live an exciting life there. One adventure after the other. Funny story about your conversation with your mother-in-law!! She sounds wonderful but then she must be if she raised your wonderful husband. Have funat the wedding and good luck with the bathrooms! 😉

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  6. EeK!!!! Monkeys!!!!
    I keep my own personal lathi by the front door here in Nepal to chase any monkeys, buffaloes, kiangs, & dogs out of the garden.
    We see more monkey bites than dog bites at the local hospital here so be careful!

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  8. I have only one story. I was in Mumbai with a friend’s parents and we had gone to the Elephanta Caves. We’d brought our own snacks – small, homemade puris that were basically like crackers. So there I am, sitting with a paper bag of puris, minding my own business, when a monkey comes out of NOWHERE, swipes the bag, climbs a tree, and then stares down at me going ‘hrrrrrrrrr’ while eating puris. Monkeys are jerks.

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  9. Monkeys made me a hero once. Me and my pack of friends (when we were teens), came back to my house after a day of glorious cricket in the grounds. My friends headed to the terrace as they usually did, while I went in to bring water. On the terrace they encountered two furious monkeys just at the entry. While they dared to cross but could not, I came along totally unaware of the situation. I was rushing with speed to the terrace, the monkeys saw me first and perhaps seeing the energy in me, decided to escape. I was instantly declared the bravest of the lot. Innocent kids, I tell you.

    Monkey bites are lethal though.

    P.S. I can now login with my Twitter account.

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  11. haha…sorry but I guess it must be fun for you to watch it first hand.. !
    it recently happened at my childhood home as well.. our town is now full of monkeys lately and it is such a surprise for us that not even in dreams that we thought – one day we have to face Monkey’s wrath. We have so much work to do for the damage they have been causing.. oh well.. we are taking their space away and of course it is all fair in the game:)

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  15. i’m probably the only weirdo down there who would try to make friend with those monkeys and invite them to my place :p I’m a new follower and i started to read your entire blog 2 days ago. I plan to go through it until i catch up to today’s posts. I travelled to India in march 2015 and barely can think about anything else since then. Needless to say that i envy you.

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