Uninvited Visitor

The need for working the land to make it available to build housing for families had been a never ending phenomenon in this part of the world. With the growth of population comes the need for more and more houses which becomes homes. I always thought maybe it was all forests and undiscovered land across the world. Later we discovered some and some we worked out deforestation based on the needs of the community. While all this was getting done, the societies grew to communities to nations with boundaries marking their ownership. Now we have reached a steady state that any change to the border can only be achieved with the label of being an invader, ever since colonialism has gone out of fashion. 

I am sure most of us would have noticed how areas around us which was always uninhabited gets constructed and becomes somebody's dream house someday. How some random building with ten units welcomes ten families or groups of people across the country to become the tenants to generate wealth for the landlords. We humans are the only animals who had legalized the territories and boundaries by handing over documentations for it, even though within other animals they seem to respect their boundaries of action without any line drawn or fence build. But have you ever thought just because we are another animal with access to tools which can control all other living beings, do we really have the rights on the planet to mark the boundaries and call it ours? Yes, to an extent to avoid the social chaos it could bring without proper law and order, but that is among humans only as no animals understand our English law. Still, then why do we assume that our law should stand for other animals too? Emphasizing on the usage of animal word to remind us as a community that we are just another mammal. 

I have noticed that all of us defend our home or fences like an army personnel defending the line of control. The microscopic army of ants to large elephants need to fight through each one of the family member to really move into our spaces. We fight with tooth and nail to avert the entry of any known specifies which are visible to our otherwise blind eyes. Otherwise, blind considering how we don't react to all the societal issues and convince ourselves thinking that is being wise and minding our own business. In fact, what we care is just our house within our gates in this world and nothing else. Maybe this is what makes our gaff most precious asset to have for every human on this planet earth too in spite of knowing that fact that we are all just tenants here in this world waiting for our call back to the base.

I was out of station for a week visiting my parents and when I was back, the first thing our security guard told us was that a certain other type of primates are back visiting our apartment, and we need to keep an eye. Now these other type of primates are none other than our own ancestors or closest to humanimal - monkeys. They had been always visiting the planet earth and jumping from trees to trees, eating whatever they could gather and living as a community. The story is well documented in Ramayana that any attempt from me to glorify or express about them would be a failure. For some reason, we are all terrorized by these monkeys who happen to know humans quite well. 

I am someone who always avoided contact with monkeys, probably due to the fear of falling in love with them, considering my love for all living being. Only pun intended there. During one of our visits to a hill station in India and while living in a resort close to a forest, the monkeys came in groups, got into the house and took exactly one large bag. That bag was the most precious one as my friends had got all my favorite snacks back from hometown in it, and we had saved to cherish every bite while idling in the resort. In the same trip, once a monkey tried to snatch ice cream from a baby and my reflex made me react to the monkey. Let's call it God's grace or monkey's luck, I got away without any injury. Me being the monkey in that monkey's luck. The real monkey growled at me in such a way that I felt, I could buy and give monkey another ice cone if that could solve the problem between us. 

The monkey families with grandparents, parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, grandkids started living in our layout much before we all arrived here. As always, we marked boundaries and cut their trees to build our homes. Then now when they try to live around us, we feel why are they coming to our homes. Strange, isn't it? People say they visit during daytime and try to see what food they could find from waste bins. Obviously they would steal as none of us are monkey feeders here. However, we all know if we feed, they are not going to go ever too. Today they knocked on our kitchen window, seeing us cooking. We got worried, screamed, howled and scared the monkey forcing it to retreat. 

In the present world, we can't even find harmony with all the other living creatures due to fear, greed, hate or whatever our reason is, how can we ever make this world a better place? Why we think this planet only belong to us? Can we share it better with others? Time to think more into the wild chase for wealth and marking our fences, while what we are really doing is limiting our own mobility, be it physical or mental. The horizons are forced to shrink, on the other hand we are talking more about an all-inclusive ecosystem now more than ever!

Who is the real uninvited visitor to this world? Is it us or other monkeys that comes home uninvited?