Curiouser & curiouser

Monkey menace is a big problem in Delhi and the surrounding areas. Hordes of monkey pick up a spot / area, not to live in, but to visit, frolic, destroy everything in sight and occasionally attack a passer by and vanish en masse, just as suddenly as they appear. I had a taste of it first hand last year, (Local Fauna).

Recently, as I came out of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, I found the compound swarming with monkeys. Small, tiny, medium and big. Hopping, jumping, walking, sitting, monkeys everywhere. These are seriously city smart monkeys and not to be trifled with. A guard, who saw me run back inside, very kindly, escorted me right to the main gates and I was thankful for his presence.

The monkeys are not to blame. More and more houses, shops, malls, offices are coming up, depriving them of their natural habitat. They are being forced to survive in a hostile overcrowded city, and have become, really aggressive.

This morning, as I was entering the ministry premises, a man cycled past me inside the compound, at a leisurely place and behind him on the bicycle, sat a Langur. It was chained to the cycle and it sat there serenely, its long tail, hanging down and in fact was trailing on the path. There were no monkeys in sight.

This was not a mere chance occurrence. Believe it or not, this is a tried and successfully tested solution to the monkey menace. It is painless and brings instant but temporary relief. The presence of a solitary langur is enough to cause the most aggressive horde disappear in a jiffy. I don’t know what the logic behind the monkey's aversion to langur, but it seems to work. The resident welfare association of many a housing estate have hired the services of men with langurs. Usually, these are street side performers who earn a living from little acts involving monkeys or langurs. All the chap has to do is to walk about the menaced area with his pet / captive langur on a leash, or cycle past and hey presto, the monkeys disappear! Curiouser & curiouser, as Alice would have said.

La Belle Meunière

New recipe up at The Timid Cook!

Boys will be boys???

One day, last week, my maid turned up pretty late and though I was irritated, I didn't show it. She is after all, very sweet oldish lady. And her reason for being late, astonishing as it sounds, is produced nearly verbatim (as much as I could make out from her thick Haryanvi accent) below:

That morning, she went up straight to the 12th floor (instead of the 11th floor) and rang the bell. Most of the apartments are identical including the doorbell. A tall young chap opened the door, let her in and went back to reading the newspaper. My maid took him to be my brother in law (whom she had briefly met). As is her usual practice, she went to the kitchen and started washing the dishes wondering why she couldn’t see Mai-dm (that is what she calls me). Having done the dishes and still not seeing me, she started sweeping the floors. The young man continued reading the papers. This is when she asked the man if they had re-arranged the furniture. They probably had recently and he replied in affirmative. And then she asked, where is Mai-dm.

“Mai-dm?? There is no Madam here,” the man said.

“HOI? She went away and didn't even tell me”?? said my Maid

“What madam? We have been living here for months and there has never been a madam here”.

“HOI??? What floor is this”?

“12th”.

“HOOOOOOiiiiii, I had to go to the 11th”.

At which point she left and turned up at ours. And I presume the young man continued reading his papers.

Poor thing, she went on for quite sometime about what a dirty pile of dishes she had done and how dirty their room was!!

My maid is, like I said, very sweet if slightly batty (in a nice way) and so one can quite forgive her for turning up one floor above and doing the dishes. But the chap????? What was he doing / thinking?

There are 3 or 4 of them living in the apartment above ours. I have never seen them, but I often hear them in loud conversation at odd hours of the night. I have tolerated their weird urges to shove furniture around after 12am. And of course the dribbling of what sounds like a basketball, I have forgiven.

Boys will after all be boys. Even after 5 years of marriage, A shows frequent signs of slipping into I-am-living-in-a-dormitory-behaviour. So I wasn't too bothered by the antics of the boys (young men) living right above us. Till this maid incident.

It’s been around 4 months that we have shifted into our brand new appartment and already, there is extensive seepage in the ceilings of two of our bathrooms, just above the shower. We had duly informed the landlord and the housing society. They had in turn taken up or said they would take it up with the occupants above and see to it. And yet, the seepage grows daily. Last week, when we called up the housing society we were told that they had not once, but twice, visited the people above, repaired that seepage and told them to not pour water over it for a few days. They could have you know, there is a spare and third bathroom. But no, they either don't care or forget and wash the cement and away. Hmmmmpf.

I am sure they don't do it on purpose. It's just one of those things. They forget. I thought that I'd go and talk to them about it, kindly explaining the reason and asking for their cooperation. But after this maid, we are stuck with this seepage problem, for a looooooooong time.

Shameful plugging!

Well here goes : Finally, my food blog The Timid Cook

This is sort of a thankyou to R for her constant support and guidance about all things culinary. Also, I have so many food tales. Some about my experiments, others about R's cooking and yet others.

You may or maynot like my posts or even read them. But I can (thankgod for blogs) write and pretend that its a great blog. Can't I????