Monkeys at Matheran

The monkeys at Matheran are notorious. Everyone has a monkey story – here’s mine.

I stepped out early in the morning, and was charmed. I love the freshness of mornings, and Matheran was exceptional. It was one of those times when I felt I simply had to share the morning withe everyone, so I went back into the room and tried to wake everyone up.
Unsuccessfully.
Before long, I myself had slipped back into bed. The warmth of the bed was as enticing as the cool outside.

I woke up with a start. Sitting on our chair, with a packet of milk powder in its hand, was a monkey. It had pushed open the door and had taken what it saw first. As the sleeping humans slept on, it surveyed the room, wondering what else to grab.

Unfortunately for it, the sleeping humans awoke and shooed it out. It bounded out casually with its milk packet.

Later, I saw it in the trees. It had bitten a hole in the packet and was merrily sucking the powder out. The other monkeys had not caught on yet.

Chattering and screeching about fifteen minutes later alerted us to the fact that the other monkeys wanted to share in the booty too. They thrashed about, snatching our milk powder from one another, dropping some, but eating most of it, even licking whatever they dropped.

Half an hour later, we had two squeaky clean pieces of milk powder plastic deposited in the garden outside our room. And that was the end of our make-our-own-coffee plans for the day.