
Far-Flung Postcards is a weekly sequence by which NPR’s worldwide workforce shares moments from their lives and work around the globe.
Years in the past, once I lived in Delhi, a madari — a monkey handler — and his two performing monkeys used to return to my neighborhood on a bicycle. I liked to see them however was unwilling to be a patron. It’s unlawful to make use of monkeys for tips in India, although the follow stays common and authorities are inclined to look the opposite means.
Normally, the grandparents in my neighborhood referred to as out to the madari. They haggled with him over a couple of hundred rupees, after which for a couple of minutes, the madari made his pets salute, somersault, hug or pull one another’s tails. The youngsters spilled with laughs. The elders seemed happy too.
Typically, although, their act had no takers. The madari nonetheless got here by, saying his arrival by shaking a pellet drum. On one such lean day, he observed me trying on from my third-floor balcony. I shook my head. He and the monkeys moved on.
On a latest go to again to my previous Delhi neighborhood, I noticed this madari on a motorcycle together with his monkeys. They seemed acquainted however I could not ensure if it was the trio I knew from three years in the past. I solely noticed them fleetingly from my cab. And so they all turned their backs on me.
I suppose I deserved that.
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