A friend of mine ended up in India at the same time as me when I went there to visit. I have fair skin so I looked sort of foreign even though I have dark hair. My friend has dark hair, and is Chinese American, so he might as well have worn a neon sign that said (in the 150 different Indian language of course) 'I am here for one reason only: for your amusement'. Ah yes.
Keep this in mind for our trip. We took a boat to a place called the Elephanta Cave Island. We were quite disappointed to find that the island did not have any caves actually made of elephants. In fact, we didn't see ANY elephants, only lots of monkeys with very red behinds. There was also an extremely long line of both people and monkeys to the "portapotty" which turned out to be a little tiny stall with a floor. (I was actually so baffled that I had to go out and ask somebody how I was supposed to use this 'women's room' to which they pointed at a tiny tiny hole in the corner of the stall and motioned that the floor slanted towards the hole. Needless to say, that would not be one of those 'curious foreign quirks' that I would want to bring back home. I think the woman was right when she said "you'd be better off going behind that old boat in the field than going in one of those bathrooms." It was impossible for my mind to fathom half-public urination, however, so I stuck with the waterless water closet.)
So, the friend and I proceeded to explore this Elephanta Island, wondering how all these Indians could name the island after an animal that was much larger than its primary
inhabitants (the monkeys) and discovered the caves were actually full of statues instead
of elephants. This proved to be quite interesting but eventually Ray (the friend) wanted
to explore on top of the caves (which by the way, did not have any statues) instead of in the caves where the statues were. I mildly agreed and followed him up an extremely rugged hill up on the top. I began to realize that this was not a frequently taken route, and was relieved when we finally appeared on a kind of platform meant to
be stood on. From it we could look 50 feet below to the cave below where many people sat. On the other side of the overhang was more hill. There was a tiny tiny ledge, about half a foot or so jutting out from the rock that connected the hill to the platform. Ray said
"hey! let's cross over on that." The ledge looked suitable for crossing.....definitely. Suitable for crossing if you are a goat.
Ray began unsteadily making his way onto the ledge and I wondered if he was joking. He wasn't. Smiling inanely, he shuffled with his very unmountain-like sandals on the narrow, crumbling ledge as I stared open mouthed and wondered what I should do, as he was obviously insane. Suddenly I heard yelling from the other side of the ledge - some teenage Indian kids appeared and were yelling in the direction of my American counterpart, who was still smiling bravely. Now they were yelling in some language I didn't know (actually I don't know any Indian language, so that's not so abnormal), however, from their faces and frantic arm-motions, I was quite sure they weren't just making friendly conversation with Ray, more like telling him to go back. Ray, however, paused (though not in his smiling) and waved at them. Their yelling got more incredulous to the point that some were laughing. One yelled in broken English "no no man!"
Now I know Ray understands English. However, at this moment, he didn't understand what they said, only that they were not dangerous. And Ray is never one to lose an opportunity to converse with non-dangerous natives, so he yelled back "hi!" and waved again. The tallest one, who had yelled laughed again to his group and then yelled, along with more frantic hand motions "Man, go back! You fall, you break neck! No no man, go BACK." Ray never lost his confidence "I'm fine!", he called. I on the other hand, was not so confident and was banging my head on the wall. "Ray!", I yelled. "Will you please listen to them and come back!" Ray continued to inch along and said "I can make it!" The Indian group howled. "MAN! You Fall, you break yaar!" and the tall boy made motions with his hands indicating Ray falling the 55 feet down to the stone floor below. For the first time, Ray's confidence seemed a little deflated. He looked down and back at me. "Come here Ray!" I yelled encouragingly. "GO man GO!" the Indian gang motioned emphatically towards me. To this Ray smiled, stood up, no longer leaning on the wall as he was before. "I'm really okay!" he said to both the Indian gang and myself. "Look, I don't even need to hold the wall!" And then, he fell. The Indian gang thought it was a hoot.
I wondered how the monkeys managed to catch him. Lucky idiot.
The monkeys, pre-Ray saving. Notice, on the left hand side, the grooming ritual. No matter how hard I squinted though, they just wouldn't look like elephants.
| b i o g r a p h y |
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Jasmine Chapgar finds herself daring death across foreign lands more often than she would like. |
 The Sad Lives of the Monkey People |
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 What I Should Have Said/What I Did Say |