Monkey business

South Indian monkeys are more “civilised” and “cultured” than their North Indian cousins, according to an American expert on simian behaviour. Dr Leonard A. Rosenblum, a psychiatry professor from the University of New York, says that South Indian monkeys maintain close ties with other members of the group. Scientific research and prolonged observation of the behaviour of Indian monkeys for the past 50 years have proved that south of the Vindhyas are more caring, he said.

Now, what can you say about Dr.Leonard A Rosenblum, who for five decades has been single-mindedly engaged in the research and prolonged observation of the behaviour of Indian monkeys, all the while carefully categorizing them as North and South Indian monkeys?

Get a life, Dr.Rosenblum, I say. There’s more to life than monkeys, South or North Indian.

My advice to you, dear Leonard, is to sign up with the Monkey-watchers Anonymous. You must wean yourself away from monkeys, before it is too late. It’s not impossible. If, in the next week, you wake up every morning and tell yourself that you shall see no more than fifty monkeys a day, bring down the number to forty the next week, thirty the week after and so on, you will find that you can be rid of this addiction to monkeys in five weeks flat, or you get your money back. If you still have withdrawal symptoms, you can always carry a monkeys’ spanner around your neck.

You will soon realize, psycho-Prof, that monkeys aren’t everything. India is a country rich in variety. There are donkeys, mules, pigs, camels you can train your microscopes on and come out with a research paper, meticulously classifying members of these species as Tamil, Kannadiga, Gujarati, Punjabi, etc and analyzing their relative merits. So, get off the monkey’s back, will you?