The Guava Crisis....

Just came across this momentous piece of news.

Pakistani authorities  have arrested a monkey that had strayed across the border from India. 

Many things make news between India and  Pakistan, ranging from buses,  borders,  trains, ministerial talks, to  actors, actresses, singers, not to mention authors and writers, and yes cricketers.

But we do not "capture" these folks.

Yes, we  run after them, applaud them, crowd them, interview them,   make films with them, put them in TV shows,  and so on. The only folks who get treated differently, are those who arrive with guns, mostly surreptitiously, and sometimes , not so surreptitiously. 

While some events have necessitated guarding the borders in minute detail,  preventing infiltration by illegals, and  checking documents of those legal, through border posts, the concerned officials , are taking the entry of the monkey very seriously.


It seems the monkey entered  through he Cholistan area of Bahawalpore in Pakistan.
Cholistan is a desert area adjacent to the Thar desert area in India. This would have roughly qualified as an extension of Rajasthan, had partition not happened in 1947, when we got our Independence, and Pakistan was created.

It is possible, that in this dry weather , the monkey may have ventured northwest  in search of water. It is also possible, that the parents and grandparents of this monkey had not educated this fellow, about the Politics of Partition.

  Locals in Bahawalpore saw it, unsuccessfully tried to capture it, and then called security.  The poor monkey,  designated as Bobby by the Paksitanis , is now in zoological custody .


How do you know the monkey is from India ? Did it carry any documents ?  Did it have an Indian passport ?   Did it speak with an Indian accent ?  Did it ask , "Do you know who I am ?"  Did it have an RFID ? 

While officials in Bahawalpur are tight lipped about this, every effort is being made to  ascertain whether the monkey was acting alone, or was it a part of a new infiltration scheme.  Pakistan is using Google Earth to study the  network of trees with big branches  along the border, and plans are a foot  to   demand that these trees either  be trimmed or removed, to prevent further Simian Swings. Unfortunately,  the Google Earth pictures on the Indian side, hitherto clear , are currently fairly hazy .....

A committee of expert doctors in Pakistan have ascertained that the age of the monkey is 4 years, and he has currently been housed in the Bahwalpore Zoo, with another monkey, Raju, who is a Pakistani national.

A comprehensive Monkeyscan was conducted on the monkey, Bobby, to ascertain if he was carrying anything else besides his anatomy.  The President  has appointed an special investigation  committee (SIC)  and the Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan has been called for a meeting by their Foreign Office.

In the meanwhile,  certain sections of the  media in India have been reporting on a certain pigeon that had strayed into Indian airspace a few years ago and was captured, and how it was investigated by the authorities for being a carrier of messages. No one knows where that investigation report is....

Hardliners in both countries are insisting that the secretary level talks be kept in abeyance till the real facts behind the "arrested monkey" emerge.   The Indian Parliament was once again adjourned  as no one from the ruling party was able to give satisfactory answers on the Monkey episode, or MonkeyGate , as it is being called now.

Breaking news :

BNN-ICN is reporting that thanks to a cousin of Julian Assange  who has a doctorate in  Simian  Communication Systems  ,  the zoo authorities (where the monkey is in custody), were able to tap the conversation between the Indian Monkey Bobby and Pakistani Monkey Raju, over several days.  Bobby is supposed to have confided to Raju, that he had learned that Bahawalpur was famous for Guavas, and thought this was a good time to generally take a tour of the region, and get his fill of the fruit. But alas,  his greed ended up being his  problem, he was caught and localised to this zoo.

The only thing is , now that Julian Assange is like persona-non-grata here, no one in the government wants to believe  this.

I wonder what the world has come to when a small monkey hankering after a guava can trigger a crisis.     

Sigh.

Disclaimer : Other than the real news of a monkey being arrested  for trespassing, and stories about the pigeon long ago, everything else is the result of exercising the imagination, and any resemblance to anything in real life, is entirely coincidental, and plain magical . 


 Most of these observations are a result of the intense glossal movement in the mala or bucca. Those rolling the Occuli to Google for help.