A DAY IN THE LIFE
Rustling with the canopy of trees, the sun rays finally
touched the ground. This meant that it was time to wake up, though, in my whole
life, I have never seen it actually happen as I was always the last person to
get up in my group. By the time I climbed down from my bed, my mother had already
gathered some fresh cocoa nuts for me. She shook my head a little to make me
more perceptive of morning. I sat down beside her and we consumed the whole lot
in a span of several minutes. Today, I was surely the last person to wake up,
because most of our neighbors were done with their breakfast and a few were
climbing the trees to break the freshest mulberries.
I decided to go for a stroll to search for fava beans, an
after meal snack. I met my friend on the way whom I was meeting after quite
some time. We hugged each other, sang our hoot song and then sat down between
the bushes of fava beans. Just then, we saw a girl of our age passing through
the Fava bean patch. She was quite good looking, especially her hind parts. She
saw us looking at her back and yelled at us and ran away from the field. I
looked at my friend and we both started giggling. After an hour or so, I went back home. When I
reached there, I saw my mother sitting with a strange old lady. They were
sitting near the pond. I was unable to recognize the lady at first. But then I
realized, she was my mother’s cousin who used to live with us, a few years
back. She hugged me or rather squeezed me and started to kiss me all over my
face. She stopped abruptly in the middle
of that outrageous display of affection because she spotted some lice in my
hair. She made me sit down in front of her and with utmost concentration she
started removing lice. Lice were common in our community. It was an everyday
affair to remove lice from each other’s hair. After grooming me for half an
hour, she moved on to my mother and spent another half hour on her hair. Then
our whole group gathered and planned to go to the other side of our territory
in the forest to collect some walnuts and gooseberries.
On our way back home through the forest, we met several
members of the other tribe trying to steal fruits from the trees of our
territory. The strongest member of our
group yelled at them furiously. His voice was loud and intense, reeking of
rage. I knew what happened whenever this call was made: a violent, brutal fight.
The adults of our group ran towards them vigorously and simultaneously issuing
abuses and threats to them. Most of them scrambled away from the scene swiftly,
but our group elders were able to corner a single voracious male who was ready
to fight till death. He was defending himself with utmost force. He punched the
nearest male on his throat, dug his nails in the hand and was going to bite
him. Just then, one male and one female member of our troop attacked him from
behind, bombarding him with punches and kicks.
He was struggling for breath but even then, he managed to throw all
three of them away from himself. But soon enough, he realized that there was no
chance of him winning, as he was outnumbered by twelve to one. Somehow, he
managed to slither away from the snatch of the lot. He climbed on the nearest
tree where he was followed by three others. He sat down on the topmost perch,
eagerly waiting for all of us to leave. Most of the members were retreating
back to the group but out of nowhere, that goon made a loud hoot to call his
other members. As it was clear that he has not given up, three of the strongest
members of our tribe started climbing that tree. They cornered him on topmost
perch and beat him black and blue. He fell down the tree and was gravely
injured. Unable to walk or even sit, he was very frightened now. After a few
minutes, he managed to get up with the support of the tree trunk and limped
away towards his territory. I was hiding behind my mother the whole time,
peeping occasionally, when they were thrashing him so harshly.
It was twilight when we reached home. This was my favourite
time as we would go out and play hide and seek. I met my friends near the pond
and today was my turn to find them while the others hid themselves. I had to
look for them in the bushy thickets, dense perches and behind the stones. After
15 minutes I found them. We played for another half an hour and went back to
our respective homes. I ate some walnuts that we had collected earlier. Then, I
climbed on the tree, made a bed of leaves on the perch and slept.
With no thoughts of tomorrow and no worries of today, it is
a day in the life of a chimpanzee.
