monkey see monkey do

this morning i was sitting atop a large, ornamented concrete railing the encircles the span of the lake when i got a new and particularly exciting scare of sorts. as has become my quotidian custom here in the raj-era himalayan hill station of Nainital (at roughly 7,000ft), each morning after i awake and shower, i stroll down the steep and narrow street to the makeshift center of town, which pleasantly wraps around the banks of the beautiful pear-shaped lake Naini. as was customary during these lazy, ambulant days, i was eating my omelette sandwich, drinking my chai and reading arabian nights under the bright midmorning sun when suddenly a large, foreign object - alive and extremely well - pierced my periphery vision and then paused, only inches away to the left. i put down my book without recovering the page number to look up at a grey-haired, leather-faced baboon, the same massive monkey that roamed with such grace and authority in the Corbett Tiger Reserve some two weeks back. As it was still relatively early for Indian mountain standards, I was the first and only sitting atop the rail, and we both had momentary troubles understanding the other's intransigence. Though mine was mostly steeped in sheer and utter surprise (ok, ok i was scared shitstupid for 1.23 seconds there), the monkey hesitated only briefly, waiting for me to put my book down before he began to step over me, his front and back paws (hands, rather!) lightly gripping and releasing the flesh of my thighs as he nimbly crawled across me and clambered over on his way down the line...