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Wishing you all a very very Happy 2012 !



Monday, January 9, 2012

Monkey on the Back


Those were the times when life was care free and uncomplicated. There was no television, no pressure about home works, we were just an ordinary group of care free children who were happy with small things and had perfected the art of discovering joy with things which otherwise never made sense to any adult. Like many children, we were a curious lot of rascals, impish, mischievous and at times tiring to our parents. We had our own groups, own issues, own likes and dislikes, our own play games most of which were rustic, come to think of it, many of these games have become extinct in large cities.

Among the many fascinations we had, the novelty about the ‘madari’ ( monkey man) and his monkey. He has always stayed in my memory. Even as I write, the image of the ‘madari’ flashes before me - a darkish medium height man with a pencil moustache on a fluid face that always had two-day-old stubble, a white dirty cap with a ‘jari’ lining always tilted and a ‘beedi’ hanging from his lips. His loose fitting pajama - kurta had never possibly been touch by water for weeks.

On his right hand was a rope, loosely held and the other end of the rope was tethered to a red color collar around a monkey’s neck. On his left had he had a ‘dumroo’ - a small drum with a small rope on both the ends. Whenever he used to turn his writs rapidly, the dumroo would make a cracking noise as the small rope hit the each side of the drum with speed. The madari used to always announce his arrival with the cracking noise of the dumroo and always followed it up with a high nasal pitch shout inviting you to come and watch the antiques of the monkey. As soon a small group of children gathered, he used to tug the rope in his right hand, a sort of signal to the monkey to start his antiques. Different tugs of the rope meant a different signal to the monkey, who used to dance, do somersaults, smoke a beedi, comb hair etc.

We used to religiously clap and shout with glee for every act of the monkey, never bored with the repetitions. Sometimes, we used to reward the monkey by throwing peanuts and at other times tease it by calling it names. The signal for the show to have ended was a hard tug by the madari on the rope and the monkey used to quickly scamper up and sit on his shoulder or back and clap his hands.

Monkey on our back!!!

Today as a counsellor, I often have to tell my clients, “get the monkey of your back” and every time I say it, the madari and his monkey flashes in a jiffy before my eyes.

All of us have our own monkeys on our back; in fact we love to have them. We want to keep with us all our pain, fear, guilt and whatever has hurt us in past as a monkey on madari’s back. We not only love them but also feel proud about the size of the monkey on our back. We know it adds to our burden, makes us heavy, often depresses us, but still we do not want to let go. We realize that sensibility dictates life never stops, keeps moving on, but still we would like to pause all our pain, bad experiences, broken relationships, guilt and fear on our back.

One of the common challenge I often face is “how to invite my clients see reason to let go and get the monkey off her/his back?”

Only when we come to terms to our current reality and learn to accept, will we get the monkey off our back. We often forget that the end of the rope tethered to the collar on the monkey’s neck is in our hand and only we can get the monkey off our back!!