The Monkey Chase

It all happened when I was in school. When I was around 12yrs old.
My school was a pretty nice old fashioned big place with a spacious playground bordered with trees and lined with grass.
Girls school. Everyone from the principal to the gatekeeper were women.
Just thinking of that place takes me back in time and forget what i was talking about in the first place.
Focus now, and back to the current topic. The day of 'The Monkey Chase'.

It was a day like any other.
8 periods of academic blah blah with a 1hr lunch break and 2 breaks of 15min each, during morning and post lunch sessions.
During the breaks we used to run to the ground and play to the hearts content forgetting for a brief while about exams and homeworks.
And this day was no different.
We, a small group of 6 friends, placed a bet among ourselves as to who would be the first to reach the other end of the ground.
No sooner was it said, than we started racing each other.
My best friend and myself were in the leading when she suddenly stopped running, closed her ears and screamed.
I too stopped running and looked in the direction where she was staring.
And what i saw made me too scared to even scream.
A big monkey (i don't remember its exact size but it appeared really scary, a King Kong in 3D) was running towards us with a really angry expression on its face.
(BTW it was then that i realised how lively and expressive a monkey's face can be)
Turned out there were a group of monkeys scattered among the trees on the other end. The place where we were headed, there was a baby monkey and mama monkey was coming to shoo the intruders, namely my friends and me, away from the baby.

In that moment everything came flashing back.
The little things we missed noticing when we set out on our dangerous race.
The things like how the usually busy ground was empty at that time, how all the other girls stuck to the safe side of the ground, the shouts of warning and caution from the others when we started running towards the monkeys...
We were so lost in the race that we noticed none of this and focused on the goal... talk about determination and concentration!!!

Now, the race was still on - but in reverse direction and I was in last place... the farthest from the gatekeeper's (aaya, we called her) safe room and nearest to the angry mama monkey.
There are moments in Life, moments like this which test our faith in God.
I thought of Lord Hanuman and chanted his name over and over.
I closed my eyes and ran and ran as fast as my feet could carry me.
I didn't open my eyes till i fell down near aaya's room.
I got up immediately, even before my brain registered the fall and the bruise on the knee, and ran away from the monkey's straight path and towards the shelter of the room.

Mama monkey reached this side where we all girls were huddled together, bud didn't approach any of us.
She just went back at leisurely pace back to her side of the ground.

Maybe she couldn't identify her targets among the big crowd of girls dressed alike in school uniform of white shirts and blue tunics.
Maybe she just wanted to enjoy chasing us and didn't mean to harm us.
Maybe Hanuman ji heard my prayer and signaled her to stop chasing.
So many maybes, but what actually stopped the monkey when she could easily outrun us is still a wonder to me.

What happened next is all a blur to me now.
I just remember walking back to our classroom, with a huge sense of relief and the excited feeling of an adventuress.

To this day, every time i see a monkey, i feel the urge of wanting to close my eyes and run and run...
I control the instinct to run and walk steadily, with a mute replay of 'The Monkey Chase' in my mind.
And once i safely walk past them, i once again recapture the huge sense of relief and the excited feeling of an adventuress.