Monkey-fort

The fort was in a pathetic condition. Some of the walls and buildings were slowly crumbling into dust. Structures that had withstood vagaries of time and weather were covered by creepers and moss, lizards and insects.

But the temple situated almost in the middle of the fort was in a good condition. It was believed that descendants of a royal priest, who lived about five centuries ago, were still looking after the temple and were religiously performing the daily rituals.

Few people visited the temple. One had to walk all the way up the hill to reach the fort. But that was not the only thing that deterred the visitors.

There were hundreds of monkeys inside the fort. The fort was, in fact, nick-named as monkey-fort. Of course, the monkeys generally did not bother the visitors. But they often fought viciously among themselves.

One day three of us decided to go to the temple. When we entered the fort, it was perfectly peaceful. As we neared the temple, we suddenly heard loud shrieking sounds.

What we saw scared us. An old man was slowly walking towards northern wall of the fort. He was holding something in a small basket.

A large group of monkeys was shrieking at him. Within seconds hundreds of monkeys surrounded him. We could feel that they were about to attack him.

A huge terrifying male monkey sprinted towards the old man. But even before it could reach him, it let out a loud, piteous cry, as if it had been struck brutally. Soon all monkeys were running helter-skelter in all directions. Each one was crying as if it had been hit by something.

The old man hadn’t stopped even for a moment. He kept walking towards the northern wall, unconcernedly.

We were terrified and ran down the hill, as quickly as we could.

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A post for A to Z April Challenge

Today’s letter M

 

 You can read my earlier post here

L