Love Begets Love & Hatred Begets Hatred: Lessons Learnt from A Baby Monkey

By: Rajiv Tewari

I was born and brought up in Biswan, a small town in Central UP. My father worked in the Seksaria Biswan Sugar factory which had a big family of monkeys. Those were the days when monkey players used to roam from one colony to another to amuse children as well as adults with their pet monkeys.? These monkey couples presented of a complete drama of married couples by getting upset over trivial matters to the extent of threatening to separate and then agreed to live happily ever after. The plays would also include a lot of acrobatics. Here is a link for those who may have never seen such a play:?Click to watch

Transformation of the Baby Monkey to PT Master

A baby monkey watched this play from the top of a tree and found that the children were clapping happily at each act of the monkey player’s monkey couple.? The baby monkey began to imitate these plays as a solo act whenever he found a lot of kids playing together.? Walking on the wires, dancing and showing his acrobatics attracted the attention of the kids who clapped and began to give him something to eat as a reward for entertaining them. The baby monkey was named PT Master due to his fascinating acrobatic skills. This was quite unusual as none of the adults had ever seen anything like this in their childhood so they too got attracted but PT Master did not like to adults so much so he would run away when many adults gathered to watch him play.

Gradually PT Master began to spend more time with the kids then with the other monkeys as he got a lot of loving attention and food too. He would hang around wherever the kids played or gathered for any activity and watch from a safe place.

PT Master Hated Those who Demonstrated Hatred

After some time he began to dislike all those who the kids did not like. There were parents who believed in sparing the rod and spoiling the child philosophy but little did they realize that they were being observed by PT Master who would retaliate on behalf of the children.

He developed a nasty habit of slapping such adults on their heads by jumping from a wall or tree and jumping back quickly before anyone could even see him fully. Most realized this and began to behave in a friendly way with the children at least in public. However there was one person who did not change and instead began to throw stones at PT Master. For the purpose of this article I will call him Mr JB. The enmity between the two grew so much that Mr JB used to keep a cane to save himself from his sudden attacks but then PT Master was always able to find a way to slap him on the head and vanish. Those were the days when people used to sleep outside during the summer season and so did Mr JB. PT Master soon found where he slept and would quietly reach near his cot even during the night, slap him and vanish.

In one such incident Mr JB was chatting with his wife and somehow PT Master missed him and hit his wife instead and vanished. The wife thought that Mr JB had hit her so she hit him back and a big argument started between the two. My Grandfather sensed what may have happened, explained it to both and then only they cooled down. Now Mr JB got real upset and he hired expert monkey catchers and agreed to pay them if they could catch PT Master and take it away. The monkey catcher came with a large team and caught a lot of monkeys but PT Master had sensed the game plan and had vanished from the place. PT Master could not be caught and this resulted in a huge argument between JB and the Monkey Catcher as Mr JB refused to pay.?

Death of PT Master & The Lessons Learnt

To Mr JB’s relief and a great sense of grief for children, PT Master while doing his acrobatics fell in a Molasses tank and died. Mr JB confirmed this news and began to distribute sweets on the factory gate praising God for the relief he got. This news reached the children and while returning from the factory he faced a barrage of stone from the children. Mr JB now had too many enemies and every time he came out of his house the kids would call him by all kinds of names, hide in a safe place and throw stones. His hatred for the baby monkey was no match for the fury generated among the children due to their love for PT Master.

Hate Got Replaced by Love

Mr JB finally realized his mistake, gathered the children apologized and began to feed the monkeys, dogs and the birds in the colony and even organized a puja for the departed soul of PT Master. He was a frequent visitor to our house so I heard him tell my parents how happy and satisfied he felt.? Best part was that the kids began to like him for he did and he realized how simple it was to get love from children by simply being sensitive and loving to others.

We become what we practice and what is even more important is that our children learn by observing what we do and say. It is up to us to teach them to love or to hate. Psychologists around the world agree that a child's belief system is created by his or her first teachers who are the parents and elders around them. Once the child goes to school he carries that belief system which is very difficult to change.

During one of my assignments, I had an opportunity to interact with the Principals of some of the most respected schools of India and discovered that their biggest challenge was rigid beliefs of many kids who had learnt to hate and even be aggressive towards those who did not conform with their beliefs.

In a recent case in USA, a six year old Palestinian-American child has been stabbed 26 times with an army knife just because his family has a different belief system. Similar incidents in Israel by Hamas have shocked all of us. Reports of innocent children, women and old being burnt and killed in Israel has shocked the entire humanity. Let us pray for the innocent victims and their families and ensure that at least our family members do not carry such a deep hatred for other human beings due to hate based beliefs.

Please share this story with your kids and make sure that they learn to respect diverse belief systems as thoughts built on each other and become stronger even though these may seem to contradict each other. A lot of hatred we notice in today's world can be reduced if all of us begin to teach our children this simple fact of life.