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Monday, June 11 2001
Monkeyman Puzzle Easy To Solve
By- Melvin Durai

Melvin Durai is an Indiana-based writer and humorist. Born in Tamil Nadu, India, he grew up in Zambia and moved to the U.S. in the early 1980s. In 1995, while working as a reporter for a daily newspaper in Chambersburg, Pa., he began writing a regular humor column. His weekly column now appears in several newspapers and on a number of Web sites. He also writes a twice-monthly column on Indian and Indian-American issues. He is a diehard fan of the National Football League and also likes to run, lift weights and play soccer, tennis and pool. An award-winning feature writer and aspiring novelist, he plans to publish a collection of his best columns. You can write to him at comments@melvindurai.com To read his older columns, go to http://www.melvindurai.com

After studying all the recent reports of a "monkey man" terrorizing people in New Delhi and apparently changing appearances many times, I can think of only one logical explanation: Our world has finally been invaded by aliens.

It was bound to happen one of these days. And we have only ourselves to blame. After all, we've been spending so much money trying to send our astronauts to other planets. The aliens are just returning the favor.

As we all know from watching the movies, aliens come in many forms. Some look as harmless as a monkey, while others look as dangerous as Veerappan.

That explains why descriptions of the "monkey man" varied wildly. Some witnesses said it was a monkey-like creature with metallic claws, while others said it was a cat-like creature with tawny, glowing eyes. One said it had ``flaming eyes and green lights on its chest.''

If that doesn't sound like an alien, I don't know what does. It's certainly the most conclusive evidence of aliens we've ever gathered, aside from pictures of Michael Jackson.

Instead of questioning their existence, we should be honored that aliens picked India to visit. They obviously think highly of our homeland. I'm sure they didn't pick it randomly.

Alien leader: "OK, Monkey Man and Cat Man, here are your orders. We're dropping both of you in India for three weeks."

Monkey Man: "India? Why India? Can't we go to Hawaii, the Bahamas, or some other island with a nice beach?"

Leader: "You idiot, this isn't a pleasure trip. We want you to collect information on the human mind, not the human body. We picked India because it's a land with many different human specimens. What's more, we've also learned that India has one of Earth's greatest thinkers. His name is Vishwanathan Anand. Watch out for him: They say he has amazing moves."

Cat Man: "Where in India would you like us to go?"

Leader: "The capital, of course. That way, you can find out about their leader."

Three weeks later, the aliens eagerly returned to their space ship:

Alien leader: "What have you found out about the humans? Anything interesting?"

Monkey Man: "They seem to enjoy eating spicy food. We tried it a few times, but it was so hot, we ran into the streets screaming. The humans who saw us also ran off screaming. They're strange creatures, those humans."

Leader: "Who is their leader?"

Cat Man: "We're not sure, but we think it's someone named Jayalalitha. We overheard so many humans speaking in awe of her. One of them described her as a queen."

Leader: "Is it true that humans have a God?"

Monkey Man: "Yes, they have a God. We saw people worshipping him everywhere we went."

Leader: "Does he have a name?"

Monkey Man: "Yes, it's Hrithik. We saw thousands of pictures of him, some adorned with garlands of flowers."

Leader: "What else do humans do, other than worshipping Hrithik?"

Cat Man: "They watch a sport called cricket. It's a complicated sport, with many different actions, including bowling, batting and banning."

Leader: "You have done well, my lads. Thanks to your report, we will one day conquer Earth. But before that, we must organize another mission to India. We need to find out more about that Jayalalitha. She seems to have more power than we envisioned."

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