NEW DELHI — The first interloper stepped in front of her on the sidewalk and silently held up his hand. The second appeared behind her and beckoned for her bag. Maeve O’Connor was trapped.
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India Ink: A Modest Monkey Proposal (May 23, 2012)
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India Ink: A Conversation With: Delhi's Wildlife Warden (May 23, 2012)
Suzanne Lee for The New York Times
Devotees of the Hindu god Hanuman visiting a temple in New Delhi. Monkeys are believed to be the god’s representatives.
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Resistance would have been dangerous, so Ms. O’Connor handed it over. The two then sauntered arrogantly away. The whole encounter lasted no more than 15 seconds — just one more coordinated mugging by rhesus monkeys in a city increasingly plagued by them.
“I had other bags with me, but they knew the bag that had the fresh bread in it,” Ms. O’Connor said.
“They were totally silent, very quick and highly effective.”
The monkey population of Delhi has grown so large and aggressive that overwhelmed city officials have petitioned India’s Supreme Court to relieve them of the task of monkey control.
“We have trapped 13,013 monkeys since 2007,” said R. B. S. Tyagi, director of veterinary services for Delhi’s principal city government. Nonetheless, Delhi’s monkey population has only increased.
The reason is simple: People feed them. Monkeys are the living representatives of the cherished Hindu god Hanuman, and Hindu tradition calls for feeding monkeys on Tuesdays and Saturdays.
Dr. Tyagi expressed impatience with residents who feed the monkeys one day, then complain to the city when the monkeys steal their clothes on another day.
Dr. Tyagi’s agency has asked the city’s wildlife agency for help, but wildlife officials claim that the monkeys — a scourge of the city for years as urbanization has encroached on their original habitat — are no longer wild and are thus not their responsibility.
“This problem will never be solved” as long as Hindus feed monkeys regularly, said R. M. Shukla, the city’s chief wildlife warden. “We’ve issued many ads asking people not to feed monkeys in public places.”
In 2007, a Delhi deputy mayor died when he fell from his terrace after being attacked by monkeys, a widely publicized episode that spurred the city to step up its efforts to move monkeys to safer environments. Yet such attacks continue. This month a 14-year-old girl was seriously injured when she fell from the roof of a five-story residential building after monkeys pursued her.
“Monkeys do commonly bite people, and their bite wounds can be extensive,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Md., wrote in an e-mail. “They are smart enough to often attack the face of the person.”
While monkey bites can lead to rabies or a fatal form of the herpes virus, documented cases are “close to nonexistent,” Dr. Fauci wrote. Skin bacterial infections from bites are common, however. They are treatable with antibiotics.
Stories abound in Delhi of monkeys’ entering homes, ripping out wiring, stealing clothes and biting those who surprise them. They treat the Indian Parliament building as a playground, have invaded the prime minister’s office and Defense Ministry, sometimes ride buses and subway trains, and chase diplomats from their well-tended gardens.
Roopi Saran, a Delhi resident, has seen monkeys steal candy from the hands of her children. And tribes of monkeys often take over her yard, preventing her and her children from venturing outside.
“So we sit inside our house like caged animals, like we’re the ones in the zoo and they’re the owners outside looking at us,” Ms. Saran said.
With the city’s trapping program a failure, some residents are getting a bigger monkey, a langur, to urinate around their homes. The acrid smell of the urine scares the smaller rhesus monkeys away for weeks. But the odor is no bouquet for humans, either, and as soon as it disappears, the rhesus monkeys return.
Amar Singh, a langur handler, was sitting across the street recently from one of his langurs in Delhi’s diplomatic neighborhood while his monkey systematically stripped the leaves off a tree in the yard of well-tended home. The langur, a large monkey with a black face dramatically framed by white fur, was tied to a pole with a six-foot leash. Mr. Singh cautioned against getting anywhere near the animal because “a langur’s slap is so hard, it can send its target back by five feet.”
Mr. Singh said that he had 65 langurs urinating on prominent homes and buildings throughout Delhi. He and his partners feed and walk each monkey during the day, but they remain tied to their posts overnight. He charges about $200 a month.
Dr. Tyagi said langurs simply pushed rhesus monkeys to ransack adjoining homes. The city started out seven years ago paying monkey catchers $5 for every rhesus monkey they caught. It raised the price to $9 four years ago, and now pays $12.
“Despite offering this rate, there are few monkey catchers,” he said.
Years of trapping, using cages baited with fruit and nuts, have taught the monkeys to avoid the traps. For a time, the city hired highly professional trapping teams from the south of India, but even they have stopped coming to Delhi, Dr. Tyagi said. Himachal Pradesh, a northern Indian state, issued permits to kill monkeys that destroyed crops, but the practice spurred protests and is not being considered in Delhi.
Trapped monkeys are brought to a sanctuary in the south of Delhi, but residents who live near the sanctuary say their lives have been ruined by the influx. Monkeys easily scale the sanctuary’s walls and often find their way back to Delhi’s central neighborhoods.
Kali, who lives in a small hut near the sanctuary and goes by only one name, said her young daughter and niece had both been bitten twice, requiring trips to the hospital and expensive vaccinations. After being attacked while bathing, she now asks her husband to stand guard when she washes. And for a poor family like hers, the monkeys are a constant threat in more ways than one.
“I give them my leftovers like roti,” she said. “But then they ran away with my onions.”
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Thank you for giving advice about single mom financial help services. Thanks for all the grants. This is a great site that help single moms like me to survive our difficult life!
I’m glad the information was helpful to you.
hi, i need some help and not sure what to do. im a single mom, i have a 7 year old son and im not working at the moment. i went back to school last year and graduated number 1 in my class. my problem is i have to start paying my student loan and have no money. i dont know if there is a program out there that could help me with an existing student loan…maybe there is a scholarship/assistance or something i can apply for…if anyone knows anything please email me…this is just one of my many worries…im starting to get really nervous. my email is ppanther85@aol.com. if anyone knows anything…id appreciate an email. thank you
-haydee r
If you go to the website for the Department of Education, there is a whole page of student loan deferment programs that you can apply for in order to get more time. If you don’t want to put them off completely, you can also apply for a stipulation that says you don’t have to pay back more than 15% of your yearly income towards student loans per year. Also, depending on your chosen profession, there may be loan forgiveness, especially if you are a teacher. Try looking up loan forgiveness and see if your profession matches any of the categories.
hi im a 25 year old single mom with a 6 year old i work 35 to 40 hours a week i rent ny home for 1,000.00 a month food stamps are onl y188.00 a month which last till the 3rd week then i have a car payment 300.00 car insurance250.00 cell phone 51.00 sons karate 60.00 bge 125.00recive child support once in a blue moon when ever he decides to pay 123.oo a month i only bring home approx 1,200.00 – 1,300.00 a month and i cant get any help because they say i ake to much if any one out there knows of any programs or places i can get anytype of help please let me know im struggling
Tiffany sounds like you are in the same boat as many of us right now. Have you checked out and of the information on the Government Assistance tab, on this site? There is some pretty good advice and links to get you started on applying for help. I would also suggest try going to your local churches. My church has helped me out in the past with food and winter coats for my children. You could also check some of the local volunteer organization in your community. Some times they are will to help or can at least provide you with leads on where to find help.
I am a single mom of five children. I have been unemployed now for eight months from a job I held for eight years. I have a college degree and it seems meaningless in the job search. I am currently receiving unemployment benefits, but they are soon to be run out. The local government assisitance can only offer me $800 a month, once the unemployment runs out; but for a family size of six, it is virtually impossible to afford rent on that amount, (let alone utilities, food, etc.). I hate to sound like I am complaining, I am quite nervous and anxious on the near future. I have already lost my home, had to file bankruptcy, amongst other harships. I want to get back to work, I don’t want to sit home and collect state aid, but I currently don’t have any other options. The few offers of employment I have had were for minimum wage paying jobs on a part-time basis, and I could not support my family on such an income. I have always set the example for my kids with working and attaining an education. I attained my college degree three years ago, while working my full-time employment. Now I am lost mentally, and frustrated with this position. I just want to work and know I earned a paycheck that we can live on….not be rich, but at least be able to breathe!
The job market out there is extremely frustrating … first off, I’d look over at http://www.singlemomcareerhelp.com/. Maybe there are some options or tips there that you haven’t thought of or tried. Like maybe there are a few courses you could take to get certificates and strengthen your degree a bit, making you even more valuable in the workplace? In the meantime, however, it may be best to accept the jobs that come along, as some money is better than none. If you are working some, you also qualify for a lot more aid programs, such as TANF.
I am a single mother who is thankful and blessed to have a job. My son is a high school senior graduating in a couple of months and has been accepted to college. We are in need of direction about college funding. Due to a house I cannot sell, thanks to the economy, my FAFSA looks good on paper, but not in reality. So therefore, I am not eligible for any federal assistance such as grants. If anyone has any ideas they will be greatly appreciated. I know I can go the loan route, but at this time, I have no way of repaying them. Thanks in advance.
There is always the option of having your son file a FAFSA on his own – meaning you would not claim him as a dependent anymore. That would certainly grant a lot more funding for school, but would have ramifications elsewhere, mostly in your health insurance, as he would not be covered in you plan anymore. You would also not get a tax break for claiming him as your dependent on your taxes anymore. It’s definitely something to weigh the pros and cons with. On the one hand, it would probably provide him with a lot more grants, scholarships, loan eligibility, etc, but then he’d have to get his own health insurance, etc.
There is always the loan route, as you said. There are many unsubsidized loans you can get which would not require you to pay back anything until he is done with school, which gives you four + years to figure out how to pay them back. Also, a little trick here is that if he is about to graduate and you can’t pay it back, all he has to do is take 2 classes somewhere and he’s still considered a student and doesn’t have to pay it back – he can do this for as long as he wants, too. You can also always try getting scholarships from elsewhere.
I appreciate what you have posted..it is very useful but I’m trying to find out how to distinguish fraud form authentic financial help. Please help me. Thank you
We have tons of articles on avoiding fraud. Go to the section of financial help that you want – credit cards, loans, etc, and there should be an article for almost every one helping you to distinguish between the two.
I need some serious “Work from home” work. I have a job as of now but for how long. Please help I have 4 kid’s & single.
This depends on what you want to do! If you are a good writer, then working from home as a freelancer might be appealing, or if you have design experience that can work out well too. If you can get a corporate job, sometimes bosses will let you work from home as well if you ask them. You could also try setting up an Etsy or Ebay shop to make some extra money.
Hello. A friend of mine just had a baby on Saturday, and her boyfriend passed away the same day. She is unemployed, with no transportation. My brother is going to take her and the baby in, but cannot afford to let them stay long at all! He has his own family, and they are barely making it themselves. Can you please direct me in the right direction as to what her options are so that I can pass it on to her? This is an emergency situation!!! Thankyou!
I would go take a look at our state assistance page – wherever she is at, there should be a long list of resources for her to call.
I have lost everything within a one month period and all I have is my kids, clothes, and a rag tag car. I lost my apt, my husband, and everything else i had worked so hard to get. I am now unemployed and homeless with my 3 kids. I am having a really hard time getting a job or any fianacial assistance of any kind. Ive filled out paperwork and visited the local DHS office here, but they seem to be taking their own sweet time. I need help now…does anyone know of anyway I can get the help I need?
Most of the government programs do usually take a month or two before they kick in, so with those it’s really just going to be a waiting game. In the meantime, it would probably be best for you to check out some non-profits and charities in your area to see what they can do for you.
I am so glad to see there are so many others out there just like me but we survived and made it this far.. So keep you head up be proud and do it for you and your kids becuase in the end that is what counts the most….
Hi, My name is Lena Schatzman i am a single mom with three girls and i have been try to find help on getting a home great for over a year now. I have emailed just about 62 sits to ask for help in any way. I have asked ovr and over and i get the same answer every time go here go thare pay for this and so on and so on. I have even went to are local fha,and thay say you have to have good credit . I have been so upset becouse NO one will help me. If you know any thing that i can do to get help.PLEASE PLEASE let me know. I would be SO THANKFULL for any help. If you dont I am sorry i bourthed you.
Thanks
Lena Schatzman
I just saw your listing on financial help site,and I am willing to help
you..But the only way can help you is for you to work for me,I can
offer you a job and you get paid weekly i guess that will be sweet and
easy,as I dont expect you to believe that you can just have free money
like that…You have to work for it, so if you are ready for the job,I
will just have to send you the required steps to follow after which I
will send it to my Lawyer and he will put you on the folder of my
workers and you start up……If you are interested at all get back to
me so I will get back to you on how the business is…and tell you the
rules and regulations.
You can definitely look at our information regarding transportation – there is quite a bit there regarding cars for single mothers, as well as other option. Looking into non-profits in your area might be a great option too, as there are a few who provide cars. I hope everything works out for the best for your friend!
There’s definitely quite a bit of help out there when it comes to housing assistance. Take a look at these articles, they might be able to help you. I would also be sure to check out non-profits in your area as well.
i would love to work from home so that I do not have to get a babysitter for my three children.. I lost my job and we have been living off of unemployment and the bill are pileling up and I do not know what to do.. If this is something that I do not have to pay for I would gladly do it.. Please let me know I would greatly appriciate it..
Sincerely,
Leslie Mersinger
I would also like some information if that is possible.
i am interested in working. what kind of job is it and what do the workers have to do?
I saw your response regarding work avail. I am in great need of gainful employment I currently work 2 full-jobs and spend many hours away from home. I have 3 boys and they are in need of more supervision.
Be wary of scams!
U should do an at home call center like Alpine Access or LiveOps, it absolutley legit and is great for people that wants to stay home, the downside is u must have a quiet background so the kids would have to be in another room and stay quiet.
If you decide to do that, quiet kids are a must! I grew up in a household where my parents worked from home though, and I learned very quickly that you never talk while mom or dad is on the phone. It shouldn’t be a problem if you lay down the rules!
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