The Hero Who Sacrificed Heaven for a Dog

Originally published on Primate Noise on Saturday, September 03, 2005

Recently, a Hindu friend, Saras Manickam, shared a wonderful story about compassion from the great Hindu epic The Mahabharata with me. This is my paraphrase of the tale, based on various sources.

King Pandu had five sons by his two wives. In fact, however, these sons were fathered by the gods, and each one was powerful and heroic. The most powerful and heroic of all was the eldest, Yudisthira, King of the Bharata people. After many adventures, including a great war, the time came for the Pandava brothers and their mutual wife, Princess Draupadi, to leave this world and ascend to Heaven.

(How Draupadi came to have five husbands was remarkably casual: After Prince Arjuna won her hand with his unbeatable archery skills, he rushed home and shouted to his mother: "Come see what I have brought home with me!" His mother, who was presumably busy with her chores, said before seeing Draupadi, "Whatever it is, be sure to share it with your brothers.")

At the end of their lives, the six pilgrims set out to make their way to Heaven, accompanied by a small dog who attached himself to Yudisthira. The route they had to follow was arduous and required serious mental and spiritual discipline. One by one, the four younger brothers and Draupadi succumbed to the hardships of the journey. Yudisthira accepted their loss with equanimity, knowing that they died because of their sins and weaknesses, among which were vanity, gluttony and pride.

Yudisthira himself was hardly perfect, by the way. Among other things, he famously told a lie that is still being debated on moral and ethical grounds. He was a compulsive gambler, too, and once lost himself, his brothers and Draupadi in a game of dice!

Shortcomings not withstanding, Yudisthira, with the dog, reached the end of his journey. Amidst thunder and lightning, Lord Indra arrived in his glorious chariot to take Yudisthira to Heaven. Yudisthira, however, started to bargain. First, he said he couldn't go to Heaven without his brothers and wife. Lord Indra assured him that his loved ones were already there, waiting for him. It would be his honor to be taken to Heaven in his human body, without having to die first.

Yudisthira next demanded that the dog that had followed him be allowed to come with him.

Lord Indra was not pleased. "There is no place in Heaven for dogs. Why do you you have attained the perfections of Heaven care about a worthless mongrel like that? Leave it behind and come with me."

"I cannot," Yudisthira replied. (And pretty cheeky he was, talking back to a god!) "He has been my faithful companion on my journey. It would be a sin to abandon a devoted creature who needs me."

"Yet you left your brothers and your wife along the road."

"I did not abandon them while they yet lived and needed me. Neither will I abandon this dog while he and I both live, even for the rewards of Heaven."

At that, the dog transformed itself into Lord Dharma, the God of Justice and the divine father of Yudisthira. "You are the most compassionate of men, my son, and I am well-pleased with you. You were willing to give up the very hope of heaven for the sake of a dog. Truly, no-one in Heaven is your equal."

The gods carried Yudisthira to Heaven in a burst of glory. Once there, he faced a horrifying final test of his compassion -- he was led to believe his brothers and wife were in Hell and he opted to join them there rather than desert them -- before being reunited with his family and entering Heaven for eternity.

Thank you, Saras, for introducing me to this beautiful tale.

No Freedom for Sidewalk Simian on Malaysian Independence Day

Originally published on Primate Noise on September 1, 2005

Yesterday, on Malaysia's Independence Day, I took these pictures of a long-tailed macaque chained on a sidewalk in Bangsar Baru. His keepers, who run a food stall, said they had found him as a baby. He is kept on a harness and leash and has the shelter of a garden umbrella, which he needed during the downpour today.

He is overweight, so clearly he is fed more than enough. Of course, being tied up all day, he cannot take much exercise, either. He spends most of his life next to a busy street, breathing fumes and going nowhere, with no monkey companions.
I saw no active abuse, although the man told me he sometimes beats the monkey with a stick. "When he's naughty." He showed me bite scars on his legs which he said the monkey had inflicted.

I doubt there is anything actionable here under Malaysian law. In addition, if he were confiscated, he would probably be put down, since he is a male. I offered to buy him, but the couple refused -- just, I suppose, as I would refuse an offer on any of my dogs. It was clear that, in their minds, he was a pet and a well-kept one, to boot.

It is hard to know what to do for the best in a case like this.

I do know that he is not living the life he deserves to live, as a wild animal. Monkeys, like great apes and humans (and many other animals), need the company of their own kind to thrive. Without it, they suffer, just as you or I would.

This monkey, although he appeared free of obvious injuries, indulged in bouts of repetitive movement typical of a captive wild animal, just like a tiger pacing in a cage. Such behavior expresses the animal's frustration, boredom and hopelessness. He is a prisoner, without family, friends or freedom. This may be legal, but it isn't humane or compassionate.

The Busybody and the Tree Shrew, or How I Celebrated Malaysian Independence Day

Originally published on Primate Noise on Monday, August 29, 2005

This morning, I was walking one of my dogs when I saw a tree shrew trapped in a wire cage in a neighbour's yard. I know the people slightly, an elderly Chinese man and his younger wife, who keep a nice, if underfed, dog named Ah Fook. The Wongs and I are casually friendly, having met through our dogs.

The tree shrew is a fascinating mammal found only in South-east Asia. It is not, in fact, a shrew at all. Neither, despite its appearance, is it a squirrel. Although the 18 species of tree shrew used to be included in the order Insectivora, they now make up their own order, Scandentia, and many scientists group them with the Primate order. That's right! They are related to flying lemurs and the rest of us primates! They are thought to be primitive prosimians similar to our own ancestors. One last tid-bit: Tree shrews have the highest brain-to-body-mass ratio of any animal, including humans.

Of course, I wasn't thinking of any of this as I peered through the gate at the tree shrew, frantically scrabbling at the bars of the cage. Instead, I was thinking "why?" and "how can I get him out of there?" Maybe, I thought, the people were trying to protect the two small mango trees that are the only touch of green in the expanse of concrete that surrounds their house. (Not that I had ever seen any fruit on the trees, but presumably they were optimists.) Or perhaps they wanted to eat it? Or keep it as a pet? Neither idea seemed likely, but you never knew.

I considered the situation. No car, so they weren't home. Ah Fook penned in the rear of the compound, so he was out of the way. There was just me, the caged tree shrew and a fence between us. I needed a tool, something like a very long stick.

I took my dog home and then I looked around. Bingo! The people next door are doing house renovations. The contractors had left a pile of wood scraps on the side of the street. I found just what I needed right away, a long, slender piece of wood, not too heavy for me to carry but sturdy enough to be useful. Off I trudged, stick in hand.

By standing with one foot on the driveway and the other on the base of the wall on the other side of the drainage ditch in front of the house, I could slide the wood between the bars of the fence. The trap had a loop of wire on top of its door. The stick fit neatly through the loop. I scooted the cage closer to the fence and, after a quick repositioning to stand in the driveway, maneuvered it into arm's reach. The tree shrew was alarmed, of course, and made "keep away" faces and noises at me. I talked to it, explaining that it would soon be free, not that I suppose that helped.

But how to open the trap? I tugged at various pieces of rusted metal on it, but nothing happened. I was, of course, being careful to keep my fingers out of nipping range. The tree shrew, however, although anxious and bouncy, kept to the far side of the tiny cage most of the time. He seemed calmest when, to study the cage from different angles, I levered trap-and-tree-shrew into the air with the stick. I felt rather like a chimp in a lab experiment, being challenged to solve a puzzle to get a banana. Finally, after a few misstarts, I got the darn thing open, and the tree shrew was gone in a flash.

I finished my adventure by using the stick to push the cage back into its original position -- with the door shut. I admit I get a laugh out of thinking of my neighbours finding it that way. Will they scratch their heads and try to figure out how the tree shrew got the bait and escaped, shutting the door behind him?

It must be all that brain mass!

Scout, the Abandoned Polo Pony

Originally published on Primate Noise on Monday, August 22, 2005

I knew nothing about polo and cared even less when I walked onto the grounds of the Selangor Polo Club, as it was then called. (The club's patron, HRH Sultan Sharaffudin Idris Shah of Selangor, has since given it a royal warrant, so it is now The Royal Selangor Polo Club.) Situated since the 1960s on prime land just off Jalan Ampang Hilir, with the Twin Towers soaring above the treeline, the polo club is a quiet oasis of greenery in the heart of Kuala Lumpur. Rows of cinderblock stables, clouds of dust, the nickering and neighing of horses, the clop of hooves, the smell of hay, manure and leather, the jingle of tack, the singing of grooms…I was smitten. Not with polo, but with the place.

I wasn’t there to learn to play or even to take riding lessons, at first, although that would come later. The Riding for the Disabled Association of Malaysia, or RDA, has its main branch at the Polo Club. Four mornings a week, a flock of volunteers gather to teach disabled children to ride. This was something I had wanted to do for years, and I was excited about the chance to get started at last. It turned out to be more difficult and more meaningful than I ever anticipated, but this is not a story about the RDA. It’s the tale of an abandoned polo pony.

I was leaving the club one day after an RDA session when an American woman I knew slightly called out to me. She was on the verge of relocating back to the States. She took me to see four horses housed in a block of stalls that had previously been empty. It was a block that stood just to one side of the main gate; in other words, one that everyone had to pass by on their way in and out.

“These horses have been hidden in a block of stables in the back,” she told me. “They are barely alive. I’ve been trying to help them, but now I’m leaving. I managed to get them moved out here, so at least they will be seen.”

I stared at the horses with their protruding skeletons and dead eyes. “Who owns them?”

“The Armed Forces,” she said sadly. “They don’t want to ride them, so they just abandoned them. I know you love animals. Can you keep an eye on them? Can you help them?”

I had no idea what I could do, but I agreed to try my best. After she was gone, I took a closer look at the horses. Two were brown, a mature mare and her stallion son. One was white, and not in quite as bad shape as the others. The most serious case was a palomino mare whose threadbare body hung like a rag from the ridge of her spine. Her eyes were inflamed, her mane almost gone, her legs knobbly and crooked. I took one look at her and fell madly in love.

Scout, one of the abandoned polo ponies

A friend of mine, a Swiss woman who took riding lessons at the club, was equally concerned when she saw the horses. Like many of us, she has more compassion than common sense. We took up the task of feeding and watering these unwanted animals. Before long, the two of them that were the least damaged – the white gelding and the brown mare – were transferred to the riding school, thanks to the efforts of the head of the RDA and the fact that the school was chronically short of rideable horses.

No such succour was in sight for the palomino and the stallion. From what we could dig up, the stallion had never been trained or ridden. He had been left to waste away in a forgotten stall at the back of the club, where he had worn his teeth down to nubs, chewing on the metal pole that blocked the door of his stall, a legacy of the mind-numbing boredom that had been his life. My friend adopted him and named him d'Artagnan -- a good, swashbuckling name to inspire courage in a young horse.

The palomino, on the other hand, had once had a stellar career; she was one of the best polo ponies the club had ever seen, I was told. Fast, proud and a fierce fighter who never gave up on the field. So how had she come to be starving and uncared for in a hidden stall? She got too old to play polo anymore, and, instead of a pleasant retirement to the role of riding horse, she was simply abandoned. Grooms working in the vicinity had kept her and the others alive by skimming off small portions of food from the horses they were paid to watch over.

I was nearly blind with rage, or would’ve been, if there had been time to indulge my feelings. Instead, I wangled permission, again thanks to the help of the head of the RDA, to take sole responsibility for the palomino, whom I named Scout. She was about 20 years old at the time. The man who had bought her in New Zealand, brought her back to Malaysia and ridden her for over a decade – a retired member of the armed forces – arranged for me to take over her care, and also agreed to donate a small amount of money every month towards her upkeep. He said she was the best polo pony he had ever ridden; I wondered, then, where he had been all these years while she was suffering in solitude, but realized it would do her more good to keep my shut, say thank you and get on with her rehabilitation.

Don’t run away with the idea that I knew what I was doing; I knew exactly nothing about how to take care of a horse, much less a seriously malnourished, underfed one. The first step was to bring in the club vet to examine her. In fact, I took advice from every vet I could buttonhole. More than one of them told me she was a lost cause and should be put down. I knew otherwise; don’t ask me how I knew, because I had no experience to draw on, but I knew. Besides, I once worked for an extraordinarily gifted vet in Singapore, who used to say, “No animal ever wants to die. They don’t commit suicide.”

She was tested, dewormed, vaccinated and given an ointment for her eye condition. I bought her a fly mask to keep the flies out of her eyes, a kit full of grooming equipment, a halter and lead rope so I could walk her and had two boxes, one large, one small, made to store her food and equipment in. I went twice a day, morning and evening, to feed her, groom her and exercise her. Ideally, she should’ve been fed three times a day, but that was more than I could handle.

I don’t remember how I put the halter on her the first time, or how I ever had the confidence to lead her out of that stall. Somehow, I did it, with her cooperation. I must’ve gained her trust first by feeding her, because she was the proudest, most spirited damn horse in the club. Whenever anybody she didn't know approached her, her head went sky-high and she dared him to come closer. This was not a horse to be forced!

Maybe that’s how we came to get along. I never forced her, not one step of the way. Instead, I crooned to her. Cowboy songs, like Tumbling Tumbleweeds and Back in the Saddle Again. I don’t know if she liked my singing, but it calmed me down and made it possible for me to work with her. Before long, we were a familiar sight around the grounds, strolling – actually, she stepped out at too fast a clip to call it strolling! – and grazing. I practised little bonding techniques I found in books and magazines, such as pressuring her ever so gently with a finger to her side until she took a step away. The idea being that she should respect my space, lest my toes get flattened someday if she realized exactly how neglible I actually was.

I took her into the ring sometimes and turned her loose to play. She would canter off with a happy little fart and kick up her heels. Rolling in the dirt was obviously a treat. I messed around in the ring with her, trying the Horse Whisperer-technique of pushing her away with a direct stare and then inviting her back by looking away. In what I remember as only a few days, but which might have been longer, she would follow at my heels when I walked away. She would come when I called. We were a team. Sometimes, when there was no-one around, I would even walk her around the grounds and polo pitch without her lead, just to prove to myself that I could.

The absolutely hardest part of the whole adoption was figuring out how to feed her. Horses are somewhat tricky entities that way; feed them the wrong thing or the wrong amount and they can peg out on you in the blink of an eye. I consulted grooms, vets, horsewomen and books. There was a formula based on a percentage of body weight. I had someone experienced eyeball her and estimate her weight for me. Then I took the best advice I could get about the ratio of roughage to concentrated food she should have. I still have some of my notes from back then, and it looks like rocket science to me now. I can’t do math, except, apparently, for when I really have to.

Not content with giving her only sweetfeed and hay, I arranged for bags of fresh-cut grass to be delivered to us. I brought her carrots and apples, only to discover, much to my surprise, that horses here aren’t used to eating apples. She turned up her proud nose at them. Carrots, though, she could eat by the bagful. I bought vitamin supplements, calcium, isotonic powder. I measured and mixed and fretted, in about equal parts.

After a month or so, one of the experienced horsewomen at the Club stopped to take a casual look at her and exclaimed at how thin she still was; what was I feeding her? I explained my ever-so-careful system and how I was gradually increasing the amount of her food so as not to shock her body.

“Good heavens,” the woman said, “go ahead and feed her properly! You’ve done it slowly enough already. She’s got to have more to eat.”

I bet that was one of the happiest days of Scout’s life!

The gruelling schedule was breaking me down, though, so I hired one of the grooms to work for me part-time. He would take over her morning and evening feeds, while I would come in to walk her, wash her and groom her, and then give her a mid-day meal.

Those were amazing days. She gained weight, although she would always be svelte. Her mane grew in a bit, her eyes brightened. Medicated cream cleared up the fungus on her skin and a greasy ointment healed her cracked, dry hooves. I had shoes put on her, after much debate, even though she wasn’t being ridden, because I wanted to exercise her on a longe line. Not that I knew how to, but that hadn’t stopped me yet.

I arranged to take some longeing lessons from the head of the riding school, in lieu of some of the riding lessons I had paid for. I have to admit, Scout did not take well to longeing. My groom and his brother tried to train her to it for me, but progress was slow and intermittent, set-backs frequent. When I took the line, she usually just walked over to stand next to me instead of moving around me in a circle as she was supposed to.

We flirted with having someone ride her. My groom worked patiently to get her used to wearing a bridle and saddle again. He was one of the gentlest people I had ever met, and Scout trusted him as much as she trusted me. However, most of the people I knew were afraid to try to ride her. The head of the riding school made dire predictions about how dangerous she might be. I knew Scout would never deliberately hurt someone, but she was high-strung and spirited, and I didn’t want to pressure anyone into it, for fear they might get hurt.

At last, a Malay horse-trainer I knew only slightly agreed to take on the job. He was bit of a flirt, and I think he had hopes of impressing, not me, but one of my pretty friends. Fine by me, as long as she didn’t mind having to bat her eyes at him occasionally. All I cared about was getting Scout the best possible care.

Somewhat to my surprise, he turned out to have a way with horses. I had been half-afraid he might try to bully her, but he was calm and patient and she responded like the queen she was to his courtliness. I was as proud as a new mom the day I saw him riding her. On days when he couldn’t ride her, he would still lead her behind another pony as he trotted around the polo pitch, so Scout could get some exercise and some companionship. (I’m not sure she really needed the latter; whenever I released in one of the paddocks, she stayed away from the other horses.)

A day came when my husband said we would be transferring out of the country. I panicked. My first wild thought was to send her across the world to live on my parents’ farm in America. My father and mother scotched that idea in no uncertain terms. I tried to persuade the riding school to take her on, but the head was still convinced that Scout was potentially dangerous – besides, she was too old to make it worth the investment of retraining her. I considered trying to find a retirement farm here in Malaysia to send her to, but I didn’t think I could afford it.

Finally, the retired army officer who had arranged for me to take care of her stepped forward. He said he wanted a riding horse for himself and for his children. He had no qualms about getting on her; he had known and ridden her for years. I hesitated; his manner with her had always been brusque and she showed no particular liking for him. I was also concerned that he might try to play polo on her again, something she should definitely not be exposed to. He promised he would not do that, and I felt I had very little choice in the matter.

As it turned out, we didn’t transfer that time after all, but I fell ill for over a year and by the time I started to regain my strength, our circumstances had changed so much that I decided to let the matter rest where it was. I did not try to get involved in Scout’s life again, knowing that someday I would leave Malaysia. I have visited her a few times, though, and checked in with the army officer to be sure she was okay. Scout does not welcome me back, by the way. She is, as I have said, a proud animal, and once I had left her, she was done with me. I took her carrots and she still gave me a cold, scornful eye. What a horse!

The hours I spent with her are some of the happiest I have ever had. They glow with the golden radiance that shone from her when she stood beside me, freshly washed and groomed, glittering under the bright sun. I wish I could go back to that time, and walk with her again. I hope she lives in peace and comfort for the rest of her days.

If abuses like the ones I saw are ever to stop, there would have to be a serious, in-depth investigation into conditions and practices at the Club. New standards would need to be drawn up and enforced by an independent oversight committee not stacked with the cousins, sons-in-law and business partners of the polo club members it was supposed to monitor. Unfortunately, the odds of this happening are about as good as the odds of me becoming a champion polo player. Pity the poor polo ponies who pay the price for human arrogance and indifference.

Some tid-bits from my time at the Polo Club:

Grooms sometimes sell unwanted horses to be eaten.

Status is everything; you can ride a horse with a fractured hip, and, if you're well-enough connected, no-one will stop you.

Inept players sometimes whack their own horses in the head with their polo mallet.

Horses bring out the ugly, macho side of a lot of men. I have only rarely seen the same effect with women.

Since Muslims don't believe in putting animals down, a horse can writhe in pain on the ground and die a slow death while its owners do nothing.

The Monkey Man

Originally published on Primate Noise on Monday, August 15, 2005

While walking my dogs one day about two years ago, I saw a long-tailed macaque chained in a neighboring yard. Immediately, alarm bells clamoured in my head. I knew who lived in this abandoned house surrounded by beer bottles, weeds, broken furniture and rotting food debris: An Indonesian squatter, his Indian wife and their two children. The gossip in the neighbourhood was that he lived by petty crime and by sending his wife out to work as a prostitute at night.

This is a picture I took of another captive long-tailed macaque in similarly sad circumstances. I hope to tell her story another time.

The Monkey Man, as I came to think of him, was tall and husky, with a shiny bald crown, thick moustache and distinctly threatening manner. He followed me home on his motorbike the very day we moved into our house. He tried to question me, although he spoke no English, and I, no Malay. Undeterred, he sat outside our gate on his bike, the engine sputtering, studying me and our house with a speculative look in his eyes.

He came back again and again, apparently just to stare. I assumed he was sizing up our house as a potential target for a break-in. Whenever I walked our dogs, he would trail after me on his bike, alternately scowling and grinning. I avoided him as best I could, and, when I couldn’t, I tried to look tough and unconcerned, despite the flutter in my pulse and the sweat in my palms.

Once, I saw his children – a boy and a girl – keeping kittens in a rusted little bird cage. Seeing them try to feed the kittens scraps of bread, I brought over some kitten food and tried to explain the basics of kitten care to them. The girl, the older of the two, caught on quickly and nurtured the kittens as best she could. I checked on her and them for several days. But one morning when I arrived, the kittens were gone. Neither the mother, nor the girl, who spoke some English, was willing to tell me what had happened to them. Other animals came and went, faster than I could intervene: puppies, rabbits, birds.

The girl not only spoke some English but could also read and write, which the boy could not. Their mother explained that her husband refused to let him attend school, because “he didn’t want his son to know anything he didn’t.” In this case, sexual discrimination actually worked in the girl’s favour, although given her beauty and the rumours about the mother, I worried about what her future might be. I tried to persuade the mother to seek help from family welfare, although I knew very little about what could be done in such a case.

And now, here was a monkey trapped in this hell. He had a metal hoop bolted around his neck and was chained to an old telephone wire spool. His chain allowed him to climb up and down the single, almost leafless tree within reach and inside the drum of the spool. The spool and the area around it were filthy with excrement and garbage.

I started visiting the house, loathe as I was to attract the attention of the man. I took fruit to the monkey (he liked bananas when they were overripe and he was fond of rambutan) and talked to the woman repeatedly. I offered to buy the monkey, despite the obvious drawback that her husband would almost certainly go out and catch another one. A moot point, anyway, as she insisted he wouldn't part with the monkey for any amount of money. (Neighbors told me that they suspected he used the monkey to break into houses.)

The second thing she made clear was that she was terrified not only of her husband, but also of her little boy. I understood that; the boy once charged at me with a parang when I remonstrated with him for beating the monkey. It was a clear case of “monkey see, monkey do.” I had seen the man beat the monkey with a stick himself, while his wife stood by and told me how much he “loved” the monkey. I had no doubt he also beat his wife and children. (Later, the boy disappeared for several days. The mother told me he had run away because his father was angry.) She also said the monkey was “naughty.” If by naughty, she meant that the monkey was hungry, frustrated, bored, hostile and crazed with fear, she was right. And her boy was on his way to turning out the same way.

I called the SPCA for help. They told me that they had nothing to do with the abuse of wild animals and advised me to contact the Department of Wildlife. A number of phone calls later, someone in the Department said they would investigate the situation. I followed up with another call, and was told that the man had a proper license to keep the monkey and was doing nothing wrong.

“You saw how the monkey is kept?” I asked in disbelief. “On a chain with no food or water? Surrounded by its own filth?” I was assured their investigator had seen it and there was no problem. “But he beats it,” I protested. That was of no more concern to the Department of Wildlife than it had been to the SPCA.

I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to see the monkey again. I didn't want to look into his hopeless eyes and know that I couldn't do a damn thing to help him. I made myself go back anyway. Day after day, I went. I had a nebulous idea that if I could gain his trust, I might be able to sneak him away at night eventually – if I could figure out a way to cut the chain or the hoop. I would need the monkey’s cooperation to do that, lest he scream the house awake or bite me. I lay awake nights, formulating and discarding plans for rescuing him from his captor.

The mother and children became used to me hanging around and began to ignore me. I had an idea, even hazier than the one about abducting the monkey, that somehow my being around might be a good influence, might calm the boy and encourage the girl and even lead the woman to leave her husband. I guess I thought a lot of myself and my influence.

The monkey, too, grew accustomed to my presence. Each time I went, I stood closer to him. At first, he would lunge to the fullest extent of his chain – which made me want to cry with pity – shrieking and baring his fangs at me. I persisted, moving closer day by day, always with a wary eye on him. A day finally came when I could stand within his chain-range, sharing his invisible prison cell with him.

He would take the fruit I offered him, keeping his distance and reaching for it at arm’s length. Sometimes, he still lapsed into displays of frightened ferocity that drove me back a few steps, but his outbursts grew less and less frequent.

When the moment of bonding came, it was in classic primate fashion. I feigned grooming myself, plucking imaginary lice from my equally imaginary fur and “eating” them. He watched, utterly absorbed. Without making eye contact, I held out a hand to him. He took it gently in his own and explored it with his fingers. The skin of his hands was baby-soft against mine. Tentatively, I began to pretend to look for lice in his fur.

And then – an amazing moment! – he held my wrist in one hand, pushed up my shirt sleeve with the other and began to groom me. He brushed the delicate hairs on my arm with a black finger nail and peered intently at my freckles. He plucked at them repeatedly, in an effort to remove the “lice” from my arm. I felt like Jane Goodall, Diane Fossey and Birute' Galdikas all rolled into one!

We were friends – but I was no closer to saving him. Depressed and physically ill, I left for a long-overdue trip home, heartsick with worry and uncertain whether I would ever find a way to help him or the children. When I returned, the squatters and the monkey were gone. For many months, I assumed they had taken the monkey with them until a neighbour told me that he had called the Dept. of Wildlife while I was gone and raised Cain until they confiscated the monkey. I think it’s possible that his being Malaysian, and male, made the difference.

I hope the monkey ended up at Zoo Negara, where I understand there is a rehabilitation program in place. Monkeys are retrained to live in the wild and released into protected areas, with the hope that they will go deeper and deeper into the forest, away from humans.

[I have since learned that there is no monkey rehab centre at Zoo Negara. There is said to be one at the Melaka Zoo, operated by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, but I have also heard rumors that it too doesn't exist. I plan to investigate, if possible. I have also heard rumors that 1) male monkeys are routinely put down as unmanageable and 2) the Department keeps confiscated monkeys in dreadful conditions on its own premises and then -- what? Sells them? I intend to find out what I can. ]

I worry about what happened to the children. If I had known they would be gone when I got back, I would have pushed harder to get the woman to do something, anything, to get her children away from the Monkey Man. Would she have left him? Would the authorities have helped her? I don’t know.