Four Monkeys - A Tale of Twists - Part 3 - Kakolookeeyam

3. काकोलूकीयम् - On Crows and Owls

The multiple factions in the forest started to turn the atmosphere chaotic and quite confusing. Koshadhuma, true to his nature, tried to ignore all these happenings so that Pushkara stays in the hold of power. But, that seemed to be increasingly difficult as time progressed. Koshadhuma had to come out of his cell and act quickly to settle the matter once in for all.

After much deliberation, and reading the writings of Bhimasarata(भीमसरट), a wise sage of the bygone era, the old baboon finally decided that the residents of the forest should be the ones to decide who their leader should be. He calls up the four monkeys - a gorilla, two macaques and a langur, and a few other monkeys including an ambitious gibbon and even a loris, to his tree-house. and started explaining the process.

"I have entrusted two dozen dozen oranges to various respected residents spread all across the forest. You would need to approach them and convince them that you would be the right choice to lead the forest. If a resident is convinced, they will give you an orange as a token of their support. Any simian or simian team that gains the residents' trust and manages to comes back to me with the most number of the oranges distributed, will be crowned as the leader of the forest.

Mind you! If I get any complaint of any intimidation, I would be forced to banish the perpetrator from the forest.". The baboon tried to deliver the last warning in an intimidating tone. But, it was clear that none was convinced, as even the loris showed him his finger.

Thus the strange and bewildering ancient ritual called Nirvachana (निर्वाचन) was announced. The four monkeys - Pushkara, Dhanu-Shiri, Ghati and Karatala - realised quite quickly that it is of their best interest to go into the contest as teams; burying their differences of opinion for the time being. Any issues between the parters could be settled once the Nirvachana procedure is completed, depending upon the result.

The immediate task though was to gain the trust of the forest dwellers. How else can they con, I mean, get the oranges from the residents. All the four of them realized that there could be two approaches to convince the residents to give them the orange. One is to argue how they would be the correct choice, and the other one is to argue why the others are not the right choice. And the second option was the unanimous choice that was arrived at without any discussion.

But, debate they did. The debates were supposed to showcase the ‘good’ the candidates had been doing to the forest community and the advantages that the forest folk would benefit from if they give out the oranges to them. However, the candidates in question clearly knew that they did not have enough stuff to showcase and hence adopted the strategy of defacing the opposition. Dungslinging, the forest equivalent of mudslinging, was a talent that the monkey candidates were naturally endowed with.


While Pushkara reminded the animals about Ghati’s abandonment of his father, Ghati countered it with an allegation that Pushkara did not do anything to help the hornbills (also called ‘farmers of the forest’) when the birds were dying due to severe shortage of fruits and berries. While Dhanu-Shiri called out Karatala as an ‘outsider’ and “implored” that the animals should vote for him as he is a local candidate, Karatala countered it by saying that Dhanu-Shiri himself has no moral authority to talk about the ‘local-outsider’ issue as he himself is seeking oranges while being in collusion with an outsider Pushkara. The other minor simians too had their turn to speak, however their speeches were much more muted and in effect only asked for a few slices of orange, if not a whole fruit.

In effect, the entire debate and the entire Nirvachana process seemed more like a cacophonous war between a murder of young and energetic crows and a parliament of old and wily owls.