Indian Monkey Show
Alexandrie Gallup
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Some years ago, I came across an article (below) which referenced a method for catching monkeys by a South Indian tribe and used it as an analogy for resisting climate change. I began to use this example in companies, often at the start of a big Lean transformation or other change programme, so that the senior team could understand the challenges ahead of them in terms of engaging people. They would use glib sentences such as, 'We need to make sure our teams really embrace the change.' Really? Just like that? It was as though a few communications from the top would be enough to make every team member say, 'You know what? Absolutely I am up for completely changing how I do things! Just tell me what you need - I can't wait!'
The South Indian monkey trap is a simple device for capturing a monkey. It consists of a coconut hollowed out from one end and chained to a stake in the ground. Some rice has previously been placed in the area around the coconut, which the monkey has been happy to take. Now some rice is placed inside the coconut. There is a small hole in the coconut which is big enough for a monkey to put its paw in and grab the rice, but too small for it to remove its paw when making a fist to hold the rice.
Before explaining this concept, I first play a game with the whole senior team, in which they have to take a kitchen design and then improve it. The goal is to redesign the kitchen so that they can make a cup of tea in the shortest time possible and using the least distance travelled. At the start, where they are lumbered with an inefficient kitchen, we measure time taken and distance travelled to deliver the assembly. Let's say average distance is 17m and time is around 2'30". I ask what the biggest constraint is to the process, and they correctly answer - 'The kettle.' The kettle takes 1'30" to boil. Next I challenge them to completely redesign the kitchen. 'It's your kitchen,' I tell them. I even write it in big letters on the board.
Here's what is interesting. The majority of teams do not immediately lose the kettle, and replace it say, with a hot water tap or an urn. So when we do the measurements, we find that the distance travelled has dropped to 1m, but the time taken remains around 1'32". So even though they accepted that the kettle was the biggest problem, they also accepted that it was needed.
Then I show them the South Indian monkey paw. I explain that the monkey was unable to discard the previous idea. He was unable to let go of the rice. They realise that they had been doing the same thing in the game.
'You knew your kitchens for just 20 minutes and most of you couldn't let go of the kettle,' I point out to them. 'And yet, you are going to be asking people to completely rethink what they have been doing for the last 20 years.'
Monkey Thieves (Hindi: बंदर चर), also known as Rebel Monkeys, is a thirteen-part documentary series produced by National Geographic examining the habits and social interactions of rhesus macaques in the city of Jaipur, located in northwestern India.[1][2] The show follows the "Galta Gang," a troop of 60 monkeys that live in the Galta Temple, which is a Sanatan Dharm temple on the outskirts of Jaipur. The series helped launch National Geographic's Nat Geo Wild brand and explored leadership within the animal world.[3]
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The withered old monkey's paw that Sergeant-Major Morris shows to the Whiteshas a long history behind it. Far from being just a body part of a long-deadanimal, it is an artifact of great cultural significance.
According to the story, in the traditional Indian belief system, the pawstands as a symbol of the power of fate. The fakir, or holy man, who put aspell on it did so to show everyone that fate rules people's lives and thatthose who interfere with it "do so at their sorrow." One could say, then, thatthe enchanted monkey's paw is meant to serve a very important role in governingpeople's behavior.
Unfortunately, the enormous cultural significance of the paw is completelylost on the Whites. They treat it like it's all part of a game, a harmlesspiece of mumbo jumbo. Far from recognizing the inherent dangers of playingaround with the forces of fate, they go right ahead and make a series ofwishes, all of which give them considerably more than they bargained for.
The incident occurred on the Meerut Medical College campus in the Northern India state of Uttar Pradesh, where the medics had collected samples from three people suspected of being infected by the COVID-19 virus, according to India.com. An eyewitness video shows one of the monkeys chewing the sample collection kits on top of a tree. Parts of those kits were later seen lying strewn on the ground, to the concern of local officials.
SkyNews reports that since lockdown measures imposed two months ago, monkeys have been congregating in places that are normally crowded with humans. However, some suspect the monkeys are struggling because the human food they normally consume has been severely reduced.
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Rotations in depth are challenging for object vision because features can appear, disappear, be stretched or compressed. Yet we easily recognize objects across views. Are the underlying representations view invariant or dependent? This question has been intensely debated in human vision, but the neuronal representations remain poorly understood. Here, we show that for naturalistic objects, neurons in the monkey inferotemporal (IT) cortex undergo a dynamic transition in time, whereby they are initially sensitive to viewpoint and later encode view-invariant object identity. This transition depended on two aspects of object structure: it was strongest when objects foreshortened strongly across views and were similar to each other. View invariance in IT neurons was present even when objects were reduced to silhouettes, suggesting that it can arise through similarity between external contours of objects across views. Our results elucidate the viewpoint debate by showing that view invariance arises dynamically in IT neurons out of a representation that is initially view dependent.
The video shows a tiger pursuing a monkey in a tree May 11 at Jim Corbett National Park and the much larger predator makes slow and methodical progress up the tree in the apparent quest to turn the small primate into a snack.Advertisement
A study on New World monkeys observed that not only do primates grieve, some have even shown signs of caring for dying members of their troop. A female marmoset fell out a tree and collided headfirst with an object buried in the ground. The male marmoset, with whom she had been paired for around three and a half years, shielded her from the attention of other marmosets until she died two hours later.
Sometimes, however, instead of standing guard over a corpse, the deceased infant is carried as the troop travels. Primate mothers have been known to carry the bodies of infants for extended periods of time (10 days or longer), but, a study on Death among primates shows it is a matter of hot debate whether these mothers are actually aware that their offspring has died. They carry the deceased in an unusual manner, including upside down and dragging it across the floor. Interestingly, this study on Dialects in Japanese Monkeys shows that Japanese macaques have been recorded making specific vocalisations only after the death of an infant, implying some level of awareness.
Once upon a time, a family of monkeys lived upon a riverbank in India, and life was good. However, their river was full of crocodiles, and so the monkeys were always careful not to dip even a toe into the water.
The mother crocodile sighed. "Use your wits, why don't you? Haven't I raised you since you were just a little thing? I'm asking you for just one favor. There are monkeys everywhere around us. Surely you can catch one of them."
The young crocodile began pondering this problem, and at long last he came up with a plan. All day long he lay silently watching one of the monkeys climbing up and down a mango tree, eating mangos one after another.
The monkey came closer to the edge of the river and squinted at the crocodile. He had never before talked to one. His mother cautioned him not to. "I can't reach the island," the monkey said. "Of course I haven't seen the mango tree there."
The monkey clambered up the tree and looked out at the island. He was certain he could see a fine mango tree. He scampered along a branch and looked down at the young crocodile. "How could you show me?" he asked.
"For safekeeping, of course," said the monkey. Then, with another look at the island he said, "But can't we first visit the island with the ripe mangos? We're so close; it's a shame to waste this long trip."
If you have ever lived in a place with monkey menace, you would know that monkeys are highly intelligent and have impressive ability to use tools. They can open latches, screw cap bottles and door handles and are very efficient in getting food even in urban settings. Monkeys can also communicate with other monkeys using gestures and vocal calls, for example they have separate calls for when they are in danger and for food availability. However, could their communication be considered as a language system or is it just reflexive gesturing or calls?
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