Punch, the abandoned monkey carrying his foster mama, an orangutan plushie, around in a Japanese zoo, has pierced deep emotional holes into the global internet audience’s conscience. Viral clips of the 6-month-old Punch’s attempts at dealing with life in the enclosure where he’s lonely despite the cacophony around him have left rarely anyone with dry eyes. Most of us have been rooting for this valiant little fellow, who carries his “mama” around for safety, emotional and physical.
How utterly lacking in self-awareness we human beings are! We, the higher species! We, the self-declared custodians of all other forms of life around us! We, who make decisions for everyone, notwithstanding the impacts that resemble condemnation! We, who want to give parenting advice despite failing collectively — rather spectacularly — as a species in rearing our young ones! Forget about any understanding of the ‘animal world,’ we have none of our own higher and mightier one.
I do not want to quote dry statistics on child abuse victims across the world; we have become jaded to them. I do not even want to quote economists when they demonstrate how our children are poorer, financially, than we were. I find talking about environment-related medical issues that are affecting our newborns boring and banal. I don’t want to talk about how depression and other mental health issues are rising at an unprecedented rate among children.
There is no point in talking about little girls’ utter inability to face the world without makeup that hides their “imperfect” skin. Of course, young boys are equally anxious about their masculinity. Let’s not even think of the breakdown of healthy gender relations and only write OpEds when Adolescence drops on OTT platforms and becomes a rage.
Is there a point in doing anything beyond captions on social media with quotes like “It takes a village to raise a child”? Probably not. Let’s continue making policies where even the wording reeks of other-ing. “Gareeb Bachchon ke liye” (for poor children), “Street Children”, “Children from disadvantaged groups”. Never “our” children.
And those children privileged enough not to belong to any disadvantaged group? Their issues can be handled by the money and materials at their disposal instead of a sustained engagement. Schools are to blame for not handling them well. Ambitious parents are making children anxious. But, let’s not think about that too much. These days, children are thinking too much.
Obviously, we are doing enough. We have plans for neonatal ‘sanskaar rooms’ in maternity facilities. Children are to be trained to become sanskaari from their very first hour on our planet. What else do they need? We are doing our best. And yet, and yet…
Okay, let’s not get too emotional about children who stray. Who steal, rape, and kill. Clearly, the fault is in our stars. Children have to survive a brutal world. A survival toolkit with a normalised lack of empathy can sometimes get a bit too harsh. But we can handle it with pandering for the ‘rich children’ and punishment for ‘poor children’. It’s not that deep, you see.
Deep is Punch’s abandonment by his mother. And his rescue by the zoo. And the heartbreaking visuals of him with his “mama”. And his loneliness. And the disturbing visuals of other monkeys “bullying” him. And Punch’s attempts at making friends. And his attempts to “escape” the enclosure, riding on his caretaker. And his adoption by some friendly monkeys. Everything Punch does needs to be relayed to our screens, so we can feel good about our goodness. We are the higher species. We know it all.
It is comforting to witness a loneliness we did not engineer. Much less comforting to examine the ones we design. Punch clings to a toy because he was abandoned, which, by the way, is par for the course per evolution theories. Other monkeys try to teach him socialisation, but that’s bullying and against the natural order. Nature as we have commanded it to be. We cannot handle it. Nope. Our children cling to screens, grades, filters, and rage. Surely, that’s evolution, too. After all, they, too, are only responding to the environment we have so carefully constructed for them.
But yes, let’s talk about Punch.
Nishtha Gautam is an academician and author. The views expressed are personal
