BHOPAL: It rained money in a town of Jabalpur district on Friday, thanks to some monkey business.
A monkey made off with a bag, containing Rs 1 lakh in cash, left unattended in an autorickshaw near Singrampur police outpost, mistaking it for food. Disappointed that there was nothing to eat, it started scattering the bits of paper from atop a tree, triggering a frenzied scramble among passersby to scoop them up, and equally desperate pleas from the owner to get the money back.
The auto driver, Ajam, had never imagined that a moment’s distraction would cost him so heavily. He got back barely half of his money.
Singrampur is around 55km from Jabalpur. Ajam was driving his auto, carrying the Rs 1 lakh in a bag, when he got caught in a traffic jam. He got out briefly to see why the road was clogged. A monkey, from a troop that is used to having passing motorists drop food for them, darted into the auto and ran off with the bag.
By the time Ajam returned to his auto, the monkey was perched high on a tree and was rummaging through the bag. Ajam was distraught on finding the bag missing, and even more flustered to see it in the hands of a monkey. A crowd gathered on the road and hooted. To Ajam’s horror, the monkey began pulling out the wads of notes and throwing them into the wind. When the bag was empty, the monkey threw it down.
Now, it was Ajam’s turn to plead before the cheering crowd, which was happily pocketing the gift from above.
After a lot of convincing, some of the people who had collected the money, gave it back to him, with some persuasion from police, who had rushed from the nearby outpost.
After over an hour of high drama, the autorickshaw driver could get back only Rs 54,000. There was no trace of the rest. Police have said they will try to recover the money. Ajam says he is relieved it wasn’t a total loss.
Police said there are hundreds of monkeys on that patch, who wait for passing motorists to drop food for them.
