Wayfarer

Gingee Fort, the impenetrable fortress. A collection of 16th century citadel ruins in the Villupuram region of Tamil-Nadu. Standing overlooking the landscape over 800 feet up is Rajagiri, the heart of the fort, where visitors can undertake the climb to the hilltop.

It was early in the day and already the Indian heat had set in, humid and smothering – perfect for hiking up four thousand stone steps. The fort was imbued with a still tranquil quality; the air filled with a low murmured hush of insects, broken by the rhythmic slapping of my flip flops, the most suitable hill-walking footwear, as I began the climb.

The path weaved in hairpin fashion upwards, snaking its way up the steep hillside. The steps were worn, perhaps from the weather, but I liked to imagine the wear accumulating from all those who had walked before me, my footsteps following theirs from so many hundreds of years before.

This all seems a lovely romanticised description of ambling along in a historic picturesque setting. Now I won’t detract from the scenery, but what was making me uneasy, and admittedly making me walk a lot faster than I would have preferred, was the company of a shifty looking monkey following several paces behind.

For a while I tried to ignore it. But closer and closer it came. Before long, it was within reaching distance. I turned to confront it and there was a brief moment where primate and human locked gazes.

No more than a second after, it turned vicious.

What do you do when encountered by a hissing, and for all I knew, rabid teeth-baring monkey?

Well, letting buried primal instincts overwhelm centuries of social conditioning I unleashed the full force of my most menacing growl. The monkey recoiled.

Then I ran.

Despite being out of breath and drenched in sweat it was a relief to reach the top monkey free. Having lost the primate stalker, I looked across the land far below me with a relieved sense of satisfaction: an endless expanse of fields, green rice crops contrasting against the barren dirt yellow of sun scorched land, veins of roads criss-crossing the landscape. On the horizon modern civilisation, which at some point I had to return to, disappeared in a haze of heat and dust.

The walk back down the hillside was one filled with apprehension: I was constantly alert, just in case the monkey was waiting in ambush, or worse – waiting, only this time with some of its friends.