Unexpected Visitor.

One day a few years ago, we had a most unexpected visitor to our home.

Nitin, then quite tiny, had just come in from school.   I was in the drawing room, talking on the telephone to my husband.  My father-in-law was lying down asleep.  My mother-in-law was in her room.  Aunt Urmila, my husband's aunt who was visiting us at the time, was upstairs praying.  She prays for several hours a day.

I heard Aunt Urmila shouting upstairs, but I didn't take too much notice of that.  She's always shouting about something.  Next thing, a large monkey, a langur, the type commonly found in our part of India, strolled into the drawing room.  He entered from within the house not without.  This was the reason for Aunt Urmila's burst of shouting. 

The langur had a look around.  Nitin was fascinated.  In size, the two were about the same.  A little frightened, Nitin ran towards me.

"You're not going to believe this," I told  Yash on the phone.  "But a monkey has just appeared in our drawing room!"

The monkey jumped up on the table.  Finding a bunch of bananas there, he helped himself.  He then got down from the table and walked out of the front door, leaving me, Nitin and my father-in-law in a state of slight shock.

Langurs are creatures which are closely identified with Sri Hanuman, one of the Hindu gods.  His special day is Tuesday and it seems that aunt Urmila was worshipping that very god by an open door upstairs, when the animal appeared by that very door and entered the house.

According to Yash, this means that Aunt Urmila is a saint who got a personal visitation from her god himself.  I know he is joking.  Because if there is one thing I know about aunt Urmila, it is that she is no saint.