Stany Bela

Daijiworld Media Network – Kasargod (EP)

Kasargod, Sep 4: Even though COVID-19 has bound the entire area of Thrikaripur here, the annual festival of monkeys has not stopped. There were no people and festivities but the monkeys enjoyed the day.

Thousands of people all over the country used to visit the monkey festival under normal conditions. The date and time of the celebrations was not announced this year due to the spread of COVID-19. The monkeys were deprived of the love of their step mother Manikam who is bedridden since the last twenty years.

Autorickshaw driver, K Mahesh who took on the work of Manikam as his responsibility, beckoned the monkeys by the name ‘Nayimari’. The group of monkeys shook the branches of the trees with joy. The monkeys were later fed beetroot cut in the shape of Papadam, delicacies prepared out of tomato, carrot, cucumber, soft drink, banana, sapodilla, pineapple and coconut were served. Monkeys love beetroot. Nearly 20 monkeys out of 30 relished the food in the group.

Navodaya library in a study held in association with Trissur zoo discovered that the biscuits and salted food being fed by visitors to the monkeys are bad for their fertility.

Library worker P Venugopalan, P V Prabhakaran, Valiaparambu gram panchayat member V K Karunakaran, M Babu, T P Ramachandran and N V Bhaskaran led the programme.