Pic credit: M Srinath. The Hindu. August 27, 2018.

Living in the IIT Madras campus offers distinct experiences. The infrastructure and academic facilities of the consistently top engineering institution of the country make sure you get to nurture your dreams to the fullest. Just outside the campus you can enjoy the largest malls and shopping complexes of one of the best metros of India. As soon as you walk inside the giant walls of the campus, you find a sudden, pleasant calm and difference from the cacophony of the city. The presence of an uncountable number of cafeterias makes sure you can satiate your stomach 24x7. A wind under the shade of 100+ year old Banyan trees gives you a respite from the sultery Chennai heat. Sights of herds of spotted deer and black buck leave you amazed at the reflection of nature amidst 10000 technocrats. And a major part throughout your stay in the campus includes unavoidable contact with the campus monkeys!

Everyone who has stayed or is staying in the IIT-M campus has a long, perennially increasing, list of interesting monkey-stories to tell. Whether you stay in a hostel or residential quarters, whether you are walking/jogging/cycling on the roads or sitting in the classrooms/laboratories, you get to “interact” with these monkeys every few hours at the least. They sometimes snatch your food (or folders if they feel they might have food inside), sometimes make you change your ways, and yet sometimes give you opportunities to learn about and appreciate their naughtiness, intelligence, and nativity to the place you consider “your” alma-mater.

IIT Madras hosts several troops of the old-world monkeys called Bonnet macaques or Macaca radiata. They are named so because (as you can see in the picture above) they have a distinct, parted at the middle, hair pattern on top of their head that looks like a hat or a wig or a “bonnet”. These monkeys are exclusive to the southern portions of India; the other common red-face monkeys in India being Rhesus macaques, who do not have a bonnet! IIT Madras is a 630-acre institute, carved out of the adjacent Guindy National Park (in 1959), and hence is a home to these macaques from the old days. These macaques have grown highly accustomed to living around human beings (IITians!) and have not only adopted several interesting traits by observing the humans around them, but also possess indigenous qualities that are observable under the light of the day (and even nights if their home-tree or home-building happens to be near you).

As part of this series, I would be sharing my experiences of observing the Bonnet macaques of IIT Madras — the aboriginal IITians. It is difficult to capture them without risking your mobiles, and hence many pics/vids that I would share will be across bars or nets (where humans are the ones who are caged and macaques are the actual observers!). Beware — I am neither a photographer, nor a biologist — just a Computer Science PhD student who happens to be lucky enough to be able to observe these creatures from a near distance for a long time. Yet I would be trying to sum up my observations about their behaviour in as interesting ways I can.

The articles in this series will be published once in a few weeks, and would cover a range of topics related to the IIT monkeys, including but not limited to, their:

social organization;

parental etiquette;

communication patterns;

eating habits;

emotional moments;

and so on…

You can either keep checking this space for new posts, or follow me on Medium to get notifications. I will also be posting about each new article on my Facebook and Twitter pages. Please use the comments area to share your own experiences or give feedback. I am open to ideas and/or content (with proper credits) to include in future stories as well. Stay on; Happy Reading!!