Independent Confirmation

Last weekend my friend Michael visited from Boston. Michael was the first person I met when I moved to Boston. He was sitting on a bar stool in a coffee shop up the street from my apartment. I asked for the sugar, he handed me the Sweet n' Low, I asked if that was a hint. He had just moved to Boston from Wisconsin a few months earlier. We talked about being new in Boston, how New Englanders are difficult to meet, and became friends.

While he was staying with me in Brooklyn, we went to a bar in the East Village. A few other friends of his were also down from Boston and met up with us. One of them was a man whose name I can't remember. But he had lived in New York a few years ago and he was excited to be back. It came out in the conversation that he was born in Pune, India. "Pune?" I asked. "Did you ever take the train from Pune to Delhi?"

"Of course!" he said. Everything about his conversational style was exciting. "Whenever I go home to visit relatives I always go to Pune and Delhi! But now the airfare is not so expensive, so I fly instead of taking the train!"

"I see," I said. "And tell me, on the train between Pune and Delhi, is there a stop called 'Monkey Hill'?"

"Oh yes!" he said. "How do you know about Monkey Hill?! It's a wonderful place. The train stops and everyone gets out and feeds peanuts to the monkeys and takes pictures and laughs and has a great time!"

I knew about Monkey Hill from my friend Nisha. She was another English teacher in Grenoble and grew up in Pune. She wasn't as excited about Monkey Hill as this guy, but close. I can't imagine being on a train, probably in a rush to get from one place to the next, and have it stop halfway so everyone can go feed the monkeys. I can't imagine buying a ticket on a train with a scheduled monkey stop. "Express train only, please" I'd probably say. "I'm in a hurry and not much of a fan of the monkeys anwyay."

Nisha would smile when she spoke of Monkey Hill. "They dance and do tricks and pose and wave for pictures!" she told me. I wasn't sure if I believed her.

But, here I was, walking down Avenue A with a stranger who glowed at the mere mention of Monkey Hill. We started our conversation discussing the differences between Boston and New York, but ended with him reliving his childhood in Pune, feeding the monkeys. "You should see all the pictures I have of Monkey Hill!" he told me.

Lost in thought, I wondered what the US equivalent of monkeys would be. Squirrels, perhaps? Buffalo? Rats? I wondered if Amtrak added a stop called Groundhog Hill on the route between Boston and Philadelphia if more people would make the trip. And with the growing ease of air travel in India, what will happen to Monkey Hill if train traffic becomes a thing of the past?

Someday, I'll visit my friends in India. I'll be sure to see the Taj Mahal, the faithful bathing in the Ganges, and the Aga Khan's jewels. And I'll pack a bag of peanuts to feed to the monkeys at Monkey Hill.