This balcony is perfect. It gives the luxury of both shade and sunshine from the morning sun at the same time. You can sit in such a way that your legs are warmed by the sun while the head rests in the cool shadows. Of course, you can reverse the order. But that was the way I sat ready to begin the day with the morning newspapers, when Radio One conspired with Karan Johar to provide the background score with his “Har ghadi badal rahi hai roop zindagi, chav hai khabi, kabhi hai dhoop zindagi…”

Just as I was about to fall into the trap of this cosmic manipulation, she shouts from inside the house with great urgency in her voice. “Monkeys, monkeys,” she repeats. She had spotted them in the other balcony. The simian family that was regular in the initial months of our moving to this new house had gone missing for some months now. I had thought the Diwali crackers had done some good for a change and scared the monkeys away. Now they are back.

I panic. “Where’s the long stick? Shoo, shoo,” I try to scare them with some shouting, banging and knocking on the door. But all that pretending gets me nowhere, at least not with the male monkey. The female has jumped on to the neighbour’s ledge, but only for a moment. She’s back next to her male after her initial show of solidarity with me.

They are ripping out the leaves from my potted plants and eating them; digging into the soil. Obviously they had found something appetising for they continued to keep putting things into their mouths oblivious to all my attempts on the other side of the glass door to get rid of them.

I get out the camera thinking the flash will achieve what the long stick could not. And as I continue clicking them in action the camera lens worked its magic. He was not all that bad, this boor, I begin to think, forgetting that he was continuing to raid my little green space. His eyes look sad, I imagine.

And what about her? She didn’t look as defiant as she used to appear in those days. She was edgy, and was missing more than just her tail, I think. Whatever happened to the baby monkey? That little, scrawny thing who could pass off as a human baby. Clinging to her mother’s chest and looking out at her hostile world with large, anxious eyes.

The security guys, by now alerted, are at the door. I tell them it is fine. The monkeys have gone away. One of the guards tells me that the baby died after it touched a live wire a couple of days ago. “Was electrocuted,” he says.

They have now jumped on to my other balcony, the one with the sun and shade. Ferociously digging into the soil of the mogra, hibiscus and aloe vera plants. Tearing out the leaves. Looking for some juicy fruit to sink their teeth into. It’s been such a long time. Where’s that guava tree where that brat of a squirrel always got the sweetest of the fruits first? Where’s the mango tree which lured with its ripe scent? Where are the wild berries, date palms and coconut trees? Where’s home?

Later, she tells me how the security guards had given the baby monkey a proper burial accompanied by a small puja. Surely they must return, the boor with the sad eyes and his tailless female with her drooping breasts – homeless both – looking for their little Hanuman who had found a home in death.

Having been a “word Nazi” for nearly 21 years of her career as a print journalist, Dipti Nair still believes less is more. She started her career with Free Press Journal in Indore. Thereafter, she has worked in various capacities in organisations like The Telegraph, Deccan Herald, Star Plus, and the INK Conference, in association with TED, among others. Apart from running her own pottery workshop for both children and adults, she hopes to take the workshop to the inmates of the Bangalore jail and the police force. Dipti believes that a day will come when she will be able to cut her long story short to just two words: Travel writer.