Saving Chim Chim
One of the most touching stories of the year unfolded on a Mumbai street, when four autorickshaw drivers sacrificed a day’s work to save an electrocuted monkey that one of them had befriended. The monkey—its canines removed and solitary, probably a captive castaway as its wild kind are naturally inclined to live in packs—had made a tree leaning over an autorickshaw stand its home. Autowallah Dilip Rajbhar, 23, often fed him fruits, forging a friendship with the arboreal animal. It vanished one day but returned later with burns and in great pain. Rajbhar and his colleagues— Shiraz, Mahesh and Sabhajeet—caught the monkey, covered it with a gunny sack, and set off for the nearest veterinarian’s clinic some 14km away. The monkey will survive, the four heroes ensured. They don’t wear capes and aren’t with any fancy save-animal groups either.
