Pablo had buckets of stories from his travels, but my favorite is the one he prefaced as exemplifying the difference between India and North America and centers around his family’s neighbor in Bombay.
He’s an older gentleman and Pablo found it peculiar that he – like many people in India, apparently – watched The Discovery Channel non-stop.
One day, the neighbor began telling Pablo about a recent trip to a mountain town that is a popular pilgrimage destination for tourists. The town is plagued by monkeys, especially around the gondola at the base of the mountain. Locals know to clutch the coconuts they carry to their chests otherwise they'll be snatched by the brazen monkeys. The neighbor watched as the monkeys made off with several prizes before he walked over and bonked one of them on the head with a stick. Every last monkey scampered away and weren’t seen for the rest of the day.
The neighbor said he knew that if he hit the alpha male on the head, all the monkeys would leave.
He knew this, he said, from watching The Discovery Channel.
Suddenly, it became clear to Pablo: “So unlike here where people watch The Discovery Channel for educational entertainment, in India, everyone watches it to learn survival skills.”
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