Bandar, Bandariya and Baby Bandar were ready for their show. Come Sunday morning and their tamasha would begin in a congested and busy Bombay suburb witnessed by an excited group of children.

Raju, the Bandarwala, would announce his arrival with the familiar drumbeat and sound of ghungroos. Sometimes he even brought along a sleepy black bear.

Each week it was the same routine. Dressed in dotted pyjamas with a shiny red sleeveless jacket and a Wee Willy Winkey cap edged with tiny bells, Bandar cartwheeled and somersaulted backwards and forwards.

Bandariya looked like a little gypsy in her ghagra-choli, ankles covered with ghungroos. She swayed her hips like a true dancer. She was everyone’s favourite.

But today, Baby Bandar was in no mood to sit high up on the narrow ladder and swing like an old grandfather clock from rung to rung. The rope around his little neck hurt. And so did his pride, for only a few days ago he had learned the truth about himself.

Squatting behind Raju, Baby Bandar rubbed his eyes again and again. So cross and sad was he that only when his eyes burned with the constant rubbing did he stop. And then he scratched furiously, first under one arm and then the other. He was only a monkey after all. No, this time he was not going to do silly tricks.

It all happened last Sunday after the Bandar family had finished their day’s programme. Raju had stopped for a bidi and a cosy chat at his brother’s shop outside the zoo. After a feast of juicy bananas, the bandar family collapsed into deep sleep under the gulmohar tree. That is, all except baby Bandar whose neck still hurt when the nasty rope rubbed against his wound.

Suddenly his eyes fell upon a cage right next to the zoo’s entrance where he saw someone just like himself swing and balance like a trapeze artiste. He remembered that Bandariya had told him about his many monkey cousins, and he recognised Chimp, the chimpanzee.

Mother Chimpanzee found it difficult to stop Chimp from bobbing about like a Jack-in-the box: "Ssh ssh, Chimp! Calm down! There’s a good boy!"

When Chimp was not swinging, he was leaping crazily from one end of the cage to the other, chattering and making strange sounds.