The other day a monkey peed on my face. Thankfully, it was completely unintentional.
I was walking around Swayambhunath, the ancient and sacred hill in Kathmandu, turning the prayer wheels that line the strong, whitewashed wall separating the footpath from the forest. Over the wall is the jungly domain of many thousands of monkeys, each of whom, much like me, have active gobs and bladders. I walked along turning the wheels assiduously and reciting a mantra that some Buddhists reading this will chuckle at when considering what happened next.
Om Vajrasattva Samaya...
It had rained an hour before, so when I felt some water pattering off my skull I just figured it was from the trees overhead. The water, however, was warm enough and trickly enough that I stepped aside and looked up, a few droplets ricocheting off my glasses. I saw on the top of the wall facing away from me the relaxed, furry back of a rhesus macaque who was looking off into the forest while a stream of his or her weewee innocently made its way down the overhang to the spot where my once waiting forehead had been anointed.
I was speechless as it registered in my mind that I was now doused in monkey piss.
No one was around to acknowledge my astonishment and confirm me in the way we like others to confirm our bizarre experiences, so I just took out the half-used tissues I realized I hoard in my left sweater pocket and began drying my head and face, starting to crack up.
What a life...
Later, between fits of laughter, a college friend also named Zak asked if there was some omen attached to getting peed on one’s face by a monkey. He joked about consulting an elderly seer who, upon lifting his wizened face from the scrolls, remarks … “No. There’s nothing here. You just got pissed on.”
Better pissed off than pissed on? Pissed on, in my limited experience, is much funnier.
Jai Hanumān, Jai Mahākarunā, Jai Swayambhunāth
-Zak PS: If you read the titles of the other blog posts alongside this one, which one would you remember after one hour?
For the college applicants reading this, remember: comedy charms, honesty moves and outrageousness is remembered.
Be bold, get loose, get silly and enjoy the writing process or otherwise start looking for a rhesus macaque in your neighborhood to help you out.