Date:26/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/26/stories/2008122660371500.htm

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Chimpanzee turns entertainer

Marcus Dam

Spontaneous performance: Babu, the chimpanzee, regaling the Christmas crowd at Kolkata’s Alipore Zoological garden on Thursday. — Photo: Sushanta Patronobish

KOLKATA: Babu had a special Christmas treat for those who flocked to the chimpanzee island in the city’s Alipore Zoological Gardens on Thursday.

The full grown adult male chimpanzee regaled his audience with his antics, while his sedate female partner, Rani, sat by looking on, seemingly bemused.

An exuberant Babu kept encircling the island, flailing his forearms as he stomped his hind legs, baring his fangs, and occasionally clapping playfully as if in response to the cheers from on-lookers that reached a crescendo each time he stooped to dig out earth from the enclosure and hurl handfuls of it at them.

He kept prancing around the enclosure and was at his acrobatic best when he clambered up the climbing frame and perched himself on the top bar. After a brief pause to catch his breath, he was back on the ground as monkey tricks tumbled out of his repertoire; a retreat to his enclosure for a brief rest, only to emerge out in the open and once again run around in circles much to the delight of an applauding audience.

“Babu, who was brought from the Twycross Zoo in the United Kingdom nearly a decade ago, was apparently in an exceptionally jovial mood, in tune with the Christmas spirit”, the director of the zoological gardens, Subir Chaudhuri said.“There was nothing strange in his behaviour; it must have been the huge crowds thronging the enclosure that is particularly popular with visitors that got him into such an excitable frame of mind”, Mr.Chaudhuri added.

The crowd that milled around in the zoo — one of the major attractions on Christmas Day — was huge indeed. It totalled 58,000 persons at the end of the day.