Monkey’s Hand Caught in the Trap

How do humans get caught in a trap

Getting stuck into an idea or concept is also called the ‘monkey’s hand caught in the trap’ syndrome. Monkeys can be a huge nuisance. They can destroy your garden and play havoc with plants. The annoying part is that monkeys waste more than they eat. I remember how once they tore apart my guava tree and threw unripe guavas all around our garden. In India, monkeys are caught and relocated. We have a peculiar method for catching monkeys. The concept is actually diabolical and hinges on the psychology of monkeys.

When I was a youngster, my uncle was posted in a small town called Madakasira in Andhra Pradesh bordering Karnataka. In those days we used to visit our home town every year for summer vacation. Nothing like a long summer vacation spent lazily in your home town. Summer is also the mango season. Juicy mangoes and idyllic summers are made for each other. I remember my grandmother buying two huge baskets of Malgova( a variety of mango) from the street vendor who used to visit once a week. It used to be a grand occasion. My grandmother would argue, berate, haggle, rebuke and scold the poor vendor till he succumbed and surrendered his precious mangoes at the price quoted by my grandmother. The shouting and arguing would attract the entire family. We would gather and watch the spectacle from the balcony on the first floor. Mango buying is an art in itself. My mother's was a huge family — five brothers and six sisters. My father used to call it a complete cricket team with a retired twelfth man (my mother) and two umpires. A pity that summer holidays have become obsolete, like so many other practices. That year we decided to spend some time at my aunt’s place in Madakasira.

This is where I saw the clever process of capturing monkeys. The trap was really very simple. They took a basket made of bamboo or some such material and put some goodies inside. They left a small opening so that the monkeys had just about enough space to put their hand inside by squeezing their fingers. The monkeys were able to see the stuff inside the basket. The trappers withdrew from the basket after hanging it on the branch of a tree. We watched from a distance while the monkeys slowly came to inspect the basket. They went around the basket, pushed it around to dislodge it from the tree, walked away for a while and came back again to look over the stuff inside. I, along with my cousins, looked on with excitement waiting for the moneys to catch the bait. Secretly, I was a bit suspicious. I never really believed that we would catch a monkey. The trap looked too simple and therefore impractical. These village people are fools, I thought. I was from New Delhi, the capital of India, you see.

The monkeys hovered around the basket, poked their nose, sniffed the food and backed off. Eventually, after a long wait, I got bored and went home. I thought nothing of it till I heard a loud shout and I ran outside. What do you think had happened? There was this monkey looking all bewildered and lost, with its hand stuck inside the basket. I was equally puzzled. Why can’t it simply take its hand out of the basket, I thought. Things became clear when my uncle explained the trick to me. The monkey could squeeze its hand inside the basket and catch hold of the food article. But it could not take its hand out because the fist holding the fruit was too big to take out of the tiny hole. It clearly had an option — it could release the food and squeeze its hand out. It did nothing of the sort. It kept holding on the food item till the trappers came to take it away. Whew, that was one big revelation.

As far as I know, humans are closest to monkeys as a species and there is every reason to believe that we behave like our simian cousins. We also suffer from ‘monkey’s hand caught in the trap’ syndrome. This is natural and we have inherited this trait from our forefathers. We want to optimize our efforts. Once we make a commitment and dedicate our resources, we won’t give up even if it’s a trap. The irony is that we never realize that we have fallen into a trap. If the monkey knew that it could escape by releasing the goodies, it would have done so. Entrepreneurs can and do get into this kind of trap without realizing it. And by the time you realize, it’s usually too late. Think about it. Are you another monkey caught in this trap? In the next post I will tackle this issue from a startup standpoint.