woman breastfeeding monkey in style

Namita, a middle-aged woman who lives in India's north-eastern Tripura state and is a government worker, describes Buru, the pet monkey, as her third child. "Yes, I breastfeed him. He is my son," says Namita, caressing the monkey. More than four years ago, her woodcutter husband found a dying baby monkey under a tree after a fierce storm. He brought the animal home in Chandrapur village on the outskirts of the Udaipur town in Tripura's South District. "I did not have a son. God finally gave me one," says Namita, as she continued to breastfeed the monkey. I ask her whether she has been breastfeeding Buru- who is around five years old- for too long. "I will continue to breastfeed him as long as he wants it. He will always remain a little one for me," she says. She says she also feeds her pet monkey "expensive cow milk" which she could not afford for her children. Namita Das has two grown up children, but she continues to suckle her pet monkey.