This story was told to me by Pete, a guy from London who is trying to open a hostel/guest house on the east coast of Spain. I wrote this story down in my travel journal, but my journal was stolen on the night train from Aurungabad to Mumbai. I will attempt, once again, to faithfully record 'the Ice cream tale'. By putting it online, it should make the story a little harder to lose. In order to capture the story effectively, I will retell it in the first person.
My girlfriend and I were traveling in central India and decided that we really wanted to visit one of the Tiger Reserves for which India is famous. We had the Lonely Planet and another older guide book that was written in the author's very best Indian English and outlined quite a few Tiger Reserves that were not mentioned in the Lonely Planet or any of the other guide books. Seeing as we were looking for the 'authentic' Indian travel experience, we selected one of the Tiger Reserves from the older guidebook and set out towards our destination.
We caught a train to the end of the main line, where we caught a another train along a rickety rural line to reach one of the isolated rural towns nearer our destination. Stepping off the train into the town, the people in the street stopped and stared at us. Evidently, white people had not been seen in this town for decades, if ever. Gradually a large crowd of Indians formed around us, everyone trying to get a look at the strange white people. The crowd of Indians continued to grow and eventually the town ground to a complete halt, all of the shops in the town closed. We continued to stand there, and the crowd continued to grow. Suddenly, out of nowhere a man grabbed me by the shoulder and as I spun around the man said, "my good sir, if you stand here much longer there is a real risk that you could be trampled to death. I know a place where you can get away from the crowds, come with me!" The man grabbed my hand, I grabbed my girlfriend, and he forged a path through the teeming crowd of people towards his brother's shop. We stepped into his brother's shop and the man closed the door behind us and pulled the blinds on the windows so that the crowd, which had followed us and was swarming outside the shop could not see in. After a quarter of an hour the crowd of locals was still outside the front of the shop. The man's brother said, "I think you will have to use the back exit." We walked out the back exit and towards the bus. When the crowd of people outside the shop realised that we were no longer in the shop they came around the back of the shop and started to follow us towards the bus. At this point, we ran for it and jumped on the bus. I now know what it feels like to be a monkey in the zoo.
But the story gets better.
Glad to be rid of the crowds, we put down our bags and relaxed into one of the seats on the bus. The bus started on its way, and we got into a conversation with the man sitting directly in front of us. This man was very self important and in the course of the first five minutes of our conversation he was careful to have us know that he was the head policeman of the village in which we would be staying. During the course our conversation with Mr. Big, the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could read my newspaper. I had bought the Times of India before leaving from the main station, and I handed it to the man behind us. As our conversation progressed, Mr. Big also informed us that he was the owner of the local radio station in the village. Through the occasional glance my girlfriend and I agreed that Mr. Big was a man who should be taken with a grain of salt.
A short time later, the man sitting behind me handed back the newspaper. On the cover of the newspaper he had written "Do not stay at 'such and such' guest house!" This was very strange and I showed my girlfriend. I turned around, but the man sitting behind me looked out of the window and refused to make eye contact. It was clear that he did not want to talk and given the nature of the message, I decided not to say anything about it.
Mr. Big continued to talk, and we feigned interest in the conversation. He told us that there were only three cars in the village. One was the police car, which he could use whenever he liked. One was the ranger's car, which he could use whenever he liked. The other belonged to some private person. "Tomorrow morning", he said, "I will pick you up in the ranger's car and personally take you on a tour of the Tiger Reserve."
When we got off the bus Mr. Big said to us, "oh, my friend has a guest house. You can stay with him, I will pick you up from there in the morning." When we arrived at his friends guest house, we immediately realised that it was the guest house that the man on the bus had warned us not to stay in. We did not know the reason for the warning, but we definitely could not stay in that guest house. We went inside to have a look and I signalled to my girlfriend that she should throw a fit and refuse to stay there, she complied. She started complaining loudly that the guesthouse was dirty, and that she refused to stay there. I played good cop, saying "oh, it's not so bad." Finally, we left the guesthouse and checked into the guesthouse down the street.
It was mid-afternoon and Mr. Big had invited us to visit his radio station, so after putting down our things we paid a visit to the village radio station. Mr. Big greeted us at the radio station and seemed proud to show us around his personal little radio empire. Much to our horror, he treated the staff of the radio station like slaves. Whenever his staff would make a mistake, annoy him, or for want of something better to do, he would strike them over the head. This man was clearly unbalanced. "This is the only radio station in the whole area" he announced to the universe.
But the story gets better...
My girlfriend and I were traveling in central India and decided that we really wanted to visit one of the Tiger Reserves for which India is famous. We had the Lonely Planet and another older guide book that was written in the author's very best Indian English and outlined quite a few Tiger Reserves that were not mentioned in the Lonely Planet or any of the other guide books. Seeing as we were looking for the 'authentic' Indian travel experience, we selected one of the Tiger Reserves from the older guidebook and set out towards our destination.
We caught a train to the end of the main line, where we caught a another train along a rickety rural line to reach one of the isolated rural towns nearer our destination. Stepping off the train into the town, the people in the street stopped and stared at us. Evidently, white people had not been seen in this town for decades, if ever. Gradually a large crowd of Indians formed around us, everyone trying to get a look at the strange white people. The crowd of Indians continued to grow and eventually the town ground to a complete halt, all of the shops in the town closed. We continued to stand there, and the crowd continued to grow. Suddenly, out of nowhere a man grabbed me by the shoulder and as I spun around the man said, "my good sir, if you stand here much longer there is a real risk that you could be trampled to death. I know a place where you can get away from the crowds, come with me!" The man grabbed my hand, I grabbed my girlfriend, and he forged a path through the teeming crowd of people towards his brother's shop. We stepped into his brother's shop and the man closed the door behind us and pulled the blinds on the windows so that the crowd, which had followed us and was swarming outside the shop could not see in. After a quarter of an hour the crowd of locals was still outside the front of the shop. The man's brother said, "I think you will have to use the back exit." We walked out the back exit and towards the bus. When the crowd of people outside the shop realised that we were no longer in the shop they came around the back of the shop and started to follow us towards the bus. At this point, we ran for it and jumped on the bus. I now know what it feels like to be a monkey in the zoo.
But the story gets better.
Glad to be rid of the crowds, we put down our bags and relaxed into one of the seats on the bus. The bus started on its way, and we got into a conversation with the man sitting directly in front of us. This man was very self important and in the course of the first five minutes of our conversation he was careful to have us know that he was the head policeman of the village in which we would be staying. During the course our conversation with Mr. Big, the man behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked if he could read my newspaper. I had bought the Times of India before leaving from the main station, and I handed it to the man behind us. As our conversation progressed, Mr. Big also informed us that he was the owner of the local radio station in the village. Through the occasional glance my girlfriend and I agreed that Mr. Big was a man who should be taken with a grain of salt.
A short time later, the man sitting behind me handed back the newspaper. On the cover of the newspaper he had written "Do not stay at 'such and such' guest house!" This was very strange and I showed my girlfriend. I turned around, but the man sitting behind me looked out of the window and refused to make eye contact. It was clear that he did not want to talk and given the nature of the message, I decided not to say anything about it.
Mr. Big continued to talk, and we feigned interest in the conversation. He told us that there were only three cars in the village. One was the police car, which he could use whenever he liked. One was the ranger's car, which he could use whenever he liked. The other belonged to some private person. "Tomorrow morning", he said, "I will pick you up in the ranger's car and personally take you on a tour of the Tiger Reserve."
When we got off the bus Mr. Big said to us, "oh, my friend has a guest house. You can stay with him, I will pick you up from there in the morning." When we arrived at his friends guest house, we immediately realised that it was the guest house that the man on the bus had warned us not to stay in. We did not know the reason for the warning, but we definitely could not stay in that guest house. We went inside to have a look and I signalled to my girlfriend that she should throw a fit and refuse to stay there, she complied. She started complaining loudly that the guesthouse was dirty, and that she refused to stay there. I played good cop, saying "oh, it's not so bad." Finally, we left the guesthouse and checked into the guesthouse down the street.
It was mid-afternoon and Mr. Big had invited us to visit his radio station, so after putting down our things we paid a visit to the village radio station. Mr. Big greeted us at the radio station and seemed proud to show us around his personal little radio empire. Much to our horror, he treated the staff of the radio station like slaves. Whenever his staff would make a mistake, annoy him, or for want of something better to do, he would strike them over the head. This man was clearly unbalanced. "This is the only radio station in the whole area" he announced to the universe.
But the story gets better...
That evening we left our guest house and went in search of the village restaurant. Eventually, we found the place and on entering I was immediately noticed the man from the bus who had written the message on the newspaper. We sat at a table directly across from him, and although I could tell that he had seen us, he refused to look in our direction or pay us any attention. He was making a significant efforts not to notice us and we decided that it was not a good idea to confront him in the restaurant.
My girlfriend was hysterical, moaning, whaling and crying. She completely lost it which , given the circumstances, was completely understandable, but not very helpful. It was up to me to pull us through. I was feeling just as scared as she was, but I said to her ,"don't worry, everything will be okay." We were terrified.
Back at our guest house, we dared not sleep. My girlfriend pushed a small tables and our packs against the door and I guarded the door all night with a big stick I had picked up along the road, lest someone should try to break into our room during the night. We could not take any chances.
At the crack of dawn, we took our packs and went to the house of the man who owned the only private car in the village. I banged on the door. No answer. I banged on the door again, no answer. I knew there were people inside the house because I could hear movement. Eventually, after fifteen minutes of loud and insistent knocking, a man came to the door. "What do you want?", he asked in an extremely indignant tone, "we are trying to sleep". "We want you to drive us to the main town!", I pleaded with him. He refused, "I will not drive you to the town for any reason". He knew that we had been planning to go into the park that day, and by this stage it was fairly clear to us that nobody in this village wanted to upset the boss. I offered to pay him money, but he said that he would not drive us under any circumstances. At this point I opened up my wallet and started peeling out £10 notes. The man stood there, looking at the £10, and refused to take the money. I peeled out another note, £20 on offer and still no effect. I ended up paying £40 to be driven to town. To put it in perspective, at that time £40 was enough to live comfortably travelling in India for two weeks.
But the story gets better...
We piled our bags into his four wheel drive and the man set off towards the town. We had a sudden realisation that Mr. Big was head of police and controlled the radio for the entire area. He could make a call to the police in the surrounding areas and have us brought back to the village on some false charges. We were not our of the woods yet.
Finally, we made it back to the main town. We were greeted by the same swarming crowds of people who had welcomed us into the town on our way to the village. We made our way directly to the station, because we did not feel safe and wanted to be on a train and out of that area for good.
Standing on the platform of the station there were hundreds of Indians crowding around us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a policeman making a bee line straight for us, there was nowhere we could run because we were boxed in by crowds. As he approached he waggled his head and asked us if we would like him to control the crowd. Phew! He hadn't been sent by Mr. Big. The policeman turned around and proceeded to wave his cane in the air and shout orders for the thronging crowd move back. To our surprise the crowd obeyed immediately and he cleared the area around us of people.
"You had better get on the train to avoid the crowds", the policeman suggested. We stepped up onto the train and the policeman followed. The policeman followed. As soon as we boarded the train the crowd again surged forwards to the edge of the platform. He seemed very pleased with himself and said, "I will keep back the crowds." This was way too strange.
After all that we had been through, the scene of us standing there at the open doors of the carriage, with a crowd of Indians below us was just too amusing. My girlfriend said that she would take a photo of me with the thronging crowds below and I would take one of her, so that we could have some sort of photo to remember this amazing ordeal.
My girlfriend lined up the camera and just as I was smiling for the photo to be taken I felt an almighty whack across the back of my neck and I dropped to the floor. The policeman had hit me. I curled up in the foetal position, covering my face, fully expecting the policeman to starting flogging me within an inch of my life. Before I knew what was happening, I heard the policeman say "oh, my good sir, I am so very sorry!". I looked up and saw my girlfriend pissing her pants with laughter. I certainly couldn't see the joke. My girlfriend explained that, just as she was about to take the photo one of the Indians in the crowd put a hand behind my head to make bunny ears, just as the policeman had attempted to whack the hand it pulled away.
"My good sir, I am so very sorry!", said the policeman, "allow me to compensate you." I was still a little stunned, "oh, not don't be silly, you don't need to do that." The policeman replied in the most serious tone of voice, "My good sir, I will buy you an ice cream!" "An ice cream?", this was unexpected. "Oh, sir, but I insist!" And with that, the policeman disappeared into the crowd. This was one of the most surreal experiences of my life. He returned minutes later with three ice cream cones. It looked like the kind of ice cream sold by shonky street vendors that we would never ordinarily buy. But, not wanting to reject his gift, the three of us stood there at the open door of the train and ate our ice cream.
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