TRAVEL MEMOIR

I Was Nearly Dragged Away by a Strange Man in a Crowded City in India

Every woman who met my pleading eyes looked away and walked on

Arriving in India as an eighteen-year-old British girl, I was as much a spectacle to many of the locals as the country was to me.

I was fresh out of school and on my travels with my best friend, Lisa, and my boyfriend, Matt.

We were still early into our travels in India — no more than around three weeks. We were heading slowly south from Bombay with another girl we had hooked up with and had now landed in the beautiful city of Mysore. Our new companion, Binnie, was Indian-English and her knowledge of Hindi was invaluable to our experience of India.

Mysore, also known as The Sandalwood City, is famous for its sandalwood carving production. At the time, I bought a tiny sandalwood statue of the Hindu elephant-headed god, Ganesh, and it kept its beautiful scent for more than twenty years. I still had that statue until recently when I stupidly allowed my son to take it to school as part of their topic work on Hindu gods, never to be seen again. Yeah, I know…not smart of me!

Beautiful and fragrant as the city was, it was during my time in The Sandalwood City that I had my first frightening experience as a foreign woman walking alone, as I ventured out one day.

It was only our second day in Mysore and we hadn’t yet had much of a chance to explore our surroundings. We had just finished a delicious thali lunch — a full meal complete with rice, papad, various curries, chutney, and raita — and were relaxing at the guest house that we were staying in.

The other three all wanted to have a little siesta but I wasn’t feeling sleepy; I was keen to go and take a look around and take in this beautiful South Indian city, so I left them snoozing and took off alone.

It was a ten-minute amble from our guest house to get right into the heart of the city. I could see the greenery of the park that surrounded the Mysore Palace — the former residence of Mysore royals — as I wandered into the main hub of the shopping area and marketplace.

I was still feeling high on the buzz of being somewhere like India, where everyday scenes were an onslaught on my senses — the colours of the fabrics that draped every surface of the dressmakers’ stalls; the shiny towers of glass and metal bangles; the fragrance of spices, and the sound of rhythmic Hindu mantras filling the air, interrupted by the honks and toots from the constant traffic that threw that rhythm into disarray.

This early afternoon weekday brought a wide mix of people. Smart, well-to-do women in saris who looked like they were on a short break from their office jobs walked past. Housewives came to pick up groceries and necessities for the home. Wealthier-looking men in white dhotis and shirts and less wealthy ones in orange dhotis and, perhaps, a white t-shirt.

You could easily differentiate between the (slightly too) well-fed and those who lived the simple life. The difference between the higher and lower castes had already become evident to me in my short time there.

I wondered through the bustling marketplace, a feeling of excitement and anticipation bubbling up inside me. It was the first time I had been out on my own to explore the place and was feeling confident and free.

I had not long arrived in this busy centre when I noticed a strange-looking man walking along with a slightly glazed and distant look in his eyes. He appeared to be muttering to himself and, as he walked, he appeared oblivious to the people around him.

He was heading straight for me.

Before I knew it, he had reached me, grabbed hold of my wrist, and started pulling me with him as he walked with an air of purpose about him. He was still muttering away, presumably in the local language of Kannada, and I had no idea if he was talking to me or simply to himself. If he was talking to me, I didn’t understand a word anyway.

His grip was strong and extremely tight, feeling like it was crushing my wrist. He didn’t even waver as I tried to pull back, and simply kept going as he dragged me along. With my free hand, I tried my best to pull his fingers to loosen his grip on mine but it was too strong.

There I was, being dragged across this bustling market square by a seemingly mad man, feeling powerless. I could see people looking on, understanding that this was not what was supposed to be happening.

My eyes searched out those of other women, in the hope that they would understand and come to my rescue but as soon as their eyes made contact with mine, they would look away again, usually at the ground.

Everyone seemed to see what was happening but nobody was doing anything.

In the end, all I could do was pull and pull at his fingers to try to get them to release my wrist. It felt to no avail. But then, suddenly, it either worked or he just let go.

He kept on walking, still muttering to himself.

As soon as he had moved away I was surrounded by people including two policemen who, it turned out, had been alerted. They asked who the man was but, by this time, he had disappeared into the crowd. Everyone wanted to know what he wanted, what he had done, why I was alone…

The skin on my wrist was red and sore from his grip but, otherwise, I was unharmed. A little shocked, but fine nonetheless.

I decided to head back to the guest house and told Matt what had happened. He was fuming that he hadn’t been there with me but relieved that it had all been okay in the end.

That experience, like many others that I had while travelling, especially when I travelled completely solo, went down as one of the many strange and unexpected moments that helped to shape me and strengthen me.

Poor Matt found himself more and more wound up by the day due to the amount of attention the three women that he was travelling with attracted. Even more so, by the way we were treated. Sometimes it was purely a crowd that would gather and stare, but other times, it was worse.

Of course, these guys only made up an unfortunately obvious but small section of Indian society. We met many, many wonderful people on our travels, both men and women, although it was more than obvious that the women spoke with tourists far less than the men did. At least, back then.

Meanwhile, I never stopped wandering out alone in broad daylight. I just kept away from very crowded areas and more of a distance from anyone who looked as mad as that man in Mysore did.

Good luck to everyone taking part in the Memoirist Idol contest!

Cliff Hightower shared this powerful and beautiful tale depicting the complicated relationship and connection with his father. He brings to light what many of us feel when we experience both joy and pain in these relationships.