Attacked

Rs, I was attacked in broad daylight yesterday. I can still feel the chafing on my forearms where their little fingers scrabbled for purchase.

I was walking with three colleagues in Bangalore, and we decided to go to Cobben Park to look at some big imposing government buildings. They were okay -- one of them had the quote "Government work is God's work" inscribed in big gold letters high up its facade, and I liked that. We then wandered through the park, which was a typically Indian hodgepodge of nice trees and carefully tended gardens and unkempt muddy paths and rotting garbage and people sleeping and socializing on benches and screaming traffic. You get the picture (actually, you probably can't, but I can't describe it to you any better). At one point, a band of five or six children ran up to us shouting "English! English!" They began by holding hands and kissing the arms of a couple members of their group, and then they turned to me. Before I knew it, I had two small dirty children on each arm and a couple wrapped around each leg. It started out funny, and I lifted up my arms to give them a ride. That only sent them into a more of a frenzy. The whole time, another child, slightly older, kept telling me calmly, "10 rupees", as if, if I gave him some cash, he could banish the rest of them. I wasn't willing, or even able to get to my wallet, however, and before long it got to be less funny, as the kids wouldn't let go. I didn't want to hurt them, but whichever part of my body I extracted left another part exposed and vulnerable. The kids weren't responding to "No!" or "Come on now" or "Enough!" as I hoped they might. My friends were looking on with increasing sympathy, but were equally helpless. I slogged forward. This went on until we passed a car that had an Indian guy sitting in it. He said something to the kids, and they let us go. I'd like to know what he told them -- or was he the ringleader and felt it was simply time to move on to other prey? A narrow escape. A harrowing few minutes.