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March 17, 2006

long day's journey into camp

I have had a phenomenally good break from the cricket at Kipling Camp. The camp is situated in the buffer zone of Kanha National Park in central India. But first I had to get there.

To do this I first had to fly to Nagpur again on an 05:55 flight. I had only had three hours sleep and had had to get up disgustingly early in order to wait for the plane that was delayed and turned out to be going via Raipur.

The man sat next to me on the plane was an Indian civil servant and was great fun, and explained to me the role that the English language plays in India – it is basically only used when people are giving instructions or when they are angry. He was also an enormous fan of Kenneth Williams, and indeed of all the stars of the Carry On films, and explained to me his favourite joke from Carry On Camping. It was slightly complicated and I got lost somewhere in the middle of it but it had something to do with Barbara Windsor and another girl trying to put up a tent with the help of two men and it all leading to some sort of horrendous sexual misunderstanding. Talking of which, he also told me I was handsome.

At Nagpur my luggage disappeared while I was in the loo, and I eventually tracked it down in a far flung office where a man told me that I needed to give him my boarding card to prove that the luggage was mine, but I could no longer find it. I showed him that the name on my passport matched the name on the luggage but he told me this was not good enough. I let a look of profound frustration flash across my face and he suddenly shrugged and relented, and handed me my suitcase with a “what’s a bit of luggage between friends anyway?” expression on his face.

Outside I found my driver, who was to drive me for the four hour journey to Kipling Camp. “How are you?” he asked. “Tired”, I told him. “Don’t worry, you can have a good sleep now” he told me, as he braked suddenly and frantically beeped the horn.

An hour outside Nagpur, I finally managed to fall asleep, but was awoken by the driver shouting. I looked up to see a lorry heading straight towards us as rounded a corner whilst overtaking a cart being pulled by a cow. I braced for impact, but my driver skilfully swerved off the road to let the lorry just squeeze past us, before he steered us to the right again and back onto the tarmac all in one smooth action. It was incredible stuff. He may even, although I could be wrong about this, have put his foot on the brake for a moment.

I was wide awake for the rest of the journey.

Posted by Miles.Jupp at March 17, 2006 2:05 PM

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