The first Indian kid at our school once mentioned that he went home for lunch. We naturally assumed that this meant he made the journey back to India during his lunch hour, every day.

The details of his journey (by the elephant, which he kept tied up in the bike shed) became increasingly elaborate and this was made all the more charming (or insulting, depending on whether or not you are Ramish) by the fact that we didn't know a single thing about India, or Indian culture.

[log]I love this, but I get the feeling I'd love it more if you told me about these misinformed fantasies. If you can remember any of the best, please share...[/log]

They generally revolved around the indisputable fact that – like almost everyone in India – Ramish was some sort of king there. Unfortunately, his kingdom consisted mostly of ill-described mud huts, coconuts, bananas and little else. Also Tarzan was there sometimes.

Anyway, Ramish’s authority in his Indian kingdom was absolute and he regularly staged mass executions involving the coconuts. And he had exactly one hundred wives. Frankly, I’m not sure why he came back for double French in the afternoons. I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

The one thing we actually did know for certain about India is that all the elephants there have handprints painted on them. Therefore Ramish’s elephant was daubed with graffiti, mostly concerning his dad.

And rightly so, because his dad was a colonel in Ramish’s army and responsible for a genocide against whoever it was that Indians didn’t like. I think it might have been some other Indians.

Come to think about it, the genocide business is probably why Ramish’s dad moved to Darlington in the first place. It all finally makes sense.