Saturday, July 4, 2009

The "Most Wanted" Experience


At the Melbourne Gaol, we got more than what we expected from it. Ned Kelly being the centre of all attractions, and in the process more than making up to the Australian government for what the bushranger had done in his days. He was an infamous Irish criminal, and the judgement passed on to him was debatable. We saw a play where the story was told from the point of view of Ned Kelly's mother. She performed very well.

We were also part of a mock court proceedings leading to the death sentence of Ned. Here ten volunteers from the junta were chosen for roles such as that of the Judge, barristers, the convict, alibis etc. Thats what was a bit disastrous, because one of the barristers didn't know proper English and was having difficulties reading from the play-script. And Ned Kelly was just bakait. An 8 year old kid doing the role. It was extremely hilarious with the proceedings controller having to prompt every second word and the kid pretending he knew it, but it was at the expense of the message of the play.


Besides roaming the cells, the hanging area and all ,and knowing about many strange and unjust cases of the past, we also took the Watch House visit, where we had the experience of being treated like a criminal by the police. They would give orders like facing the wall and clearing pockets etc and we were expected to follow them. Here I lost the plot midway when my mind wandered off to other things, and apparently, I learnt later from Kartik, that I was ordered to put my hands down 3 or more times before I actually did so. We were locked into a cell for some time as well.




In the afternoon we went to Docklands, where the view was majestic, and gave that aristocratic phoren feeling somehow.



Here we tried bunjee trampoline. It was fun.

We turned in early for tomorrow's tour.

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