Batman goes Batmad

'The first time I saw

… the Billy goats. It was in Poznan when our group, a Croatian girl and 3 guys - Belgian, Peruvian and me the Indian, were attracting the locals with our sizes and colour contrasts. We felt exotic with the pavements turning into red carpets with each step in vicinity.

The path led all the way to the lady at the tourist office. We browsed the tourist map together and then we noticed the curious stuff printed on the back of the map – “Billy goats perform at 12:15”. The lady too just left the topic open – ‘you will see them at town hall at 12:15’.

It was nine in the morning. We got more puzzled with the mention of Billy goats at more places in the city. We even saw a statue. Excitement grew and by 11:00 it became the ‘must’ thing to do in Poznan. The aspiring placards hanging all over the city to motivate the locals to learn English and German didn’t find us an equally aspiring candidate who could speak one. Still mysterious, we were prepared to witness the horns lock, analogous to the infamous but banned Cock-fights in India.

We just expected it to be a typical stuff meant for the tourists. On the contrary, the locals started to gather around 12. In an open area which could hold 200 people, it went to a jam-packed additional hundred. The crowd on that narrow street were heads-up over the 6 storied town-hall with many doors. We just prepared ourselves to see an imposing puppet show from all the doors. By 12:10 all the cameras went up. With so many locals there, we exchanged appreciative looks of getting to a right place at the right time. 12:15, recorded trumpet sounds begin to fill in the air with grandeur. On the 6th storey of the town hall, almost not clear to the naked eye from the ground, a foot long two wooden goats come out the wooden door on extended rams. The gears turned them around and they locked horns and went back in again with the trumpet sounds. With an event which hardly lasted a minute, the locals were filled with complete satisfaction. We looked at each other – “What the heck just happened now?!”

Further inquiry revealed that it’s an event to celebrate a polish legend, where two goats fooled the chef and ran all above the town-hall . The king was casual enough to excuse the chef from being executed, but he appreciated the goats for their intelligence and laughed over it. Since then, they are considered to be remembrance of good times. We just said “Meh ... All in the game” and strolled further on our red carpet.