Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: If you live anywhere that gets really warm in the summers,
Speaker 1: you know what a heat wave can do to your
Speaker 1: blood pressure. Trying to work or even sleep when you're
Speaker 1: covered with sweat is downright miserable. And the last thing
Speaker 1: you want to deal with is other sticky, irritable people.
Speaker 1: But when you can't escape your neighbors, when heat and
Speaker 1: overcrowding get out of control, it creates a recipe for disaster,
Speaker 1: and a single spark can sent an entire population spiraling
Speaker 1: from frustration into madness. Allow me to set the scene
Speaker 1: for you. It's May of two thousand and one in Delhi,
Speaker 1: the capital of India and one of the most populous
Speaker 1: cities in the world. May is the height of summer there,
Speaker 1: and temperatures are creeping above one hundred and ten degrees fahrenheit.
Speaker 1: You're at home, in your sweltering apartment with no air conditioning,
Speaker 1: just a single electric fan humming away. As night falls,
Speaker 1: you anxiously wonder if you're in for yet another sleepless night,
Speaker 1: but you douse yourself in cold water, turn off the lights,
Speaker 1: and try to ignore the heat. And then just as
Speaker 1: you're starting to drift off, the power goes out. It's
Speaker 1: a rolling blackout, a common measure on hot nights when
Speaker 1: the grid is stretched past its breaking point. But now
Speaker 1: you don't even have your fan, and the apartment is
Speaker 1: starting to feel like a furnace. So what do you do?
Speaker 1: Like many desperate people around the city, you climb out
Speaker 1: onto the rooftop or balcony and try to sleep there.
Speaker 1: It's still ridiculously hot, and now you've got the mosquitoes
Speaker 1: to contend with, not to mention the risks of sleeping
Speaker 1: outside in an overcrowded neighborhood, but at this point you're
Speaker 1: desperate for sleep, so you stretch out and that's when
Speaker 1: you hear it, a faint thumping sound, like something banging
Speaker 1: on metal. As it grows louder, you realize that someone
Speaker 1: is climbing up the drain pipe. Could it be a
Speaker 1: neighbor from one of the other apartments. Who's gotten locked
Speaker 1: out or is it thieves? Whatever it is, the sounds
Speaker 1: keep getting louder until you can't bear the anticipation anymore.
Speaker 1: You peer over the balcony. In your mind goes blank.
Speaker 1: The person climbing toward you isn't a person at all.
Speaker 1: It's a monkey or something with a distinctly ape like face.
Speaker 1: It's between four and five feet tall, covered in shaggy
Speaker 1: black fur, and wearing what looks like a motorcycle helmet.
Speaker 1: It would be downright comical if it weren't for the
Speaker 1: shiny metal claws on its fingertips, which are currently lashing
Speaker 1: out straight toward you. The claws rake across your arms,
Speaker 1: drawing blood. You fall back in horror and pain, but
Speaker 1: the creature is already on the move. It leaps to
Speaker 1: the next building, then down into the alleyway, where it
Speaker 1: takes off into the darkness on rollerblades. It's a wild story, right.
Speaker 1: The world is full of strange cryptids, but a rollerblading
Speaker 1: monkey man hybrid with metal claws is definitely up there
Speaker 1: for oddness. And if this were an isolated incident, it
Speaker 1: would be easy to dismiss. But my friends it was
Speaker 1: not not at all. On the first night, fifteen people
Speaker 1: reported seeing the creature. Many of them sustained serious injuries
Speaker 1: in the form of bruises, bites, and scratches, and things
Speaker 1: only get worse from there. The following day there were
Speaker 1: fifty attacks. Then the fatalities began. Two men fell to
Speaker 1: their deaths from rooftops after screaming that they were being
Speaker 1: pursued by the monkey Man. Newspapers dubbed it the Black Monkey.
Speaker 1: They eagerly published the most sensational reports, alongside photos of
Speaker 1: by and scratches. Fanning the flames of hysteria, bands of
Speaker 1: vigilantes took to the streets, beating up anyone they deemed
Speaker 1: suspiciously harry. Meanwhile, the phones of the Delhi police kept
Speaker 1: ringing off the hook with sightings of the creature, and then,
Speaker 1: after about two weeks, it all came to a screeching halt.
Speaker 1: The calls slowed to a trickle, and the vigilantes went home. Oddly,
Speaker 1: no suspects had been arrested. The monkey man, if there
Speaker 1: ever was such a figure, was still at large, and
Speaker 1: to this day the mystery has not been solved. So
Speaker 1: what happened well, according to the official explanation it was
Speaker 1: all the case of mass hysteria, which seems incredible considering
Speaker 1: how many people it affected, But on closer inspection, there
Speaker 1: wasn't much similarity between the many wounds that were treated.
Speaker 1: Some could have been from stray dogs or rats, while
Speaker 1: others might have been from normal monkeys. Deli boasts a
Speaker 1: population of over twenty five thousand primates. After all, looking back,
Speaker 1: maybe the monkey man really was a group delusion, induced
Speaker 1: by stress and exacerbated by sensational tabloid reporting. But you
Speaker 1: have to think the city's monkeys must have been dealing
Speaker 1: with the heat as well, so maybe one of them
Speaker 1: was having a really bad day and just needed a
Speaker 1: way to cool off. In nineteen eighty four, amidst the
Speaker 1: tumult of the Soviet Afghan War, photographer Steve McCurry embarked
Speaker 1: on a mission. He was hired by National Geographic to
Speaker 1: document the harrowing reality of refugee camps along the border
Speaker 1: of Afghanistan and Pakistan. These camps provided a fragile sanctuary
Speaker 1: for the displaced masses fleeting the war. McCurry's journey took
Speaker 1: him through a labyrinthine network of thirty camps. One of
Speaker 1: these camps, known as Nasir bag became the focal point
Speaker 1: of his expedition. Established in nineteen eighty, Nasir Bog's population,
Speaker 1: at one point reached one hundred thousand. As he walked
Speaker 1: through the camp, McCurry stumbled upon a scene that altered
Speaker 1: the course of his career. A small school for girls.
Speaker 1: One of the fifteen girls stood out, a twelve year
Speaker 1: old with piercing green eyes. When McCurry lifted his lens,
Speaker 1: the girl shielded her face, a silent gesture of defiance
Speaker 1: against a world that had turned its back on her plight.
Speaker 1: But her teacher urged her to reveal herself. She wanted
Speaker 1: the world to see. The girl complied, and in that
Speaker 1: moment of vulnerability, McCurry captured an image that would reverberate
Speaker 1: across the globe, a portrait of resilience and the suffering
Speaker 1: of a nation torn apart by war. The photograph was
Speaker 1: published in the June nineteen eighty five edition of National Geographic,
Speaker 1: and because McCurry didn't have a translator with him that day,
Speaker 1: he simply titled the photo the Afghan Girl. The young
Speaker 1: girl didn't know it, but the photo made her the
Speaker 1: poster child for her people's hardship. Something about her unreadable
Speaker 1: gaze equally haunted and inspired viewers. Soon people around the
Speaker 1: world began referring to this image as the Afghan Mona Lisa.
Speaker 1: But for McCurry this was just the beginning. He returned
Speaker 1: to Afghanistan throughout his career, and then in January of
Speaker 1: two thousand and two, McCurry learned that the Nasir Bog
Speaker 1: camp was being closed. He and a team from National
Speaker 1: Geographic returned to the country once more, this time in
Speaker 1: search of a girl who had changed the world. By now,
Speaker 1: she'd be about thirty years old. When he arrived back
Speaker 1: in Nasir Bag, McCurry spoke to many of the people
Speaker 1: still there. With nothing but the photo of the Afghan
Speaker 1: girl and the little information he had, he and his
Speaker 1: team eventually found someone who claimed to know the woman's brother.
Speaker 1: That person sent word to the family that McCurry was
Speaker 1: looking for her. Finally, McCurry and his team were sent
Speaker 1: to a remote region of Afghanistan. There, amidst the desolate
Speaker 1: beauty of the landscape, they found her, a woman weathered
Speaker 1: by time and circumstance, yet bearing the same steely resolved
Speaker 1: that had captivated the photographer decades earlier. In that moment
Speaker 1: of reunion, time seemed to stand still as McCurry beheld
Speaker 1: the Afghan Girl once more. As he captured her image anew,
Speaker 1: he was struck by the familiarity of her gaze. She
Speaker 1: posed for the camera the same way she did all
Speaker 1: those years before, face turned toward the lens, eyes lit
Speaker 1: with resolve. Later IRIS recognition technology helped confirm that the
Speaker 1: woman was indeed the Afghan Girl, and the world finally
Speaker 1: learned her name as well, Sharbat Gula. She was a
Speaker 1: mother and a widow, and although she recalled being photographed
Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties, it wasn't until she met McCurry
Speaker 1: in two thousand and two that she laid eyes on
Speaker 1: the iconic image. Seeing the photograph probably brought her back
Speaker 1: to that painful time in her life. Her parents had
Speaker 1: been killed when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, and she traveled
Speaker 1: to Nasir Bag by foot with her sister's brother and grandmother.
Speaker 1: Gula's journey became a testament to the indomitable human spirit
Speaker 1: in the face of adversity. For over a decade following
Speaker 1: her meeting with McCurry, Gula continued to suffer displacement as
Speaker 1: a result of the conflict in Afghanistan, but in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: the Afghan government gifted her a house to call her home.
Speaker 1: In the annals of history, the Afghan Girl remains more
Speaker 1: than just a photograph. She is a symbol of the
Speaker 1: enduring human spirit, and in the eyes of Steve McCurry,
Speaker 1: she's a reminder of photography's power to transcend borders. I
Speaker 1: hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.