The amazing adventures continue with No Kaam Sene

Part I : The amazing adventures of Eve Rao and Ever Reddy
Before Eve knew it, her honeymoon was over. Both were quick comers. And didn’t know what to do after the romp.
Married life was a radical change for Eve. It wasn’t just the change from East Coast to West Coast. Not just the Bay of Bengal-Arabian Sea problem. She had been married into a Reddy family transplanted from Cudappah (which is famous for land-grabbing, murders, extortions, so on and so forth) to Mangalore. A family that read only Deccan Herald. And that made Eve Reddy feel icky. She yearned for The New Indian Express, which is published from 14 centres and has a formidable presence in south India.
Days after Eve and Ever returned from their honeymoon in Karwar (beautiful place, an hour from Goa), she could still smell the feni-and-fanta on Ever. And she hated it. Just like the 501 pataka beedi that he was so fond of. She tried to point it out to Ever Reddy but he was never ready to listen.
Sitting in a corner after Ever Reddy had done his thing, Eve caught sight of The New Indian Express. Ever had brought fried fish head for her, and wrapped it in her favourite newspaper, not realizing Eve’s life was to change forever.
Eve started withdrawing into a shell from that day on. The sex was still A-class but the nagging had begun. She used to scold Ever for sitting around paan shops, playing cards and smoking his 501 pataka beedi. Ever was an unskilled labourer and his services could be availed by anyone on payment of Rs 100. Sometimes, he would get a bottle of the local brew as well.
Eve wanted him to get a pucca job and not hang around all day with rowdy elements (that’s the favourite phrase in south India) of the No Kaam Sene. But Ever would have none of it. He liked his saffron-clad buddies. And the going was good, he often told her.
“Look, Oriyas are coming here in their droves. They are taking over all our fishing jobs. They want to work hard. Let them. All we need to do is slap them around for our hafta. We are the nakaam sene (it was the No Kaam Sene, but Ever was never good at pronounciation).”
The No Kaam Sene had been observing for a while that young men and women were coming from “naarth India” to study at Manipal University and were going to pubs and bars.
No Kaam Sene had to contend with “apna haath jagannath” (loosely translated: self service) when these young men and women were free to change partners and were enjoying themselves. There was also another dimension to the hole (okay, whole) problem: No Kaam Sene had been inspired by the BJP and wanted to use Hindutva to get a seat in Parliament or the local legislature. That inter-caste marriages had wrecked the social fabric of Mangalore was an added advantage. They found just the right ingredient to start a fire.
One fine day, members of the No Kaam Sene decided to attack a church (out you beef-eating, pork-chomping, Bible-reading, peace-loving guys, they said) in a very peaceful neighbourhood in Mangalore. That had a domino effect. Soon, churches were being attacked in Bangalore and the No Kaam Sene had finally found a cause.
When Eve got to know of Ever’s role in the attack, she questioned him once. She had had Christian friends in school and knew it was wrong. The second time she pointed it out to him was when Ever went limp in bed.
“See this is because you attacked all those innocent people. God is punishing you.”
Hearing Eve make fun of her masculinity, Ever beat her black and blue. And he quite liked it. No resistance, he thought. Those Oriyas sometimes hit back, he said to himself.
And then it became a regular affair. He was practicing for bigger things in life, Ever told Eve.
Once when he demanded that Eve spread her legs for her, she refused.
“Never, Reddy,” she thought, and after being beaten black and blue, went to sleep. Next morning, before Ever could wake up, she was gone. Forever.
“Who needs a man anyway.” she said, thinking about the article she had read in The New Indian Express, which is published from 14 centres and has a formidable presence in south India. She had read that sperm cells could be produced from a woman’s bone marrow and -- technically -- there was no need for a man for getting pregnant.
In fact, it was this development that had got the No Kaam Sene worried. And that is why they had decided to attack churches (the West – and Christian doctors -- had made the discovery).
Ever was a little distraught after Eve left. Now he became Ever Reddy to attack women.
One fine evening, he and other members of No Kaam Sene assembled outside a pub which had became the rage within about 20 days of its launch. It was called something, but I forget.
Ever’s practice came in handy. He entered the pub, murmured a prayer with his friends and then went on the rampage. He slapped a couple of girls around. Unluckily for him, at least two of them turned out to be daughters of VIPs, one of them the ward of a friend of Women and Child Development Minister Renuka Chowdhury’s. Soon, national media was condemning the attack on women in Mangalore. Ever was picked up for questioning and sent to judicial custody. No Kaam Sene suddenly had a lot of work to do – torch buses, damage trucks, attack pubs.
Ever had suddenly become a national hero (or villain, depends on which way you look at it).

Tomorrow: The rise and rise of Ever and No Kaam Sene

The amazing adventures of Eve Rao and Ever Reddy

Eve Rao had a simple life. Growing up in Kadambadi, some 90 km from Chennai, paddy fields, the sun-kissed land and the frothing sea were her constant companion. Eve was growing into a beautiful young lady, just like the land she tilled – tender, fertile and ripe for harvesting. By day, Eve would dream about her knight in shining armour, striding through the paddy fields (which had windmills, by the way), making a mess of the harvest and sweeping her off her feet. Her long, coconut oil-smeared hair would flow with the breeze as the horse and her knight (who turned out to be a lanky, mundu-wearing, paan-chewing, drinking-himself-silly dark chap) galloped into the fields. By night, she would dream about getting wet in the paddy fields with her amorous lover, making love, and a lot of noise, under the stars.
Her heart missed a beat one fine Wednesday morning when her father announced that he had fixed a match for her. Eve started thinking about a man with broad shoulders and a broader outlook. Eve was no big fan of Tamil movies (which was kind of strange) but she did often fantasise about singing and dancing around trees and changing her outfit with each changing stanza.
At this point, it is necessary to describe Eve a little better to ensure continuity of this story. The dimple-on-her-chin-devil-within girl loved reading. Her favourite newspaper was The New Indian Express, which, by the way, is published from 14 centres in India and has a formidable reach in South India. She did not particularly like the Deccan Chronicle, riddled as it was with poor grammar. ToI had not yet come to Tamil Nadu even though it had grand plans (she called it cock-teasing, God knows why). The Hindu was seriously good -- it never failed to put her to sleep and was much better than counting sheep anyway. She loved Mills and Boon, just like young women of her age. Joseph Heller was her favourite, even though nothing happened to her after reading Something Happened.
As Eve put one her face powder (it is an obsession with most Tamilians), pouted her lips and checked whether the lipstick was quite alright, the boy (nay, man) arrived. He was ushered in, served buttermilk and murukku and Eve’s father tried to make him feel comfortable.
And then Eve was summoned. Her heart was beating faster than a coconut peeler having a go at the nut (which is incredulous). Entering the room, Eve tried to catch a glance at her knight (he was dark, seriously!).
You can understand the moment only if you have seen a coconut peeler at work. It was like that last blow on the tender skin when the water spurts out (if you didn’t get the analogy: premature ejaculation).
“Reddy,” he said.
“Ever Reddy,” he added.
Was he a fan of Ian Fleming? We will never know.
Eve went weak in the knees. That husky voice. Those broad shoulders (and a broader outlook too, hopefully). That 6 foot frame.
Rajinikanth, Clark Gable, Cary Grant, James Dean, Suriya thought Eve.
Sex, sex, sex, sex, sex, thought Ever Reddy (it was his name, not his surname that made Reddy that way).
It was love at first sight, the mundu notwithstanding.
The date was fixed. August 15, 2005. Eve wanted to break free (and her hymen, of course). Ever Reddy was ever ready to oblige.
Just 35 moons had to pass.

Tomorrow: Eve and Ever’s honeymoon.

The truth about Satyam is out there

I was in Delhi on the morning of Whacky Wednesday, reading horror stories about a young woman who had been violated by a group of boys in Noida. The lady in question, a 24-year-old MBA student of an upmarket B-School, was returning from an upmarket shopping mall with a friend of hers when the boys, returning after a cricket match, cornered the duo at a secluded place. The boys forced them to another secluded place outside their village and forced themselves upon her. The girl was courageous enough to report the matter to the Noida police and the culprits were arrested soon after.
Nothing shocks me anymore about Delhi and its suburbs but this incident was way too terrible. The village elders justified the boys’ crime saying city slickers have spoilt their culture. How dare this man have one woman in his car, they asked, when boys in their village go to schools where there is one girl for around 15 boys.
What’s the big deal, they asked.
Just as I was shaking my head in disbelief, TV started flashing news of the biggest fraud of our times. (Note to self: Really?) Satyam’s Ramalingu Raju had been lying through his teeth about the financial health of his company. Just as Warren Buffett, the legendary investor, thinks silver is the final frontier, our erstwhile tycoon thought land was the best bet and was accumulating vast tracts of it – over 6,000 acres, to be precise. This, apparently, led to his fall from grace.
What’s the big deal, I asked.
Agreed that he committed a breach of trust and conspired to cheat people. Many of our PSUs went sick more or less in the same fashion.
But whom exactly did Raju cheat?
The investor? The man who looked at the balance sheets of the company and invested his hard-earned wealth and then some to benefit from India’s IT story? Probably not. Because most investors in India are gamblers anyway, making money out of intra-day trade or by profiting from a company’s growth but exiting at the first sign of trouble. And in any case, some are still buying the Satyam stock after it hit Rs 6.90 on Friday coming down from its peak of Rs 542 in May last year.
The Indian janta? The people who used to crow about how home-grown companies such as Infosys, Wipro, TCS and Satyam are taking on the world? Probably not. Because public memory is short and most won’t skip their breakfast just because one Raju managed to fool all the people all the time (well, almost).
The media? Those beacons of light who religiously report that a substantial number of the richest in the world are Indians? The people (yours truly included) who got fooled into going gaga over Satyam winning awards for corporate governance? (Of all the things, imagine!) Probably not. Because they’ll have their revenge anyway.
My guess is that the only people Raju really cheated are his employees. Those 53,000 people (note to self: update the figure after the real audit) who toiled day and night for him. Those 53,000 people who thought their lives were made and bought cars and homes on huge loans looking at their 8-figure salaries. Those 53,000 people who were the darling of all marketers then but no bank wants to touch now.
The young woman in Noida will probably never get over her trauma and will forever be scared of young men, especially when she sees a crowd.
The employees of Satyam will probably never get over the shock of daylight robbery and will forever be scared of balance sheets, especially when they look for the next job.
And the investor, the Indian janta or the media? Oh, never mind them. They will find many more Rajus and Satyams to slap around in the days to come.

Singapore's sixth sense

“Please sit to be waited”.
The writing was on the menu. What else did you expect? “Please wait to be seated”?
Actually, that is exactly what I expected and the sudden turn of words caught my attention. I looked around to see what it was.
The Insanity Restaurant.
Ah! That felt like home. It was by the riverside (or rather canalside) in Clark Quay, a throbbing drinking/eating joint where the music never stops and the beer flows like water.
On an earlier trip to Singapore, I had noticed a syringe in the public loo at Clark Quay and was determined to find more interesting things. In Singapore, drub peddling is punishable by death. Everything else is punishable by a debilitating fine. Pressing the emergency button in a train without an emergency attracts a fine of $5000 (Singapore). That’s roughly Rs 1.6 lakh. I guess that’s why there's no nuisance in Singapore. There is an amazing amount of freedom that the government allows provided people behave. You could buy a six-pack of beer from 7/11 (which is open 24 hours in Singapore. Somehow defeats the 7 am-11 pm concept the stores are named after) and park yourself on the retaining wall of the river (oops, canal). As long as you don’t bother anybody, nobody bothers you.
So there I was. Trying to find things more interesting than syringes in Clark Quay while music was blaring from all sorts of pubs/restaurants. (There’s one called The Clinic. Wheelchairs double up as chairs. Operating tables serve as, well, tables.) It so happened that an Indian fellow talking loudly on his cell (as most Indians do) was walking ahead of me. There was this girl standing in a corner, dressed very casually. The moment she saw this loud Indian, her arms arched back and she was trying to tie her hair into a bun. Well, that wasn’t her primary intention but I don’t want to be too graphic. She asked the loud Indian something, he refused and she looked sullen. She turned to me and, I must admit, I turned red. She was a fairly attractive girl who looked more Indian than a Singaporean. She asked me if there was something she could do for me.
“I’m looking for a taxi,” I said.
Her eyes brightened.
“I’m going home,” I said. Actually, it sounded more like “Mama, I’m coming home” to me but I guess she got the point. She quickly turned and started talking to another man who was headed that way.
I hurried back towards the Insanity Restaurant. Just as I turned a corner, there was a heavily made-up girl.
“Hello,” she said.
“Hi! How are you?” I asked.
“Where would like to go tonight?”
The girl was pretty blunt, I must admit. But it sounded too much like Bill Gates’ “where would you like to go today?”
“Home?” I asked of her, sheepishly.
She didn’t even bother to respond.
I had my two pints of beer and while I was heading towards the taxi stand, I saw both the girls standing together, still looking for customers.
Today, I realize why Singapore is much ahead of us. Those guys knew then (in August) that a major downturn was coming (no pun intended!).

Laidback life in Laccadives

Read this amzing piece in the Daily Telegraph about travel in Lakshadweep, earlier known as Laccadives. The clutch of islands are located of the coast of Kerala, India and have been left untouched by commercialisation (which is just a wee bit sad). The capital Kavaratti is out of bounds for foreigners (I didn't know that!). Read it here and drop me a line at ravijos@gmail.com. I will tell you of a place which is not of bounds for foreigners, is pretty close to the mainland and is yet way out there. Enjoy the piece on Laccadives called Islands of innocence

Mahabalipuram rocks!

If you manage to turn a blind eye to the busloads of fussing Indian tourists, the occasional lecher who thinks earth girls are easy -- and those from the West doubly so – and the scores of salesmen trying to gyp you and even offering their services as an escort, Mahabalipuram is a nice place to be in for a day or two.
I rate it as one of my favourite short-haul destinations (but way below the ones I liked when I was in Delhi). Not just because it is close to Chennai (just about 55 km) and the drive is beautiful (the Bay of Bengal on your right hand side and palm groves on your left) or because it is a haven for the foreign tourist (from backpackers to the well-heeled). But because it stands testimony to what man can achieve.
History is engraved into the rocks in Mahabalipuram. In fact the whole town looks like it has emerged out of stone.
And what beautiful structures they are. Be it Krishna's Butter Ball (picture below) which gives you the creeps if you stand under it (it looks like the ‘ball’ can slip any time) or the Shore Temple which is one of the seven (or was it nine?) temples built in this ancient town. You can still get a glimpse of the ones submerged in the sea but you have to be a daredevil to do that. Here's how:

Hire a fisherman's catamaran for about Rs 500 ($13, roughly) to take you into the sea. If you are a foreigner, be prepared to be asked for something like Rs 2,000 ($50, approx). Don't forget to ask him for life jackets and a rope. About one nautical mile into the sea you will see bubbles coming out of the water. At first I thought it was a whale or something (that was my first time in the sea, you see) but the fishermen were wiser. This is the place the temples were built and now the sea has engulfed them.
And from that spot, you see the Shore Temple, the lighthouse behind it and a faint glimpse of all the other structures carved out of rock. The structures are monolithic, mind you, which makes you wonder about our predecessors’s skills even more.
Coming back to the overcharging foreigners are subjected to, there is this Five Rathas temple in Mahabalipuram (see pictures of the complex belolw).

The entry to this temple for Indians is Rs 10 (25 pence, roughly). But for foreigners it is Rs 250 ($6, approx). No additional facilities are provided to the foreigner though which I find not only strange but also unfair. I am an Indian but I am ashamed of this mentality of our government.
The other problem I have with the government is the way it maintains our heritage. There are no signboards to tell you the history of the place, there are very few toilets around… the list could go on forever.
But once you visit the temples in Mahabalipuram all those rants just fade away. All the monolithic structures here are about 5 minutes walk (at best) from each other. You could even hire a bullock cart to go from spot to the other and relive the village way of life.
It should not take you more than a couple of hours to see all the structures, even after extracting information about them from the local guides. So then what do you do in Mahabalipuram?
This is what you can do.
There is the sea so you could lie on the beach all day, if you don’t mind a bunch of fishermen or tourists staring at you. Or you could get into the shacks on the beach and try some fresh seafood and wash it down with a mug of beer. (Most hotels/restaurants in Mahabalipuram only stock beer. If you are looking for a shot of vodka or a glass of wine, head to GRT Temple Bay or Fortune Beach Resort.)
Or you could sit in Nautilus Café or Moonraker and watch the world go by in slow motion. These cafes are not too far from the beach (about 400 metres, say) and many like them also have hammocks where you could just let your hair down, catch a book and let the beer flow.
Or you could book yourself a room in Ideal Beach Resort, some 5 km from Mahabalipuram. The resort is beautifully done, has a private beach, has all the facilities like Internet, Ayurveda massage etc. You can even rent bicycles here to take a leisurely ride into Mahabalipuram and explore it at your own pace.
Or you could try out the kinkier stuff. If you’ve ever been to India you will realize there is no dearth of such activities in places frequented by foreign tourists.
Or you could do what I do in Mahabalipuram. After strolling on the beach all day, I head to GRT Temple Bay and have their buffet. It’s a lovely hotel with a private beach, a café right by the sea, a great swimming pool and fantastic service. After dinner, I zoom back to Chennai and think about the day well spent.
Try it sometime. Take it from me, you won’t be disappointed.

Next week's post: Weekend in Pondicherry

Why you should drink only wine

The wine lobby is pushing its products hard. They tell us that wine fights cancer, stems ageing, keeps your teeth white etc etc. Sample some of the stories:

Researchers have found that resveratrol, a compound present in the skin of red grapes used to make wine, curbs the effects of ageing. The natural compound is already known to having anti-cancer as well as anti-inflammatory properties. Read the full story here


A new research conducted by scientists at the University of Virginia Health System has revealed that a compound found in Red wine called resveratrol starves cancer cells by inhibiting the action of a key protein that feeds them.
Read the full story here
Researchers have revealed that components found in red wine can help in preventing and treating inflammatory periodontal diseases.
Recent studies have also shown that red wine, and particularly grape seeds, possesses anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor activities and prevent heart disease. Mechanisms by which these phenolic compounds exert their protective effects include their anti-oxidant properties. Read the full story here

All that is very nice. The only question I have is: Won’t you get the same benefits if you eat grapes.
But then, getting wasted is soooo heavenly.

Never take things for granted (a cool video)

Terrible, terrible tragedies

First the cyclone in Myanmar. Then the massive quake in China. And now the blasts in Jaipur.
Looking for pictures to print in the paper is becoming an increasingly tough task these days. I've seen a lot of deaths -- both in person and through the tragedies we journalists have to cover.
But the past few days have been unbearable. To give you an idea of what we look at day in and day out and try to bring the most telling, the most moving picture:

This woman's knees gave way the moment she identified her child's body.


Parents grieve over graves of children who died when a shool building collapsed after the quake. These people had been forced to adopt the one-child policy. Now they have nothing to live for.


And just to give you a sense of how powerful the China quake was:

This boulder, nay a hillock, came crashing down because of the quake.


And then there are images from Myanmar. I selected one of a woman who gave birth two days after the cyclone struck. Don't have the picture now, but essentially her story was this: She can't lactate because there is no food. And the baby is being fed contaminated water from a drain as there is nothing else there.
And the fucking junta is not letting in aid. Of course the fucking world wants to send in aid and take fucking control, that's why the junta is so fucking scared. But what the hell. Is this what children are supposed to eat. Is this how they are supposed to live?


The only saving grace is that we still have people like them who work for others' welfare till they drop:

Let the Games begin, with a coup

At a concert in Shanghai on March 4 this year, Icelandic singer Bjork ended her performance by shouting “Tibet! Tibet!” People attending the concert felt very uneasy when the shouts came after the singer’s passionate performance of her song “Declare independence”. They did not boo, but left the Shanghai International Gymnastic Center hurriedly.
Bjork had effectively set the tone for the protests that were to follow during the Olympic torch relay.
Spirited efforts were made by Tibetan protesters and their supporters all over the world to attract attention to the China’s 58-year rule over the formerly independent region.
But nothing proved more devastating for China as an incident a few days back.
A factory in China’s Guangdong province, which neighbours Hong Kong, was found to be producing flags for the Tibetan government-in-exile. The order has been placed abroad, possibly by Tibetan protesters. Thousands of flags had been made and packed off to Hong Kong, where the red, blue and yellow mast with two lions is not banned.
The factory was raided on April 20 after some workers found the flag familiar. They looked up television footage of the protests and checked on the Internet and their worst fears came true – they had been helping their arch-enemies in their protests around the world and in Hong Kong where the torch arrived on Wednesday.
For the Tibetan who considers the Dalai Lama to be his true leader, this meant a coup d’ etat of sorts.
For the staunch Chinese, it was a slap on the face with only one saving grace – that the Chinese government’s propaganda and crackdown had ensured that the average Joe does not even know what the Tibetan flag looks like.
For the intelligent journalist, it was a Page One story.
Francis Ford Copolla’s Kundun, Heinrich Harrer’s Seven Years in Tibet, and Bjork’s support for Tibet at the Shanghai concert pushed support for the region several notches higher. But the average Delhiite is already sold on the cause – most decision-makers in the corridors of power today were fed on a staple diet of chhang (rice beer), momos and dirt-cheap apparel in Majnu Ka Tila, the Tibetan homeland in Delhi.
So it was no surprise that the Tibetans had their hopes pinned high on Delhi, which has the highest number of Tibetans – and supporters of their cause – outside of Tibet. The Indian government allowed them to take out a parallel torch relay, something no other government did or could do. But the protesters were hopeful of a stronger, more symbolic protest.
Word on the street was that they had roped in at least one of the participants of the torch relay to run with the flame in hand and a “Free Tibet” banner on his chest. But the elaborate security arrangements and the truncated run ensured that no such thing happened.

A hair-raising experience

Going for a haircut is one of my favourite pastimes in Chennai. The salon owner promptly switches on the AC and the TV playing a Tamil movie – or better still -- Sun TV-type sexy siren songs – as I slouch into the chair and let him have a go at my mane.
Despite the general calm I experience sitting on that chair, I have, at least thrice, noticed that my instructions to the hair-dresser go unnoticed, unheeded. I like to wear my hair really short – especially the sides and the back -- and I tell him that before I slouch into the chair and he switches on the AC and the TV playing the sexy siren songs. But everytime I come out of the salon looking like a baboon.
He keeps the hair long from the sides and back, crops it short from the top and leaves a tuft of hair that curls up like Dev Anand’s.
So this time I wanted to make sure that I got a haircut the way I wanted it – so I mustered up enough courage to tell him how to do it. (As an aside, you have to be really careful not to anger your barber… you know the kind of ‘mistakes’ they can make)
So I started off in English.
“Short from the sides and back, short from top so that I don’t need to use a comb.”
“Wokay”. Just like he says everytime I tell him that.
“No. Listen. Do you know Hindi?”
I knew I had pissed him off. H stared at me for exactly three seconds.
“Maloom. Maloom. Bolo.” (I know, I know. Speak up) and then he exhaled, just like someone does when too much adrenaline wells up in your body. And that happens just before you hit out.
So I repeated the instructions in Hindi.
“Wokay.”
And he started off.
Within five minutes he was done.
And I was again looking like a baboon. My hair long from the sides and back, short from top and a tuft curling up like Dev Anand’s.
“Wokay?” he asked as he showed me a mirror.
“No short from the sides and back. Short from the top like I told you so.” I said all that in Hindi.
He started off again. Finished in five minutes. I was still looking a baboon. And you know the rest about how my hair looked.
“Short from the back and sides,” I said.
No wokay this time. He sighed and called his partner. They mumbled something to each other and my barber then nodded his head.
I can bet my life it was something nasty that they discussed because my barber took out his razor.
“Not with a razor, I don’t want it that short.”
So the two partners conferred some more and my barber took out what we call a “zero machine”. It’s used to give you a haircut like Aamir Khan’s these days.
“No. With a scissor.”
If this scene were playing out in the The Godfather, this was the time my barber would have pulled out a string and garroted me – just like Peter Clemenza did to Carlo Rizzi in the movie.
Thankfully, I was in a salon in Chennai with no Sicilian connections whatsoever. I doubt very much if my barber has seen The Godfather, however film-crazy this state is.
So I walked out content that I had stood my ground despite the threats and got the haircut just like the way I had wanted it.
Back home I found that my barber had had the last laugh. He cut one of my sideburns short despite express instructions not to touch them.
Well, every barber has his day.

No fast lanes in Chennai

“Why Chennai?”
“Are you alright?”
“I can get you a job here in Delhi if you want.”
These were the typical responses I got when I told my friends I was shifting to Chennai from Delhi. Later when they realized I was serious about moving to the South, the responses were something like this:
“Let me know if you need help down there.”
“Any day you want to come back, just give me a call.”
My dear friend Pallav was okay with the decision after the usual “WHY?” He had studied and started his career in Chennai so he knew a bit about the place. He told me that the city was nice. “It is a metropolis without the trappings of a metro.”
I couldn’t fathom how right he was till I landed in Chennai.
Coming from a place which is forever on the move, Chennai was a bit of a shocker. I go to my local grocer every day to buy bread, eggs etc. The grocer is about 200m away and it takes me about half-a-minute to get there (yes, environmentalists. I am your greatest enemy. I drive even for a distance of 200 m). But it takes me about 40 minutes to get a loaf of bread and half-a-dozen eggs. Why? Because the shopkeeper talks on the phone for 10 minutes before moving his butt. Then even as he is picking out the eggs, his friend – the shopkeeper next door – says something to him and they start talking (BTW: In Chennai, even when two people are joking, to an outsider it sounds like they are about to come to blows.)
This is a great city.
At department stores – even big chains like Reliance – you have to wait in queue for about 20 minutes before you are served. And it’s not because there’s a huge crowd. Because the guy or girl supposed to be manning the counter decides to take a chat break. And then, even the manager can’t get her back to the counter.
Nearly every day, I drive behind an auto going at a speed of 15 kmph. When I somehow manage to overtake from the wrong side, I find there is a long trail of vehicles following a couple of cyclists who are talking and not giving anyone the way. The road ahead of them would be completely empty. And people behind the cyclists wouldn’t care either.
I thought money talks everywhere. It can’t utter a word in Chennai, it seems. I often ask my watchman to go to the market for me. I offer him money. But he just refuses. I ask a lot of my Men Friday to do something extra for me in return for a generous tip. They don’t bother.
This is a strange city.
But there's one upshot to it. I'm now thinking of buying a cycle or a scooty for a lazy ride around town. When I can take it easy -- even take the cycle to office. How many of us in Delhi or Bombay can think of doing that.

My years in Pakistan

A lot of people keep asking me about my experience in Pakistan – I spent nearly 4 years in Islamabad. So I decided to write about it here, even though the Pakistan I lived in was very different from the one we read about in the papers now. But anyway…

The first time I went to Pakistan was in March 1992. I took a train from Delhi till Amritsar and then a taxi till the Attari border. You have to cross the border on foot – but only foreigners or diplomats can do that. The average Indian or Pakistani tourist has to either take the train (Samjhauta) or get on a flight. It was a beautiful day – the sky was overcast and as people in Delhi know March is a beautiful month in that part of the country. If you drive down from Amritsar to Islamabad you do so on the GT Road (Grand Trunk Road, which Sher Shah Suri traveled on). The drive from Amritsar to Attari is through lush green fields – Guru Nank Dev University, one of the premier universities in India is the last major landmark on the way.
We crossed the border around 11 am and like I said, the sky was overcast. The border post is under huge trees and there is greenery all around. That day was also the first time in my life I saw No Man’s Land and the barbed wire fence along the border.
At Wagah (that’s the name of the Pakistani border post) we got into an old 70s Toyota automatic. At that time the Maruti revolution was sweeping India and the taxis here used to be battered Ambassadors that had seen a lot of action when militancy was at its peak in Punjab.
It’s a 50-minute drive from Wagah to Lahore and I spent the time trying to soak in as much as I could about Pakistan. There was a weekly market on the way. Vegetables were stacked neatly on racks but right in front were animal innards. I wondered how customers would buy their veggies when intestines were lying all over the place where they were supposed to stand. It was disgusting to say the least – Paskistanis eat a lot of red meat so I guess even the stink of rotting meat would be okay for them but I found it downright revolting.
The journey from Wagah to Lahore was uneventful. At Lahore, we got into an AC video coach and surprise, surprise! The bus was a Mercedes and they played Hindi movies throughout our journey from Lahore to Islamabad – some 300 km and 7 hours away.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ISLAMABAD
I used to live close to Faisal Masjid, built by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in Islamabad. The mosque is beautiful. The floor is so squeaky clean that you can see your face in it. There's a replica of the holy Mecca and Medina there. Nearly everybody who is anybody in Pakistan owns a bungalow near Faisal Masjid.
Then there is the Jinnah Super market -- the most upmarket in Islamabad. You can pick up the most exquisite -- and the most expensive -- watches, jewellery, apparel, shoes from here. This market turns into a major hangout at night after the shops shut down and is a hit with youngsters.
Super Market -- which houses the famous bookstore, Mr Books -- is about 5 km down the road from Jinnah Super. Mr Books is famous for two reasons -- it has the best collection of books in Islamabad and it was from this shop that Omar Sheikh, now on death row for his role in Daniel Pearl's killing, picked up a couple of books before he transformed into a "liberal" Muslim to lure Pearl into his trap (this is what Henri Levy says in his book, Who killed Daniel Pearl).
Then there is Aab Para, another marketplace, albeit a little downmarket. You can find Chinese good in hordes here. A little down Aab Para, there is a weekly market called Jumma market. As the name suggests, it comes up on Fridays on an open ground a little ahead of Aab Para. You can find pickles, carpets, spices, dry fruits, clothes -- both used and new, poultry, vegetables etc. from here. People generally go to this market to stock up for the week.
The Covered Market (called so because it is housed in a covered enclosure) has a lot of good things to offer too. It mostly has smuggled goods and whatever came from Afghanistan in those days.
All these markets fell in the order given above from my home to the Senate.
The biggest market was called Blue Area. It was a straight stretch for about 5 km or so. White goods and electronics items was the speciality of this market. It was also the commerical hub of Islamabad.
I am talking about nearly 14 years back, so things might have changed. If anyone of you has the latest update, please let me know.

WHAT THE PAKISTAN CONNECTION DID FOR ME
I was still in school when I first went to Islamabad. When I returned to Delhi, all my classmates -- kids I had known since Nursery -- had a different attitude towards me. Some became too polite, others hostile. One of my friends asked me whether I was a Muslim. I was taken aback -- did my name not sound Hindu enough, I asked.
"Then probably you are a Pakistani Hindu," he said.
I decided to leave it at that.
For the next months or so, I pretended that I was a Pakistani and used to abuse everyone in class, calling them Indians. Some got really angry but no one really protested -- they were probably scared of a "Pakistani" (a lot of you will probably stop reading this blog forever now, but let me get this straight. I was in High School then and you do silly things in High School, don't you?)
But what was more interesting was the kind of reaction I used to get from people in Pakistan ezpecially when there was a India-Pakistan cricket match.

(I have to stop again now. Please check this blog tomorrow)

Too hilarious for a title

I went to the Whirlpool showroom after I had been cheated by Next Shop -- a multi-brand electronic goods shop. Next had sent me a used and much abused washing machine and refrigerator. So I spoke to Whirlpool and they asked me to get in touch one Mr Muthukumar, who was in-charge of Chennai operations.
I spoke to Mr Muthukumar's subordinate one evening and next morning I reached the showroom.
There were a couple of salesmen at the showroom, but not Mr Muthukumar's subordinate.
I asked one of the salesmen for Mr Muthukumar. He did not speak English, so the other one came to my aid.
"I am here to meet Mr Muthukumar," I said.
"Mr Muthukumar not here," the salesman said.
"What about Mr Maniam (the subordinate)?"
"Out of station. Can we help."
"Yes. I am looking for a fridge and washing machine."
"Yes. Please look."
After inquiring about the price and generally whiling away my time, I asked for Mr Muthukumar again.
"Muthukumar not here, saar."
"Well, where is he."
"Up."
"WHAT?"
"Yes saar. Dead. Expired. No more."
I was shocked. I had spoken to his subordinate on his cellphone just 16 hours back. How tragic, I thought.
"When did it happen?"
"Six months back saar." The salesman had put on a solemn face.
"What? But I spoke to him last night."
Silence.
After 30 seconds. "Then he must be alive saar."
Then turning to the other salesman: "Who is Muthukumar?"

Chennai and the North-South divide

The first few days in Chennai very chaotic, to say the least. I could not understand what people here said, be it the autowallah or the humble employee in office. The first time I flagged down an auto and askedhim if he would go to Ambattur (an industrial estate in Chennai where my office is located) he just nodded his head sideways. I thought he didn’t want to so I walked away. He called out.
“What happened saar.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want to go.”
“No saar.”
“Okay, I’ll look for another auto.”
“No saar. I’ll go”
“OK. I thought you said no.”
“Yes saar.”
“So, will you take me there or not?”
He made an obscene gesture with his hand, which I guessed meant, “just sit in the freaking auto”.
And off we went.
A couple of days later, I reached office for the morning meeting. Finding nobody there I asked my boss’s secy if the meeting was on.
“You are coming for the meeting?”
Which meant that the meeting was on and I hadn’t missed it.
“Yes,” I said.
“Sorry, it’s not happening.”
“But you just said…” I realized that the present continuous tense would prove to be a continuous torture for me.
And another day. I walk into a conversation about booze. A nice bloke is telling the others: “We are looking for a liquor shop, no.”
That was interesting. Keep talking man.
“But we are not finding any place…”
Oh, it was something that happened in the past. In English, we would say something like: “We were looking for a liquor shop but did not find any…”
But then this is Chennai.

In Chennai, they can’t be fair
Autowallahs are complete louts. But in Chennai, the word lout takes on a completely different meaning. The moment the guy realizes you are from up north, he’ll start asking for Rs 10 extra for every turn of the wheel.
Like the other day when I went house-hunting in Anna Nagar, a posh colony closest to my office. I told the auto guy I had to go the Reliance Fresh outlet in Anna Nagar. The house I was to see was a few steps ahead. He asked for Rs 40 for a distance of 4 km from where I flagged him down, but I agreed. When he reached the Reliance Fresh outlet, I asked him to go a bit further down the road – just 20 paces, to be precise. Pat, he asked for Rs 50 when I got down.
“Rs 10 extra saar. You say Reliance Fresh. I am coming forward.”
“Then go backward. You have fleeced me enough already. I will not pay you a single penny more.”
He made that obsene gesture and drove off.
Later in office, a colleague who had seen similar gestures, asked a local man what it meant. The gesture was a combination of what you do when hitching a ride and when you want to tell somebody to jerk off. The Local Man told us that it meant what we thought it did – jerk off. But then he clarified. If somebody does it once, it means “What?”
But when they repeat the gesture several times?
It means “What the fuck,” the Local Man said.

The Transformation of Malaysia

I visited Kuala Lumpur for the first time in 2004 and I was totally sold out. Despite being a Muslim nation, the people looked pretty liberal, going about their national sport – shopping – with a smile on their lips. Never once did I see anyone – man or woman – glancing at another one wearing skimpy or weird clothes. Everything was par for the course.
Then I went to Kuala Lumpur again in 2007 and it took me a long while to figure out that these were the same streets I roamed in 2004. Only the Petronas Towers looked recognisable. And I went around looking for reasons for this transformation.
One, I guess, is the influx of the Saudi Arabian Tourist. Malaysia is quite modern, has decent facilities, is cheap and to top it all, is an Islamic nation. It’s quite secular though. So the Saudi Arabian Tourist, who I guess, finds he’s not too welcome in the West, has started flocking to South East Asian nations, particularly to Malaysia. By some independent figures, 6,837 Saudis visited Malaysia in July 2005. In July 2006, their number had grown to 10,788. The July 2007 figures are yet to come in but I reckon that would have gone upwards of 20,000.
When we went to Kuala Lumpur in August 2007, nearly every hotel was packed to capacity. The Saudi Arabian Tourist with wads of cash was visible at each and every shopping mall. A taxi driver told me that Saudi Arabians had started flocking to Malaysia because it was too hot in the Wahabbi nation at that time of the year (I was not able to independently verify this).
So there has been this change in Malaysia over the last three years or so. Mini-skirts and shorts which were the norm in 2004 when I first visited KL were nowhere to be seen. In fact, even jeans were very rare – only on Westerners (I must mention here that I stayed in KL for 2 days and it is a bit unfair to judge a city by staying there for 3-4 days – doing things that a regular tourist does).
To attract the Saudi Arabian Tourist, Malaysia has even named a street “Arab Street” in the Bukit Bintang area – the hub of shopping and touristy activities – to let him do the things he does all the time, smoke sheesha, dig into his favourite food, etc.
There were other ways in which KL did not appeal to me much as a tourist destination. The city has become really dirty – there were wrappers, paper and bits of garbage all over on the monorail tracks – and the traffic is maddening. In 2004, I was so impressed by the traffic movement. People would stop at least 15 metres from the vehicle ahead. Nobody honked the horn. I stayed there for 15 days and not once did I hear anyone sounding the horn.
But this year the situation was quite different. There were vehicles everywhere, and horns were being sounded freely in the bumper-to-bumper traffic. There was a bus driver I saw who had his hand on the horn button and was constantly honking it. And he looked angry – the scene wasn’t very different from the one in Delhi, where Blueline drivers muscle their way in and warn other road users by blowing the horn and coming within kissing distance of other vehicles.
The taxi drivers in KL were never honest but his time I found asking them to go by the meter was a fruitless exercise. Not only did they charge exorbitant rates, there taxis were very dirty and the aircon didn’t work well either. (In KL, taxis and buses have to have the aircon on all the time).
But what worries me most is the informal dress code imposed on people in Malaysia. Beyonce Knowles had to recently cancel a show in KL because “showing skin is against Islam”.
Reminds me of a certain city which went from skirts in the Eighties to a veil from head to toe in the Nineties. I just hope KL doesn’t go the same way – it’s just too dear to me to be lost to religion.

India and Singapore: Worlds apart

Two incidents that will forever remain etched in my memory:
I was about to leave my sister-in-law’s house in Singapore to meet a friend for drinks when the door of the room my daughter was sleeping in got locked. We tried every key in the house but the lock wouldn’t turn. The only other way into that room was through the bathroom window. The house was on the third floor, so that wasn’t an option.
We rushed to the security guard of the condominium and asked for a locksmith’s number. We told the locksmith that it was an emergency: my 20-month-old daughter was locked inside a room. He promised to be there in 15 minutes.
He reached in 10. I was not sure if he was the man but I called out from the third floor anyway. He started running towards our house and had climbed the stairs within 20 seconds – normally it took me about a minute even though I climb stairs very fast.
He got down to work immediately and broke open the lock within about 15 seconds. I could see that he was concerned about a child being locked inside: even more than the child’s own parents. The moment he unlocked the door, he asked if our daughter was alright. She was still sleeping and we all heaved a sigh of relief. It was then that he talked business: the lock had to be replaced and it would cost this much. We gladly obliged and, Indian that I am, I checked in the market if he had been fair: he had been.
Had the same happened in India, the locksmith would have fleeced us: worse still, he would have taken his own sweet time to get to the place and another round of “pehle thoda paani pila do” before he would have started working. But not in Singapore. The locksmith was a thorough professional – and a gentleman too.
The second incident:
Public transport is amazing in Singapore, to say the least. Taxi stands are earmarked and people have to queue up before they catch the taxi – and no, the taxi driver cannot refuse to take you wherever you want to go unless he’s finishing his shift and going home – in which case he will already have the place he’s going to displayed. This is true of all of Singapore – except Mustafa Centre, the hub of all things Indian.
At Mustafa Centre, a 24-hour shopping mall, the taxi stand holds no meaning. People do queue up there, but they are only Singaporeans or foreigners. And they keep waiting. Indians, on the other hand, run around the road – though jaywalking is a serious crime in Singapore -- flag down taxis before they reach the stand – some literally stand in the middle of the road, forcing the driver to stop – and haggle. Oddly enough, even the drivers, the same drivers who follow all the rules in the rest of Singapore, gladly oblige.
On weekends, party-goers wait for 40-45 minutes before getting into a taxi from places like Clarke Quay (pronounced Clark Kee), a riverfront hub of pubs, restaurants and an extreme bungee ride. Most shops here stay open till 3 or 4 a.m. on weekends and the mood is, obviously, very party-ish.
But not once did I see anyone cutting queues or trying other methods -- like Indians do outside Mustafa Centre – to get a taxi faster than the guy who actually deserves it and has been waiting.
But that’s what we Indians are, aren’t we? Different. Or, I should say, hideously indifferent to rules and laws.
And yes, another incident.
When I returned to Delhi, I had to fill out the immigration forms at the airport. I took three, kept my bag on the table and looked down to take a pen out. Within 5 seconds, a lady, again an Indian an a co-passenger on the flight, wacked the forms from right under my nose.
India Shining!



Yours truly at the Hard Rock Cafe, Singapore. And that's Eddie Van Halen's guitar.
This will be my next post: the bars of Singapore and Malaysia

Media and the Indian mindset

Around two years back, while returning home from work late in the night, I noticed a huge jam on the Dwarka flyover. It was pretty late and generally the road used to be deserted at that hour. I parked some distance away from the hold-up and noticed that a bus had rammed into three cars. Nobody was hurt. The police were there and so were the owners of the cars. The bus driver, apparently drunk, had hit the cars. No major damage. All the cars were capable of being driven on.
I asked one of the owners why he couldn’t remove his car, now that the police report had been written. What he told me was symptomatic of the society today. “We have called a news channel. We will not let the bus or cars remover till our quotes have been taken.”
The role of the media – especially broadcast media – has been pivotal in shaping our society today. Everybody and his uncle want their 15 minutes of fame. So what if thousands of other people are inconvenienced?
At a recent talk show on Doordarshan, the panel of editors was asked why journalists tend to air shows or news that titillate? Simple, because the audience wants it, said one. I think that is perfectly logical argument. In this day and age when any body can launch a channel – and most of them are – why would you want to air serious stuff that few are going to watch anyway.
Then another member of the audience asked a channel head why his journalists do not step in when they see somebody trying self-immolation or is any other kind of serious trouble. “We are not social activists,” was the answer.
Perfectly logical answer, again. Only, I would like to add something.
If a reporter out to cover a desperate measure by a citizen intervenes, he would have nothing to show. Which, in effect, means there would be no negative news, no social evils to report. Only a rosy picture. Now that would be something I don’t want to see every time I switch on my TV.

A Clockwork Orange - and white and green - in office

The movie was great but please, spare me this patrotism on I-Day

Wanted to write about the bars, streets, people and the stark difference betweeen India and its neighbours but a more important thought possesses me now. Today is August 14, the eve of our 60th Independence Day. People all around me are wearing sarees and kurta pyjamas to celebrate I-Day. Some are even playing the national anthem and other such songs laced with eye-swelling patriotism.
I am sure if were to mention the sacrifices made by our soldiers in '47, '65, '71 and Kargil wars, goosebumps will be everywhere. Some might even start crying. There are a few who would leave the office and head straight to an Army recruitment office.
I, for one, am wearing my standard cotton shirt, trousers and shoes - inviting the wrath of the all the patriots today.
"Mile sur mera tumhara" is playing in the background. It came right after somebody played A.R. Rahman's "Vande Mataram". I am waiting for Lata Mangeshkar's "Ae Mere Watan Ke Logon".
My office is on the second floor. I am wondering: Should I jump now or be tortured some more.

The boom-boom girls of Thailand

I saw them on the pavements of Bangla Road, probably the busiest and brightest street in Phuket. It has bars all around, eating joints, a kick-boxing stadium – the works. I was sitting with a few tour operators from India -- whom I would get to know better over the next couple of days – gorging on my pizza and having a Red Label. In walked a girl, pouty lips, red lipstick, tight skirt, and a bag in hand. The sole lady in our group pointed her out to us. Till then I had completely forgotten that Phuket was a haven for tourists seeking cheap sex.
I saw them outside the Pizza Company outlet off Bangla Road – scores of them. Little girls, tall ones; most slim, some plump, walking the streets with regular Western clothes, handbags slung from shoulders.
It was late – we had returned from Phuket Fantasea, a fabulous nighttime cultural theme park which had a splendid show based on the Ramayana. Fantasea is spread over acres and looks like a huge, huge school fete. We finished our pizzas and hailed a taxi to go back to our hotel.
I was to meet Thailand’s famed prostitutes the next day.

**********************

It’s strange that in a country that attracts foreign tourists in hordes, very few locals speak English. I did not meet a single person who could understand what I was saying – I had to make do with hand gestures. Finding a taxi to go back to the hotel was another enormous task but that’s not what this post was about.
Next day we returned to Patong beach – the same beach on which thousands died when the massive walls of tsunami waves wrecked Thailand – and its tourism industry. The government had organized a cultural extravaganza for the 1000-odd journalists and tour operators from around the world it was hosting. Thailand wanted to show the world that the tsunami was behind it and it was ready to receive tourists again. But for some strange reason, everybody on the stage was talking in Thai.
After a couple of beers, I suggested to my group – some 25 people – that we move out. After about half an hour, most of us were back on Bangla Road and this time at a decent hour – around 10.30, I think.
We went to Tai Pan, a throbbing place with a live band that plays rock classics. We sat down for a round of Red Label. The band is all White and plays awfully great music. The place was very lively. I placed a request with the band for a song from Steely Dan but they had not heard of the group. After a few drinks at Tai Pan, I decided to move out. A PR guy from our group, in his fifties, told me he wanted to come with me. Done, I said.
Right outside Tai Pan, while I was looking at all the bars there – girly bars, go-go girls, transvestite pole dancers -- a couple of girls stopped me.
“Boom, boom?” they asked.
“Boom, boom?” I replied.
One of the girls, the smaller one, made a circle with her left hand thumb and index finger and started poking it with her right index finger.
“Oh, boom, boom,” I said.
“Your hotel. 500 bahts for one girl. All night,” she said.
“No, thanks.”
“You pay less. OK? 400.”
“No, thanks. Not interested.”
“You not like me?”
“No. Don’t want boom, boom. Married,” I showed her my right hand.
The girls moved on and stopped the Old PR Guy. The haggling began again.
I left him with the girls and got into a side street that was full of gyrating pole dancers.

**********************

“Most of them are transvestites,” a colleague had told me earlier.
So there I was. The street was like any in Chandni Chowk. There was barely enough place for two people to walk together. Open girly bars were everywhere.
A doe-eyed girl in her undergarments was playing a game of dominoes with a young man, probably a European. The guy was smitten, you could see it in his eyes. The girl was indulgent. The two looked like a pair in love. A whole lot of people had stopped to see them play – but nothing mattered to the two.
I ran into a couple of other guys from my group. Both were in their fifties but splendidly good chaps. One runs a travel agency, the other is a senior officer with an airline. We decided to have a beer each. They told me they had found a good disc. It was right above where we stood.
At the disc, a girl accosted us.
“No boom, boom, thanks,” I told her.
“No boom, boom,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I like you.”
“What?” The music was loud. The crowd looked like it was in a trance. It was the last song, I think. Everybody wanted to have the last dance.
“What did you say,” I asked her again.
“You say no to friend for boom, boom. You say married. I like.”
“Well, thank you. You are a nice girl yourself. You should get out of this profession.”
“No. Can’t get out. Me like you. Let’s go hotel. No charge.”
“What? Are you crazy?”
Within half an hour we were back in our hotel. It had been a heady night. I wondered how many of those boom-boom girls had been brought back to the hotel.
I wondered about those girls. Why they were doing what they were doing. They looked like they belonged to nice families. In India, they would even be considered upper middle class. Then why, I wondered, would nice little girls get into prostitution?

**********************

“The field a woman ploughs lies between her legs.”
That’s an old Thai saying. Contrary to what Bangkok’s gleaming buildings, its bumper-to-bumper traffic and mega malls tell you, Thailand is mostly a poor country. Tourism is the mainstay here. The girls that get into prostitution to support their families. And you would be amazed to see the kind of support they get from the men who escort them to hotels whenever a tourist bites the bait. These bike-taxi guys are all the family they have in cities they come to, to be ravaged by the tourist looking for cheap thrills and an even cheaper sex.
After speaking to a lot of locals and tourists, this is the conclusion I came to: An all-night jig with a girl will cost you around 400 baht (around Rs 500 or $10). A peg of Red Label at a place like Tai Pan will set you back by around 150 baht (around Rs 200 or $5). And Red Label is one of the cheapest “Scotch” doing the rounds in Thailand.
It was late. My thoughts were wandering. I pulled out a can of beer from the mini-bar in my room and went to the balcony. It was hot and humid. In the distance, I could see lights from the discos on Bangla Road. The loud thumping music in the bars landed faintly in my ears. I went back inside. Early next morning, we had to leave for Krabi. Thailand was just getting interesting. I don’t know when I dozed off. The music was still throbbing in my head. Or was I going to get seriously hung over the next morning?

**********************

Krabi is a beautiful place. A sleepy town along probably the only beach that was battered by the tsunami. Close by are Phi Phi islands which bore the brunt of the walls of water. Many victims of Phi Phi were brought to Krabi for treatment.
“It looks just like New Zealand,” the guy from the airline told me.
After a quick bath in luxurious Pavilion Hotel, we headed out to town. “Foot massage,” somebody said.
“Foot massage. Yes,” all the girls in the group said, almost in unison.
“Foot massage,” the older amongst us agreed.
“Beer,” I said loudly. Or Red Label, I said to myself.
We were at the beach. Green sea. Beach littered with sea shells. “These are thousands of years old. You should not walk here,” somebody told me.
I stood at the seashore. What if there is another tsunami? I’m the only one standing here. What would it be like? What would it have been like for the thousands who were sunbathing or swimming in the sea when it receded and then rose with great fury, destroying everything in its path. The thought scared me. I quickly raced back towards the hillock.


**********************

“Raruna,” the cab driver said. We had decided on having authentic Italian for dinner.
“Raruna?” our liaison man asked. “Abey ghodu, kahan hai yeh? Where is it?”
For about 10 minutes we kept looking for Raruna.
We found La Luna, set up by an Italian. Thais cannot pronounce “L”. Great confusion that caused.
It was a small place but very cosy. I found a Padi (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) instructor at the bar, smoking. I started talking to him about the tsunami and its effect on business in Thailand (you’ll find that story below, titled “Phuket struggles with ghosts; or is it guilt?”)
After our pizzas, we set out for a walk. The sea on the right, the market on the left and greenery all around. Krabi’s streets are squeaky clean. At one corner of the town were the discos, thumping music and all.
“Foot massage,” one of the girls groaned. It’s a very nasal kind of voice that most girls produce, when they want to implore the others. The stress was on the Ss.
I had had enough. “Foot massage people that side. Those who want to walk, come this side. We’ll meet here in 1 hour.”
For the next hour, we looked at clubs, decided they were pretty shady and moved on. I was scouting for the boom-boom girls. Not because of you-know-what but because they had intrigued me. I wanted to ask them why. What forces them into prostitution. Why can’t they get out. But none was to be found.
“It’s a very sleepy town. Let’s go back to the hotel. We have to catch an early flight tomorrow,” someone suggested. It was 11 p.m. The flight was at 10.30 a.m. Early flight, I wondered. But we quickly marched back to the hotel.

**********************

The drive to Krabi airport was really nice. The sea is green and has cliffs rising out perpendicularly. What a challenge those would be for rock climbers and BASE jumpers. Within hours we were in Bangkok, caught in the maddening traffic. Reminded me of Delhi, even though it was much more civilized than what we have back home.
As soon as I chucked my luggage in the room, the Old PR Guy and I were at a mobile shop in the hotel. The owner was a Sikh whose parents had come from Amritsar. I told him I was a journalist from India. For a mobile shop owner, he was very aware of current affairs and the Thai society. I asked him about the boom-boom girls. “It’s much better than the Netherlands,” he said. The government has mandated regular checks for all the sex workers, he said. Every month they have to go for an examination and they are taken off the street-walking circuit if the test throws up something.
“Very clean here,” he told me. “You should go to Pat Pong Street and see for yourself,” he said with a wink.
So our agenda for the evening was set.

**********************

We took a tuk-tuk (a taxi, basically a three-wheeler. Harley, I think. It has a roaring sound and I found tuk-tuks and their drivers very irritating) till Pat Pong. The Old PR Guy was giving directions (he used to frequent Bangkok, he told me). After about 30 minutes in the tuk-tuk we reached a very shady place. There were a group of foreigners standing outside a shanty that had a curtain for a door. They were standing under a dim streetlight. I asked the Old PR Guy where we were. He said he didn’t know but I was sure there was some kind of peep-show going on inside and the old man had deliberately brought me there.
“Let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.”
“Yaar, dekh lete hain kya hai. Kya harj hai,” he said.
“I’m bolting. You stay if you want.”
He gave the tuk-tuk guy directions and we were in Pat Pong street in 2 minutes.

Pat Pong has a bustling night life. It has go-go bars, peep shows and regular bars full of hookers on one side and a night market on the other. The market stays open till around 2 a.m. and you can pick up the standard stuff here – fake watches, clothes, trinkets, DVDs, music, etc. Somewhat like the scene in Beach where Leonardo Dicaprio is taken aside for a shot of cobra blood.
I was checking out the bars, avoiding the ones with the transvestite pole dancers dressed in white. I saw one which had a live band – with a local female lead. Her accent was good, and so was her singing. I sat down and ordered a beer. The Old PR Guy was getting impatient.
“Yahan kya kar raha hai. Aage chalet hain.”
Aage was where the shadier joints were. As you keep going ahead, Pat Pong keeps geeting queerer.
“Sir, you go ahead. I want to listen to some live music.”
“No, I won’t go alone.”
I enjoyed a round of drinks and some fabulous songs when the band decided to take a break. The DJ took over. I left the place.
Further up ahead, I found another joint – bigger than the last one (funny I never noticed the names of these bars) – which had a live band.
I settled down at the end of the disco. In the centre, tourists and a group of hookers were working up a frenzy. How people dance when a live band is playing is one of life’s little riddles that I could never solve.
The sofa adjacent to mine was rocking. I glanced and saw a girl on top of an American tourist, heaving. Both shouted a bih “Hi” the moment they saw me. I was embarrassed. I returned the greeting and quickly looked away.
After about 15 minutes, I felt somebody poking at my elbow. It was the girl on the sofa.
“We go dance. You come?”
“No thanks”
“Bags here. You watch. OK?”
“OK.”
Another 15 minutes passed. I finished a beer. The girl came back holding the American tightly. There were another 4-5 girls with her. One of them, their ringleader I suppose, asked me if the girls could sit with us.
“No boom-boom. Thanks.”
“Boom-boom,” she asked. “Oh, boom-boom,” she suddenly remembered. Maybe the prostitutes of Bangkok spoke a different language than those of Phuket.
“Okay no boom-boom. What are you doing here,” she asked me.
“Having a beer and listening to music.”
“But you are married.” She had noticed the ring on my right hand.
“Yes I am.”
“They why are you here.” Surprisingly, she spoke good English.
“To have a beer and listen to music.”
“You are a nice man. People like you should not come here. You want to dance.”
“No thanks. I just want the live music.”
Seeing I was not interested in the sex that she wanted to give me, she decided to leave. She asked her friends to get up.
“We go to another bar. Maybe you want to come with us.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“You are a nice man. I would have wanted to dance with you.”
I did not ask her name. I do not know how many tourists she had met who were in the bar she worked in who did not want to screw her. I remember her as a decent little girl, trying to get by with the only asset that she has. I did not think of her as a sex worker. She was a regular girl, just like the one you occasionally run into near a movie theatre. But then again, she was just not like the regular girl you occasionally run into near a movie theatre.
It was 2 in the morning. The bar was shutting down. The shopkeepers were packing up. The Old PR Guy was cross with me because I did not accompany him to the sex joints nearby. I was tired. We got into a cab and reached the hotel in about 10 minutes.
I was feeling hungry. I called up room service for a burger and fries. The bellboy arrived in 20 minutes. As he was leaving, he asked, “Sir, you want girl? Clean, good girl. No one will know. Only 500 bahts.”
The sex industry in Thailand never sleeps.


What brings tourists to Thailand? The beaches are clean, the roads are smooth and well-maintained and the country is geared-up to serve all kinds of travelers. Some come here for a dip in the sea, a spot in the sun, mugs of cool beer on the beach, a good massage. Most want sex afterwards.
Alex Renton wrote in the Prospect that the average white tourist comes here to escape the “ball-breaking female” of the West.
LBFMs is what Americans used to refer to them as when they came to Vietnam. That's short for Little Brown Fucking Machines.
Thai women for most sex tourists are, well, just sex toys. People play out the wildest fantasies with them. There are a whole lot of massages these girls offer: foot massage, full body massage, sandwich massage, etc. They start with the massage and most tourists end up with a ménage à trois.
You’ll be amazed what kind of things these girls will do to attract tourists: there’s a peep show in which a girl smokes a cigarette from you-know-where. Ewwww.
Can the average man who orders girls into doing such things ever dream of asking his wife or girlfriend to attempt something even remotely close? I guess not. Definitely not.
That’s why Thailand lives on. And so do the prostitutes. Even after being used and abused every night, they still trust men – they want to dance with a man who tells them he does not want to have sex with them.