“Those who have a God-shaped hole
in their hearts are wise beyond measure:
They know the shape of God.”
From Writings on the Bog Wall (Ed. By Bachchoo)

On the Jet Airways flight from London, a perfectly acceptable service in every way, the “guests” (I always thought that the word applied to those who carried a bottle of wine to a friend’s party and that those who paid fares to go were, more honestly, labelled “customers” or “passengers”) were offered sealed bottles of water which proclaimed that they were “strictly vegetarian”. I have heard of spring water, natural water, organic water, purified or filtered water, but this was the first time that I have heard of vegetarian water. I have always thought water was two parts hydrogen and one part oxygen with a few minerals mixed in. What on earth does this labelling mean?
En route to visit a nephew in the city which is universally characterised as modern Gomorrah, a Mecca of sex tourism. At the airport the tourist posters tautologically declare “Come to Amazing Thailand which will amaze you.” Logic? My nephew is a big cheez (Yes! The phrase comes from the Urdu word for quantity or thing rather than from le grand fromage!) in the advertising industry and I make a mental note to ask him to professionally infiltrate the Thai ministry of tourism and decouple them from stating the obvious. Perhaps they should invite a Russian women’s pop group to perform and put out notices saying, “Welcome to Pussy Riot in Bangkok.”
Bangkok is now a truly international city, if thousands of 7-11 stores and McDonalds’ outlets, airconditioned sky trains, frustrating traffic jams on eight-lane highways and a boom of skyscrapers architectured as temptations to Osama bin Laden are any indication. I spot gangs of men on motor scooters wearing labelled orange waistcoats standing in clumps on street corners, outside the shopping malls or whizzing down the streets. I take them, through my stereotyping vision trained in London and pointing West, to be pizza deliverywallas who can sometimes be seen, probably against the rules of their franchise owners, carrying girlfriends and boyfriends on their pillions at most times of day. A little assumption is dangerous. I find out, after enquiring where their pizza outlet is just to check if it’s another infiltration of a global band, that they are not pizza operatives, but scooter taxis offering pillion rides for bargained fees. It’s a way of winding through grid-locked traffic. Why not in Indian cities? Speed and economy for citizens, new scooter factories, reduction in pollution through tempting single drivers to use Skootaxis and income supplements for licence raj officials and corrupt police. Corrupt police? Is that last adjective necessary, or is it like saying “vegetarian water?”
Let’s shoot the elephant in the room, or chant a truthful mantra to make it disappear. No, I did not go to any brothels, strip joints, massage parlours, pole-dancing clubs, casinos or even to the streets which are designated the thoroughfares of iniquity. Was I curious? Only to the point of asking my nephew why the city had this reputation as it didn’t seem to spill out onto the streets except for the sight of young girls sitting outside massage parlours in the hot evenings waiting for clients. It was not like passing through the streets of Indian red-light districts and having rakishly over-made-up and rouged women making kissing sounds against their palms and shouting “Coming darling!” or “Hai meri lele”.
I was alert to the fact that I might see ugly, old, fat European men with young nubile Thai girls in tandem or even in love, but I only spotted one or two such couples a day.
There were one or two hopeful Indian or Pakistani men wearing T-shirts with “Sex Tourist” printed on them but this seemed more a desperation aspiration than a fact.
Perhaps I missed the “real” Bangkok because I was in town for a landmark birthday of one of my two dear sisters. Sixty guests had been invited and came from India, America, Britain and even Bulgaria. It was a three-day junket, very intimate and boozy and was, in miniature, an event such as Indian capitalists and politicians stage in Scottish castles, Rajasthani hotels or French chateau for the weddings of their offspring to other capitalists’ sons and daughters or to British actresses and the like. The difference, apart from scale, was that it was very family, with tasteful but not showy dressing, without competitive jewellery parades and with no black money being passed off as gifts to convert it into untaxable white.
The taxi metres work but are not normally switched on. One bargains the price of a journey after handing out your destination’s address. As in Mumbai or Delhi they see foreigners coming and quote outrageous fares. And just as Chinese food in Indian cities is not like anything you can eat in Beijing or Canton, so also the delicious and very varied Thai dishes — from a recipe of fried Morning Glory flowers to the sumptuously cooked Cat-fish with raw mango and mangosteen salads — are nothing like the Thai food one eats in Camden or Crystal Palace. But then “chicken tikka masala” is not a favourite in Punjab and the muck that the mainly Bangladeshi Indian restaurants serve up as “Dhan Saak” in London would have my grandma turning in her grave — that is if she had had a grave. Funny how some expressions get lost in cross-cultural translation.
The market districts which sell anything from snakes to fakes — designer bags, watches, clothes and perfumes — are vast and busy and one can get a very filling meal of braised chicken feet, pork ribs, fruit salad, sticky rice and coconut ice-cream and wash it down with a beer for prices that compete favourably with those of a double burger, fries and coke. I know what I’d go for every time. Okay, maybe I’d lapse once a month.