Anu’s Chatter--
Bangkok..
Friends recently I visited this city for a family vacation...was I surprised? I was shocked ...the first thought was ...it was so much like Mumbai...crowded and dirty..even people seemed to be poor...the buildings looked old and brazen...there were tuk tuks everywhere (a different kind of a rickshaw like the one we see back home...its actually an open auto....) The traffic was jam packed and people just seemed to crawl around in their small dirty vehicles......
I was immediately disappointed....as I did not for a minute feel ‘the high’ of entering a foreign country,like I usually feel when I step abroad.Surprise of surprises,I noticed how Bangkok looked similar to Mumbai too. A silent cry escaped meimmediately---Oh ‘God’ Why did I come to another India?
At the first look Bangkok appeared akin to India but it was a city on its own( I realized....only in a few hours I was there) with its own speed and tempo....The overcrowded streets with tuk tuks, cars, trucks, foreigners( specifically Europeans who visit for reasons best known to the world here)...women in shortest of the shorts or negligible dresses( no they don't get raped in the streets and men do not have an eye on them all the time like some Indian men here do ) It is also one reason that I have added Bangkok to the list of my favorite cities of the world.All the brownie points to the people of Bangkok who worship women and I take my words back...
Besides this place is the haven of massage parlors with glamourous masseurs...(the makeup on the face of one masseur will be enough for at least twenty Mumbai women going for a party) Its a lucrative business out here ...so much so that some femininely inclined men even had a sex change to make big bucks!( now you know all the more when I said---- Thai people respect women?) These lady boys (a boy turned into a lady) work in the costume shows and massage parlors, heavily decked up in ‘sizzling skimpy clothes’ with heavy make-up! During the day the under shades of glamour are not so visible but by nightfall Bangkok changes into unrecognizable proportions. The narrow streets come alive , so do the roads with dazzling advertisements and lamps, the small and big eateries by the small and big lanes dish every cuisine in the world; while the pubs play latest english numbers and the tourists are ‘Maha busy’ admiring the thin thai companions and (s#$@%&**&) partners all rolled into one (they might have picked from the city street corners ) in the heavily smoke emanating, music pulsating, drink flowing bars skirting the roads.Life seems to breath into every nerve of Bangkok by nightfall.
On my part --- I shopped till I dropped , got thai massage done from wonderful sincere thai women( No,I would not have minded a lady boy ah ah..!)---WONDERFUL! Ate delicious tropical fruits and Thai food--DELICIOUS! Took lovely Tuk Tuk rides...LOVELY.Wore shortest of the clothes and tasted freedom like never before! FREEEEEDOM!
In the crazy midst of shops, lights,traffic, massage parlors,painted faces, smiling prostitutes and mad mad night life I did notice that there was NO--- littering , no massive breaking of traffic rules, no looking down upon women , no fear , no slavery,no subjugation, no dearth of smiling faces, no dearth of money,no dearth of ah... Make-up!
The bottom most thought----
Is Bangkok like Mumbai? NO,NO,No,NOOOOOO...NEVER!
