BOM-BKK: Kya mangta hai, boss?

Consider the Bollywood film, Thai Massage (2022), with Gajraj Rao in the lead role of a septuagenarian, who goes from a small town, Ujjain, to Bangkok, searching for sex. 

All passengers, on that flight of shame, have their faces covered with mufflers, lest an acquaintance recognises them! 

In Bangkok, a desi man tells Rao’s character, “Poori duniya yehi karne aati hai; isme sharmane ki koi baat nahin hai (Entire world comes down for the same thing; no need to feel shame).”

Also, as you know, such trips often bear corporate sanction. You’re hardly a salesperson in India — in pharma, stationery, cosmetics, or FMCG — if your annual target wasn’t met with the promise of a potential jiggy-jiggy/boom-boom in Bangkok/Thailand.

CY Gopinath, a Bangkok local and fellow columnist, tells me he once noticed three such salesmen-type desis, perhaps after their office offsite/conference, haggling with a street-walker, who was demanding around 2,000 Baht for an hour’s service.

Gopinath overheard these desi blokes asking the sex worker, instead, to accommodate all three of them within the same rate, for an hour, offering 20 minutes to each! 

I wonder what that poor Thai woman must’ve thought of these Indians. Some of whom pose as the nation’s worst brand ambassadors on “trips” abroad. 

Especially, I suppose, in Thailand. And within our own country, in Goa. That the former feels less expensive than the latter, along with the tag of international travel, gives Thailand an edge over most Indian spots. 

I’m told Thai people aren’t particularly fond of Indians for the same reasons as others — we’re perceived to be loud, particularly demanding as customers, and we tip terribly, if at all. 

While Indians could feel cold stares in the West, sometimes, Thai people will never express how they actually feel. They’re, by all accounts, the friendliest lot in Asia. And, perhaps, the reason they draw the most culturally diverse set of tourists into their country. 

It’s not like Thailand has superior locations from its neighbours. It’s the liberal, non-confrontational Thai people that tourists return for. 

Such a playful lot that they even invented a love-life for the celebrated celibate, Lord Hanuman, with a mermaid, in Ramakien, the Thai Ramayan, the national epic.  

And as Gopinath points out, it’s not like sex tourism/life, whether underground or overground, is unique to Bangkok. Local origins of which, anyway, are attributed to the US. 

Gopinath says, “During the Vietnam War, Bangkok was the official R&R (Rest & Recuperation) point for American soldiers. Fear of sexual diseases was high. 

“These soldiers would pay off families in Thai villages to get into an exclusive, sexual arrangement with girls of the home. Once the war ended, those girls got left behind.

“One Mr Patpong brought them over to a street in Bangkok, engaging them in sex work.” Hence, Patpong, only one of the couple of streets that Bangkok gains supposed infamy from. 

Which, also, has gone quiet, if not dead, post the pandemic. The trade perhaps couldn’t sustain itself. My uneducated guess is that the state legalised marijuana to push up hedonistic tourism still. They held a zero-tolerance policy on drug use before. 

My friend Siddhant says, besides manufacturing automobile parts, Bangkok is really known for the best ad films, and lots of horror films. 

As we speak, Gopinath, who’s writing a book on Bombay, in Bangkok, says you can’t compare the two cities on infrastructure and efficiency.

I can see it in the quiet roads, despite heavy traffic. Nobody ever honks. You don’t see any dust because, as Gopinath informs, “Grandmoms come in early mornings with brooms and plates to clean up crevices that are hard to reach. Also, for a street-food capital (of the world), you’ll find no flies on the streets.” 

Gopinath has been in Bangkok for 19 years, having moved from Kenya. Siddhant moved to Bangkok from Bombay seven years ago. 

These are expats, of course — quite different from the large, Indian-origin Thai population that often dates back a century; settled in ‘little India’ (next to China Town), 
named Phahurat. 

I suspect a reason why Bangkok hasn’t emerged yet as the global expat capital, in line with, say, Singapore — that fully adopted English — or Hong Kong, for long the British hub, is that Thai is a complicated, tonal language. Although Thai people really appreciate, if you at least attempt it.

I’m just warmed by the Indianness in it (through Pali language from Buddhist expansion) — as I end up skipping the Hanuman and Mermaid musical to enter Terminal 21 Asok mall, where the Zara for Thailand is the apparel brand, Jaspal, and I’m now on my way to Suvarnabhumi (literally, Land of Gold) airport. 

Gopinath’s building crew calls him teacher in Thai, that’s aachan, written as aa-ch-ar-ya!  At his kid’s school, teachers’ day was called waikru. 

Kru, as in guru. “Where do you think wai comes from,” Gopinath asks. It’s ‘vaahe’, as in Vaahe Guru!

Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. 
He tweets @mayankw14 Send your feedback to  mailbag@mid-day.com
The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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