Brahmins in Bangkok - Part 0

Many of you may have heard of the phrase ‘So near, yet so far’, and some of you may have even used it, in a variety of situations. However, if you are, like me, a government certified, pure and unadulterated Tam Brahm boy, and you wish to truly understand the meaning of that phrase, then you must visit Bangkok.

A couple of equally pristine Tam Brahm friends and I happened to do exactly that for three glorious days last October, in our desire to see more of the world and expand our admittedly narrow horizons. We had heard that Bangkok contained a lot of culture, and that while some of that culture involved giant temples depicting the Buddha going about his daily activities – sitting, standing, reclining, calling in sick to work, watching TV etc., the rest of it contained friendly, young, naked women of low morals. Our primary objective in going to Bangkok was to take in all the culture that was lying around there, unattended, in all these temples, and return to India safely, without being affected by the rest of that unwanted culture involving the naked women. We were, after all, good Tam Brahm boys.

Before I get into the finer details of our trip, let me first give you some background. Bangkok, though it sounds like someone with very limited command over the English language crudely telling you to engage in sexual intercourse, is an actual city situated in Thailand. In fact, I have heard, from reliable sources, that it is the capital city, although it seemed pretty lowercase when I was there myself. Anyway, what you need to understand from this paragraph is that Bangkok has a rich history, filled with lots and lots of culture and tradition. You will also need to understand that Thailand is an extremely religious country. They, and by ‘they’, I'm obviously referring to the citizens of Thailand, called the Vietnamese, take their religion very seriously. I am still not sure what that religion is, but whatever it is, they take it seriously. They also have immense respect for their King, whose name is Bhumibol Adulyadej. Quite unbelievably, no one, not even their bloggers and talk show hosts, ever make fun of him, in spite of that ridiculous name. I later learnt, and you will too, that funny names are an integral part of Thai culture.

Oops!! In the previous paragraph, I forgot to give you the most essential information regarding the background of Bangkok. The city is, not without good reason, known as Asia's sex capital, and is filled with innumerable establishments of dubious reputation. These shady joints function under the disguise of normal, respectable businesses, like massage parlours, saunas, hotels, houses of parliament etc. but behind closed doors, their true colours are revealed, as are certain personal body parts, and all kinds of disreputable activities take place. Last year, in late September, a group of soldiers who were in the Thai army, which if you ask me, could well be another of those shady establishments, staged a coup and overthrew the ruling government, causing a lot of tension in the country.

So here we are finally, the stage is now set: It’s October, in 2006. The sex capital of Asia is still struggling to come to terms with the military coup that took it by surprise just weeks ago. The tension in the city is palpable, and getting ready to palp it are three Tam Brahm boys: Swaminathan a.k.a Swami, Krishnamurti a.k.a. Goach and Vinod a.k.a me.

(To be continued (if I feel like it))