Malicious Gossip

by Khushwant Singh

  I had my first encounter with the soul a few minutes after my arrival in Hotel Lotte. After twenty-four hours of sleepless travel from Delhi, followed by a two-hour wait for my valise which unknown to me had a free look at Bangkok, Taipeh and Hong Kong. I could have done with a slug of elixir and some sleep. To my utter dismay I found a 100-yard-long queue of delegates to the same conference waiting to register their names for accommodation. I was informed that it would take another two hours before my turn came.

  A tall shapely girl, black hair curling about her shoulders, broad nose, full lips, ample bosom, narrow waist and a well-stacked behind, fixed me with her large brown eyes and asked me if she was right in guessing who I was. It didn’t take much guesswork because my valise bore the legend of the Hindustan Times fore and aft (it works miracles with the customs people). She introduced herself as a fellow Indian, Roshan D’Souza, member of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church. Since I had a long wait ahead of me, I invited Roshan to join me for a drink and dinner. She partly accepted my invitation: no drink but a bite. My fatigue vanished even before the whisky had touched my lips. I complimented her on her looks and quoted Akbar Allahabadi’s doggerel about a Miss D’Souza.

  Qaim yahee boot-o-moza rakhiye

  Dill ko Mushtaq-i-Miss D’Souza rakhiye

  The lines did not need being translated but were nevertheless a misfire. Roshan is a Mangalorean Catholic, brought up in Madras. Her short stint as an air-hostess taught her some Hindustani but it was not up to Akbar Allahabadi’s sarcasms. I had to be more direct. What was a pretty girl like her doing with the Moonies? She ignored the reference to her looks and proceeded to tell me about the Unification Church. She was no longer speaking to me but addressing a congregation from a pulpit. Three principles of life, she explained, were couched in negative terms: no arrogance (meaning no ahamkara), no exploitation of love, no exploitation of money. I asked her to elaborate the second principle. She pronounced firmly: no premarital or extra-marital sex; sex not for pleasure but only for procreation; and only when the mind is attuned with the body should intercourse take place. The parents are best qualified to choose lifemates for their children. (However, sweet Roshan found her own American husband who at once gave her US citizenship and membership of the Unification Church.) Mixed with all this was God, Jesus, the Messianic mission of Reverend Moon to bring the faiths of the world together under his leadership and his dream of making South Korea as the Kingdom of God on earth. Amen!

  I tried to needle Roshan; she was as firm as a rock in her new faith. I asked her why Reverend Moon received such a bad press. For the next hour Roshan denounced the wicked calumny of the White press against a yellow Messiah. My eyes were heavy with sleep. The queue had almost evaporated. Roshan helped me carry my baggage to my room. She unlocked my door and switched on the lights without stepping inside the room. The threshold was the Lakshman rekha which a well-brought-up girl like Roshan could never cross without her husband. I did not dare to invite her.

  I slept round the clock from 11 p.m. to 11 a.m. the next day. My room gave me a bird’s-eye view of Seoul’s rooftops and the ring of rugged hills in which the city nestles. Snowflakes came down like confetti and spread a white carpet on the roads. Unending lines of olive-green taxis and buses sped along the highways. It is a large city, almost a quarter (9 million) of Korea’s 36 million live in the capital which spills over the ring of hills stretching over 40 miles end to end. And now it is growing vertically; subways, miles of underground arcades linked to each other and high-rise buildings replacing the single-roofed. Everything about Seoul reminds me of a Tokyo suburb. The Koreans are sensitive about these comparisons. Later in the day when I put my confusion to my cab driver, his response was: “We not much like the Japanese people.” I replied: “Japanese don’t much like the Korean people.” He laughed a broad gold-tooth laughter: “That is right. They call us by bad word Chusanji; we call them by bad word Uenom which mean pigmy people.” No wonder the blessed Lord laid so much emphasis on loving one’s neighbours; the world over the one people most difficult to love are one’s neighbours.

  “Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you what you are,” proclaimed Savarin. Nonsense! Mr Savarin, the Koreans like the Chinese eat just about everything. With my own eyes I have seen restaurants displaying live snakes, lizards and dogs for customers to choose for their supper. They believe that snake flesh and dog meat flavoured with lizard chutney and washed down with ginseng wine soju is a powerful aphrodisiac. I didn’t eat them so I cannot vouch for their potency. But it did occur to me that all you have to do is to spread the story that a particular form of diet will put punch into your groins and people will begin to eat it. Our country is infested with rats. If we did enough propaganda about rat’s genitals being good for their human counterparts we might get rid of the rat menace.

  The Indian Embassy car is to pick me up at noon. In order to facilitate identification I take my position in the middle of the hotel foyer and engage an Indian lady in conversation. A car with a CD number plate draws up, a young Indian steps out and comes into the hotel. He looks around, comes up to me and fishes out a list of several Indian names amongst which I notice a “Mr Singh”. He asks me: “Are you Mr Takwale?” I reply “No”. I see him approach other Indians in the lounge, tick off their names and herd them together. Apparently he hasn’t completed his list. He goes to the house telephone booth and rings up. No luck. He looks exasperated and comes back to me and asks: “Is your name Mr Singh?” I reply in the affirmative. Before I can explode and ask him why he didn’t ask me that the first time, he announces triumphantly: “Mil gaya! Chaliye! We are already very late.”

  What kind of duffers do we employ in our embassies?

  I arrived in Seoul, as it were, on the dot. But not my suitcase. I watched others’ bags, holdalls, trunks being picked up by their owners till everyone was gone and the lighted panel KE 614 (my flight number) was switched off. I made for the “Lost and Found Luggage Counter.” There were over a dozen others clamouring for attention. Amongst them was an elderly scholar from Tunis nervously running the beads of his rosary through his fingers. He was in a very bad temper and bemoaned: “What shall I do without my baggage? All my clothes, all my medicines!” I joined the protesting throng. The airlines official examined my baggage ticket and advised me to wait for the next incoming flight from Delhi. “Maybe your baggage has been put on that by mistake.”

  The next flight was announced. I went back to the luggage ramp with the Tunisian beside me. The ramp started moving again. “I’ll say a short prayer for my suitcase to be delivered unto me,” I told Mr Tunisian. And lo, before the words were out of my mouth, I saw my blue beauty with The Hindustan Times plastered all over it come rolling along. I yelled “Hallelujah” and took it in my arms. The Tunisian asked me what I said in my prayer. I whispered the secret mantra in his ears and departed.

  The next morning I ran into the Tunisian in the hotel bar. He was no longer running the beads of his rosary through his fingers. He beamed as he saw me and came over to thank me for teaching him the secret mantra: “What you said to Pan Am, I said to Air Tunis. If that suitcase is not found I will do to your noble mother what is forbidden by the laws of God and man. Much more effective than praying to Allah.”

  Korean Courtesans

  A Korean institution which closely resembles the Japanese Geisha is the Kisaeng. Who started it and when is hard to tell. Variations of houses of courtesans where affluent (usually elderly) males could enjoy the company of young females other than their kinswomen while keeping up the pretence of respectability were known in many countries of the Orient. India had its mujra where song, dance and repartee could be followed by sex for the favoured patron. In Japan the accent was (and is) on sake wine, food and giggling. In modern Korea you get all that with retiring rooms provided on the premises; it would need a magnifying glass to detect the border line between the Kisaeng and the common whore.

  As in Japan so in Korea, the ul
timate in lavish entertainment is an evening in a Kisaeng establishment. Wives and lady friends are not welcome. You have to sit on the floor and if you find that a torture, it is best to say “no”. Also make sure there are no holes in your socks because shoes are not allowed. When you take off your shoes and overcoat, it is advisable to also divest yourself of your inhibitions. All you need to take inside is the capacity to hold liquor and a wallet crammed with currency notes.

  You squat on a gently heated floor with the Kisaeng allotted to you to minister to your needs. She will gently massage your tired feet, champ your shoulders and massage your scalp till you are free of tension. The first course is a bowl of rice gruel designed to line your intestines against hard liquor. Then you are seated before a low table with Korean delicacies spread out on it. Your Kisaeng pours a drink for you and holds the glass to your lips. You must likewise pour a drink for her and hold the glass to her lips. The favourite with most Koreans including the Kisaeng is Korean whisky. In the party of ten I was the only one who asked for ginseng brandy; it tasted of gin laced with horse-radish. Ginseng is in any case a kind of over-ripe radish usually taken with honey to smother its bitter taste. How it acquired the reputation of being a powerful aphrodisiac I could not find out. Having drunk ginseng tea every morning for the last two years I am somewhat disappointed with its potency. My Kisaeng lady whose name was Jeewon kept filling my glass and my plate with all manner of delicacies. I asked her if she had ever eaten a snake. “I no like snake meat,” she replied in her best English. “But it make man strong here,” she added pointing to my middle. Next visit I must try snake.

  I recall reading somewhere that in the English language there are as many as 500 synonyms for different stages of drunkenness. We do not have nearly as many in any of our languages because there is not nearly as much drunkenness in India as there is in Europe. Khumar and suroor do for the pleasanter earlier stages of imbibing liquor, for the higher we have chari hooee or mast (blotto). Korean has a delightful onomatopoeic word to describe drunkenness which makes a person unsteady on his feet—kondrey mondrey. But as in our languages so in the Korean they do not have an appropriate word for a hangover. I wanted to know as I suspected that was what I was heading for. My host dismissed my query with a broad smile: “We South Koreans do not have hangovers.”

  At 10 p.m. I succeeded in breaking up the party. With some temerity I asked my hosts what the evening bill had come to. It was 150 US dollars (Rs 1,350) per head. I paid a heavier price for my indiscretion: I had a hangover the like of which I had not experienced for many a year.

  Moral: Learn to be your age.

  India and Thailand

  If a public opinion poll were organized to find out which country in the world has the best-looking women, I am pretty certain the largest number of votes would be cast in favour of Thailand. And if another poll was organized to name the sexiest city of the world, I am equally sure the easy winner would be Thailand’s capital, Bangkok. It is perhaps the combination of the two that made Siam (as Thailand was earlier known) the favourite subject of dirty limericks. And the unfortunate aural overtones of Thailand and Bangkok which continue to provide material for after-dinner risque jokes. It is not advisable to crack them in the company of Thai nationals: like us Indians, Thais are unable to laugh at themselves. That is not very surprising because they are in historical fact our physical and spiritual progeny.

  I was not able to trace the origin of the word Thai but had no trouble finding out the ancestry of Bangkok. Next month the city will celebrate the 200th anniversary of its birth and a lot of literature has been published on it. What was two centuries ago a cluster of nondescript hamlets along a river known conjointly as Bong (riverside) Makok (an olive or plum-like berry) became Bangkok, the city of olives (or plums) alongside the river. Its full honorofic comprising 152 letters has made the Guinness Book of Records as the longest word in any language in the world. To wit: “City of Angels, great city of immortals, magnificent jewelled city of the god Indra, seat of the King of Ayutthaya, city of gleaming temples, city of the King’s most excellent Palace and Dominions, home of Vishnu and all the gods.”

  Today Bangkok with its teeming population of five million stretches along both banks of the river Mae Nam Chao Pharya—most noble mother of the waters.

  The Thai language and many Thai institutions trace back their ancestry to India. Although Buddhists, Thais regard Brahma as the supreme deity; Siva’s name appears everywhere. So do Naga and Garuda; Ramakien (Ramayan) is the favourite epic. The Thai New Year’s Day is called Songkran like our Sangrand and begins on the first Baisakh—April the 13th—when the sun passes from Aries into Taurus. They celebrate it by sprinkling water on each other as we do on Holi. The gum-shishya relationship which is in sad desuetude in India remains strong in Thailand. Every year on a Thursday (associated with the Jupiter known as the “teacher star”) students make offerings to their teachers. Believe it or not this custom is known as wai km, almost the same as the Sikh word for God, Wah-e-Guru. The names of Thailand’s two ancient capitals are startlingly Indian in origin: Sukhothai (place thai of contentment sukh) and Ayutthaya (Ayodhya). Chinese proximity had diluted Indian influences and produced a kind of Indo-Chinese khichdi. Thus the Thais have taken over the Chinese twelve-year cycle, each year named after an animal. The first is the Year of the Rat—in Thai Chuat—obviously a derivation of the Indian Chooha. Last year was the Year of the Cock-Raga—perhaps after the rooster’s morning call.

  Thais do not share our political view of the world but are eager to develop closer relationship with us. While their troops are engaged in fighting off incursions into their territory from the Kampuchean border, we are the only non-aligned Asian nation to recognize the Kampuchean regime. Monarchist Thais are passionately anti-communist and disapprove of our commitment to socialism. Nevertheless they look upon India as the land of their ancestors, the land of the Buddha and their Pali-Sanskrit-Hindu past. This emotional hangover of history helps overcome our present-day political differences.

  Indo-Thai trade exceeds 100 million dollars a year with the balance of trade in our favour. India sells Thailand engineering goods like pumps, diesel engines as well as pharmaceuticals. In return it buys fluorides, black beans and moong dal.

  Several joint Indo-Thai ventures are coming up. The Birlas have four producing rayon fibres, yarn and carbon black: the Thapars have a pulp and paper mill; the Mafatlals are setting up a dye-stuff plant; and the Jhavars of Calcutta a wire-rope plant.

  It is estimated that there are 25,000 Thais of Indian origin living in and around Bangkok of whom half have become Thai nationals. They come from the Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. The Punjabis are the more prosperous, having started in the textile trade and extended their interest to real estate and moneylending. The Gorakhpuri bhayya remains the darwan and the chana seller. Although the Indian community stubbornly maintains its separate identity and is split into factions (as all Indian communities are everywhere) they fulfil the obligations expected of citizens and unlike their compatriots in East Africa do not mean to make quick money to take back to India. They have made Thailand their home, their children speak Thai and may within a generation or two become fully integrated into Thai social life. Our Ambassador Ashok Gokhale, who maintains close contact with Indian organizations, spoke warmly of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha and the Hindu Samaj and the voluntary work they do for the Thai Red Cross, the blood bank and whenever appeals are made for relief.

  Patpong is Bangkok’s red-light district. It has all that other red-light areas of big cities have plus more which is uniquely Thai. It has singing and dancing, striptease joints, exhibitions of copulation, massage parlours and no-nonsense brothels. You get a whiff of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, Paris’s Place Pigalle and Tokyo’s Aka-saka mixed with something of New York’s Greenwich village. It is Bombay’s Kamatipura and Calcutta’s Sonagachi—all rolled in one. What is uniquely Thai is its variety of massage parlours. A large carpeted hall is divided into two by
a sheet of glass. On one side stand men wanting to be massaged; on the other are broad steps leading to a dais on which are seated almost fifty to hundred young masseuse in very low-cut dresses which reveal most of their bosoms. All bear different numbers. The glass partition is a oneway see through—clients can choose the girls by their numbers; the girls have no choice. Their only right is to a share of 150 baht (Rs fifty) and whatever tip a satisfied client may choose to give for any extra services rendered to him. There are many varieties of massages; with oil, talcum powder or simply rubbing of the male body with the masseuse’s naked body. What happens does not boggle the imagination.

  On my last evening in Bangkok, when other delegates had departed and I had no one to talk to and nothing to do, I went to the foyer of the hotel to find out if there were any city tours I could take. There were many alternatives: floating river market, royal palaces, Buddhist Viharas with Gautama in emerald or in recumbent pose, crocodile farm, zoo, etc. I approached the lady at the counter and asked: “Is there a tour of Bangkok’s night life?”

  She gave me a withering look and replied: “Sir, we don’t cater for that sort of thing here.”

  I felt duly snubbed. But the snubbing did not deter me from taking a cab to Patpong and resavouring the atmosphere of night clubs, strip-tease joints, massage parlours, hookers and pimps. I felt a very superior person passing through the streets of vice with the lofty disdain of a non-buyer: bazaar sey guzra hoon, khareedar nahin hoon. Next morning I asked Imtiaz Muqbil, a young Indian journalist settled in Bangkok who had come to say goodbye, “with so much prostitution there must be a lot of venereal diseases in this country?”