-Brian Mendonca
Apart from some enterprising
in-laws who have actually been to Bangkok, and maybe Singapore, Southeast Asia
remains largely unchartered terrain. Shrouded behind a curtain of secrecy
imposed by ruling regimes visitors have usually been felled by the ‘night life’
touted in glossy tourism brochures about Pataya or Phuket -- felled, because
sex tourism is only one way of knowing a country (or a state).
Cuisine is another. There was
no way we could miss the Thai food festival organized in town. We began with
Dragon Mounglet -- prawns wrapped in steak chicken, for
starters. These were pretty much like chicken momos you could pick up in
Kathmandu. For soup we chose Tom Yum Gai which had diced chicken, glass noodles,
mushrooms, chilli peppers and sprigs of lemon grass. Queenie calls it ‘fire
water.’ Go to templeofthai.com for the recipe. The piece de resistance was the main course, the traditional Gaeng Garee
which was modso cooked in a yellow
curry with coconut milk. That with a dollop of steamed rice – exquisite! A date
pancake with ice cream brought up the rear.
At the same time I was being treated
to a panoramic sweep of Southeast Asia reading The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh. From the glass palace in
Mandalay, the seat of King Thebaw and Queen Supayalat of erstwhile Burma (now
Myanmar) we are transported via Ratnagari (where the King and Queen are exiled)
to Malaysia, Rangoon and Calcutta. The theatres of war play out as English and
Japanese occupying forces push to overcome and consolidate their overseas
territories.
Thailand which means ‘land of
the free’ is now under military rule with the recent coup pushing aside former
Thai Prime Minister Ms. Yingluck Shinawatra last month. Adverse comments about
the deposed PM online, cost Miss Universe Thailand, Weluree Ditsayabut, her
crown weeks back forcing her to relinquish it. It shows what a small place the
world is and how public opinion can change one’s fortunes.
In neighbouring Burma, opposition
leader Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi remained under house arrest for almost 15 years
from 1989 until she was released in 2010. The
Glass Palace ends with a description of one of her meetings with the
people, ‘The year 1996 marked the sixth year of Aung San Suu Kyi’s house
arrest.’Further East Flowers of Hell
a collection of poems by Vietnamese poet Nguyen Chi Thien was smuggled out of
Hanoi in 1979 after the poet gate-crashed the British embassy there and pressed
his sheaf of poems into the hands of one of the officials.
Circuits of publishing with
their own agendas decree that we hardly seen any Thai novels, poetry or
literature on the book racks of book shops. It seems like an alien country
waiting to be discovered. One definition of rape is ‘crash landing in thigh land.’
The proposed Chinese rail line from
Kunming to Singapore via Laos and Bangkok will unite South East Asia like never
before. Are we ready?
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Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez. Goa, on Sunday 15 June 2014. Pix courtesy: infoplease.com
Published in Gomantak Times Weekender, St. Inez. Goa, on Sunday 15 June 2014. Pix courtesy: infoplease.com
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