Being
Indian in Bangkok - Hindustan Times,
October, 2007
...He told me how Thais are the most
‘non-confrontationist’ people in the world. You’ll never see — or hear
— people fighting on the streets, or anywhere else for that matter
unless it was their bedrooms. He talked about his workplace. “You know
how it’s like with us Indians, we get stressed about everything, so
initially it was a problem with our Thai employees.” What did they do?
“They quit. Simple. They can’t handle tension.”
He also told me how being a sex worker there is a way of life. “Like
being an engineer or a doctor.” You are looked upon as being a driver
of the high-noon sector of sex tourism in the booming Thai economy.
Traffic is chaotic, but you don’t hear a single honk. Lane driving is
so straight that you think of classroom geometry boxes. And if you are
behind the wheel, you have to give way to pedestrians. But then, right
of way is rarely used as you have to go up overhanging footbridges and
then come down on the other side. Someone stopped me when I tried to
dart across an almost empty road once. God, was I missing India!...
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