KHUN PHU GOES TO INDIA, AGAIN

10 p.m. local time, flight TG 325 is about to land in Bangalore. I am back in India for the umpteenth time.
Stunningly enough I go quickly through the usually long process of immigration and custom, I collect my suitcase just to find myself out of the airport and start fighting with taxi drivers and auto-rickshaw drivers who want to charge 200 rupees to reach the hotel in the city.

Finally I find an auto driver who tells me the sweet words “meter sir” that sound like celestial music to my tired ears.

So after few minutes I am caught myself in the middle of Bangalore night traffic, the gas smell already deep inside my lungs and on my clothes.
Finally I reach the “so-called” Hotel and the meter says 60 rupees, I give 100 to the driver telling him “honesty always pays off, that`s the karma law”, he smiles at me and goes away happy I suppose.

My God, going from Bangkok to Bangalore is like first swimming in a beautiful tropical beach and then in some kind of polluted cold lake.
The hotel is lousy, totally. I am paying 1.000 rupees for a dirty and mosquito infested room. A/C is supposed to be there but is not working.
Better not mention the bathroom and its smell. I am simply very happy to have taken the soap from the “Park Hotel” in Bangkok, since here is obviously missing.

I venture out, the streets of the city are nearly desert, just few men wandering around apparently without goal, where are the ladies? Where are the girls?
And obviously I am the only “falang” in the area, even though here they would not call me in such way.

If in Bangkok temptation is constantly staring you in the eyes 24 hours a day here it seems that even if you search for it you would not find it.
At least I think so until an auto rickshaw offer to bring me in some untold place where I could find very beautiful and naked Indian women. This is India where everything is hidden, where (according to many people) there is no prostitution, no aids and no gays. Welcome to “denial country”.

Missing Bangkok? You must be kidding me, I miss so much Thailand, Bangkok and Surin but as we all know life is impermanent so here I am, with a job to do and tomorrow is another day.

Anyway I go on walking a bit, the smell of urine in not really a pleasant fellow, I saw few men pissing on the sidewalks, but I also notice few small malls, probably an attempt to modernity. I end up in a mysteriously still open “Coffee world” where I am writing these words on a piece of waste paper drinking so distant cousin to a cappuccino.
How I miss “Swenssen`s” and its beautiful waitresses.
Of course I am the only customer in the bar.

Good night.

Bangalore, November 21, 2548

C – Copyright CLAUDIO ROMANO