LOVE IN THAILAND

Arnab Nandy

No parents, no priests, no rules, no authorities, no police. No curbs, whatsoever!

Welcome to Thailand's infamous Full Moon parties, where a (mini) bucket of hard alcohol with red bull and drugs of all kinds are bought over the counter at bars. Every month, thousands of tourists descend on the island of Koh Phangan for each full moon since 1985. It's a cash-cow for the Thai government, drawing about 30,000 revellers during peak seasons and around 10,000 to 20,000 others on any given month. And now more than ever, Australians are joining the party.

"I guarantee that you will sleep on the beach if you don't book a hotel room before. It's the time of the Full Moon party and everything is booked on Koh Phangan," my travel agent in Bangkok warned me. 

Still I didn't book a room. Marzia, of Couch-surfing club, assured me I could stay with her. I was visiting Thailand on a shoe-string budget. Seventeen hours after leaving Bangkok, tired after an overnight bus journey and a three-hour boat ride, I stepped on Koh Phangan, a hilly island in the Gulf of Thailand (Koh means island in Thai). It is 70 km from the mainland and is part of the Samui Archipelago, which includes more than 40 islands. This island hosts the world-famous Full Moon party and the venue, the beach of Haad Rin.

I met my host in front of a departmental store in Srithanu, a hamlet in the north of the island, where my host stayed. Marzia is from Italy, staying there for the last six months doing a yoga course. She had rented a beautiful blue cottage amidst a lot of greenery. Jonas, another couch-surfer, is from Germany, sharing the same cottage. Sandra, another friend of hers, is expected shortly. Which means Jonas and me will have to sleep on the floor. 

"No problem. I have my sleeping bag," I said. After a quick shower and lunch, I rented a motorcycle for a bit of exploration. The beach was getting ready for the once-in-a-full moon event. A football tournament was under way on the beach and a DJ playing English and Thai numbers. Some were strolling along the sand, some dancing, some dipping in the water while others raced on water scooters. 

I came back to Marzia’s around 8.30 at night to find she and her five friends had cooked lots of dishes for dinner. We had a great time sharing travel stories and dancing while the near full moon was shining on us. Everyone fell in love with some one or the other.  

The next morning, Jonas and I went to Marzia’s school for a free yoga session. I realised yoga was not my cup of tea. At the end of the session, they asked us to meditate for 20 minutes and the two of us dozed off. Then we decided to check out a waterfall on the island and Dana and Chorita came along with us. The Phaeng waterfall had very little water but the hike to it was fun.

On the day of the party, we went to check out the venue. Temporary structures had been built along the beach for DJs to set up their consoles. Temporary dance floors, chairs and tables were being set up. A lot of people were sun-bathing and swimming and everyone talked about the night’s party. 

We were back to Haad Rin at 8.30pm. We bought 100-baht tickets (actually an orange wrist band) and entered the beach. I was surprised to find the event so well organized, despite everything around that could turn it into a chaos. There were security personnel everywhere, and lifeguards keeping vigil to ensure drunk people did not drown in the sea and there was a fenced area right on the beach set up by an NGO where completely drunk-and-out people could just plonk down and sleep. 

The entire beach had five or six DJs playing different tunes, and make-shift shops selling ‘buckets’ for around 200 baht. The buckets had a cocktail of whatever drinks you prefer, vodka, Red Bull, and so on. Some were selling drugs, who would walk up to you whispering: ‘Pills?’  

Many people had their bodies painted with florescent colours. Some had just prints of someone’s palm on their bodies, some men had messages like: ‘Body on rent for 20 baht’. 

Then there were fire games: two persons would swing a long rope on fire and the party-goers had to jump into the middle of the circle. Now and then, someone got entangled with the rope; since they are drunk, they don’t realise the burns till the next morning.  

I hung out with Jonas, Dana, Chorita, — Dana from South Korea and Chorita from Bangkok – and we joined a group of three girls and a guy. We had a lot of fun. Then the guy got so drunk he couldn’t walk, and we had to carry him out. Two of the girls went to get a motorcycle to take him to his hotel but never returned. Later I came to know they got lost. No wonder, they were so drunk! So I got him and his girlfriend a taxi and returned to the beach. I hung out with an Italian girl I had met that evening. It was around 3 am and I had to catch a boat at seven that morning.  

It’s easy to make friends at the full-moon party because everyone is in a good mood and everyone wants some new experience. It’s wise not to get totally drunk; then you miss out everything you wished to enjoy. Go with the flow and don’t confine yourself to one group.  

When I was leaving, there were drunk-and-out people snoring on the beach, men and women peeing into the gulf of Thailand and some making out in the sea. You may love it or hate it, but at the full moon party, there are no restrictions.   

The tales of debauchery are endless. Every year, reports of thefts, fights, sexual assaults and even death start pouring in as the party comes to a finale. On January 21, a promising Sydney rugby player, Joe Welch, died at a Full Moon Party. Despite his strong and fit physique, the 19-year-old was pulled unconscious from unfamiliar waters, spending two weeks in a coma from which he never recovered.

"After I burnt myself, I saw another guy's hair catch on fire," said an office assistant. "It hit me and I went down on top of it. Even though I got burned, I loved it. I loved the atmosphere," she added

MAKING THE DEAD SPEAK!

BY SANDEEP SHRIVASTWA

Some enterprising authors have invented the art of making the dead speak, instead of speaking for the dead. Taken aback by the stunning disclosure, your reasoning fails precisely when you require it most. In a surge of emotions, the caged animal suddenly escapes from the zoo!

Imagine you just read a passage in a book that was widely publicized like Mel Gibson’s movie The Passion of the Christ. The passage tells you that Edwina Mountbatten would have her breakfast sitting in Jawaharlal Nehru’s lap. Your imagination running wild, you don’t think even for a moment of the noble Platonic relationship the two had. The gullible have already lapped it up, believing the written word to be the gospel truth.   

Television channels (Times Now included) will soon hold a panel discussion on the Nehru-Edwina affair. One of the panelists, we are pretty certain, would say the British are always an action-oriented people and since Nehru had studied at Cambridge, it stands to pure logic that it’s true. 

A seasoned political commentator like Ravi Shankar Prasad would say Mountbatten used Edwina as bait to get India take the Kashmir issue to the UN. One of Delhi’s most eminent psychiatrists would say he has records to prove that Nehru suffered a depression during that period and Edwina helped him come out of it 

As the nation watch these debates with bated breath, Arnab Goswami would triumphantly declare: I am holding in my hand the secret tapes of the conversation between Nehru and Edwina in a rendezvous, exclusive to Times Now. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, the viewers are intrigued.  

Jacqueline Kennedy’s reported remarks on Indira Gandhi falls in the same genre. For all we know, the US establishment hated Mrs Gandhi for her ideological proximity to the Kremlin. But there is no reason why the first lady should hate the future prime minister of India on presumably her first meeting. The author at his deceptive best must have made the dead speak, which is one of the tricks of bestseller writing. (Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F Kennedy by Arthur M Schlesinger Jr)  

If they don’t have bread, let them eat cake! Who said it, Marie Antoinette? There is no evidence to prove that she ever said it. The words appear in Rousseau’s Confessions, his autobiography. The author may have invented the anecdote, attributing it to the Great Princess. Marie was nine years old when the book was written in 1765. The Chinese have a similar story, and during a famine the emperor asked, if they don’t have rice, let them eat meat!  

Another tale of distortion comes from George Washington’s biography. His father presented him a new axe, and the boy tested its sharpness by cutting down unwittingly his father’s favourite plant. In the evening, he saw his father beating the servants for cutting down the plant. Facing his father’s wrath, the boy stepped forward and admitted to his mistake. This boy when he grew up became the first President of America! This story is an invention of his biographer but found its way to Indian textbooks – presumably through American books – in the 1950s.  

Why Dan Brown made a fortune in The Da Vinci Code by relying on fraudsters like Pierre Plantard. Born as the son of a butler (described as a cook for wealthy families in police reports), Plantard manipulated his way up the social ladder till a judge investigating a major political scandal had his house searched, which yielded false documents proclaiming him to be the true king of France. Under oath, he admitted he had fabricated everything. At a time when women and men do not share the same dining table, Dan Brown saw Mary Magdalene at the Last Supper, to the exclusion of St John, the Beloved Disciple of Jesus. 

Truth is seldom found in Politics and Media!    

THE SECRET OF A PRESIDENT

An Interview with Mr Bhaskar Das, President of The Times of India Group of Newspapers:

Sir, which are the five books that have changed your life?

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne
The Future of Competition by Dr C K Prahalad
World 3.0: Global Prosperity and How to Achieve It  by Pankaj Ghemawat
Marketing as Strategy by Nirmalya Kumar
The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell  

You can start reading any of these books, but I recommend The Secret because it will help you develop a sustained equilibrium to face life. Imagine you are a magnet thinking positive all the time; then you will attract positive energy. Conversely, if you are a magnet of negative thoughts, you will end up with negative energy.

The five persons who have profoundly influenced you?

God
Family
Our Vice Chairman, Mr.Samir Jain
My Colleagues
Mr.Pradeep Guha

The five decisions that have made you what you are today?

To Join TOI
To be a perpetual student...learning every day, every moment.
My marriage
Completing my PHD
Accept every new assignment that my Company gives me without asking any question...

FOR WHOM THE BELLS TOLL

By MEENAKSHI ROHATGI

It was not only an attack on the United States, it was an attack on the world and on the humanity and hopes that we share, wrote Barack Obama in UK’s Sunday Mirror.

"My daughter was killed. My world was destroyed. For me, every day is Sept. 11". Thus wrote Avraham, who wore a photograph of her smiling daughter pinned to her shirt.

Nicholas Gorki (9) has never met his father because he was in his mom's belly. Nonetheless he said: "I love you, Father. … I love you for loving the idea of having me."

‘‘I am planning on spending most of the day in tears… thinking of fire fighter Kevin Murray’’ and Seth Bauer buried in the rubble when the Towers collapsed but escaped to give an extremely touching interview to a newspaper, said Melissa, a New Yorker.

These are words that ring in our ears and refuse to die down, as they come from people whose lives have been shattered because one insane man plotted against humanity. 

Bells rang across the land, every four seconds for three hours, 15 minutes and 48 seconds, from 8:30 to 11 a.m. Millions gathered in churches to remember, question, pray and hope for a world without such painful memories.

WIKIJOKES






By JOYEETA CHAKRAVORTY

In a World Megalomania Contest, who would be crowned – Julian Assange or Mayawati? Taking jokes seriously is one of the symptoms of megalomania, say psychiatrists the world over.

Mayawati the Super-Architect believes in building grandiose edifices and statues; Julian the Super-Iconoclast believes in demolishing by leaks, real and imaginary. Both are the creations of the media. While Mayawati’s dream is to reach Madame Tussaud’s (wax museum in London), the Louvre in Paris and the Washington Monument (now closed but when re-opened), Julian would love to shift his office permanently to the White House, with offices in Elysee Palace and 10 Downing Street to make the noble profession of leaks easy.

One speaks politics all the time, the other economics. Hence there is no meeting ground between the two. If Nitin Gadkari and Manmohan Singh were to spend five minutes together, Nitinspeak would be Greek and Latin to Singh, just as Singhspeak would be Mandarin and Malay to Nitin. But in political gamesmanship, they score a fax pau each. When Manmohan held a Press Conference without the Press, so to speak, Nitin admitted in effect BJP has no leaders when he stated the party is ready to follow Anna Hazare. (That’s the Congress interpretation, you might dismiss; then it has a serious implication that Anna Hazare is the genie manufactured in Nagpur and let out of the bottle in Delhi!!)

In antics, Kiran Bedi is contesting Lalu Prasad Yadav, hoping Harvard University would take note of her. Special planes have been flown to Harvard (and even Hollywood) with video-tapes of the Bedi show!

In dancing, Sushma Swaraj is trying to steal the thunder from Mallika Sarabhai, who may have performed abroad. What makes Dancing Sushma so very special is that it was a sacred dance in a sacred place. And it is rumoured that she is opening a bale dancing school near Raj Ghat!

THE SHOOTING OF A MAHATMA!

Anna Hazare landed home in a Mercedes Benz. Imagine Gandhiji using Mercedes!! That raises another question: Can we believe what we see; can we trust what we hear? Crowds love commotion; the dispirited love it doubly because they find in it a new meaning; and the angry love it even better because they find an outlet for their emotions. Can we trust what we saw on television, or the truth is what the television did not show?

The reality shows, notwithstanding the title, will not tell you the reality. That Anna Hazare looked far more real than Ben Kingsley in the shooting of the film Gandhi may be an outrageous comment. Suspend your outbursts for a minute and consider the following points:

Why did Anna agree to a Jan Lokpal Bill that would destroy the carefully built-in Constitutional checks and balances that is the maverick of Indian democracy? Why did the same bill that sought to bring every petty bureaucrat in its ambit leave out the NGOs? The answer, though embarrassing for some, is not difficult to find. A driver by profession, Anna Hazare does not have the acumen to understand the legal and Constitutional niceties. And it is common knowledge that a majority of NGOs do not file income-tax returns, though some of them get foreign funds, whether from Ford Foundation or World Bank!

What was designed to be achieved capitalizing on the anger of the people was a government of Lokpal, which intelligent and informed debate across the country has scotched. Clearly, Anna is not the leader but propped up as one by some Magsaysay Award winners for his image of integrity and histrionic skills.

The next question: Having tasted blood, will Anna Hazare retire to his pavilion, or will there be more road shows? A commotion once every six months will keep the crowds in fine fettle. Then will come the Waterloo. What we saw on television will be tested in the next general election – whether or not it was the solidarity of 1.2 billion Indians or a mere street show.

A Malayalam movie released in the 1970s brilliantly portrayed how the swearing-in of a newly elected chief minister was thwarted by millions of people blocking the road from his residence to the legislative assembly building. The car simply couldn’t move! If a film producer could manufacture a crowd far greater than the ones we saw on television, who is speaking the truth?

Wait till the Waterloo!

ANNA THE ROCK STAR

The timing of the show was perfect. Anna Hazare has rocked parliamentary democracy; he has rocked the Constitution; he has rocked the Manmohan Singh government; he is about to rock the judiciary. He paralysed the administration by raising hopes of the burgeoning middle class who are on the streets, expecting corruption to end in 15 minutes by passing the Jan Lokpal Bill as some of the teenage students believe.

To be sure, there is not a single Indian who is not affected by corruption – unless you are Suresh Kalmadi, Ashok Chavan, or Spectrum Raja. In the 1970s, Mrs Indira Gandhi raised the slogan ‘Garibi Hatao’ (eliminate poverty) and electrified the masses; just as ‘Build the Ram temple’ excited a section of the people at the turn of the 1980s. But the temple was not built, nor poverty abolished; neither will corruption be eliminated by a Lokpal Bill. Slogans have the power to change governments, or alter the power equation, which is what is happening right before your eyes.

Poor Manmohan Singh, whose only fault is saying ‘Yes’ to Sonia Gandhi when she was looking for an honest man in the Congress but could not find one except Dr Singh. The incumbent prime minister is undoubtedly guilty of raising the GDP of the country from a low single digit to near-nine per cent, to become the second fastest growing economy of the world! (Many fear this doctor could parody Marie Antoinette to say, If the poor do not have bread, why don’t they eat GDPs?)

You have before Parliament two Lokpal Bills: the so-called civil society one and the authorised version. Lok Jan Lokpal Bill will turn the Constitution topsy-turvy and create a government of Lokpal by Lokpal for Lokpal, answerable to none but every single authority of the land accountable to it! The government version will ensure that anyone making an allegation land in Thihar jail, not temporarily but on a permanent visa, since an individual does not have the wherewithal of an investigating agency or the legal acumen to nail the guilty.

One person arrogating to himself the powers of Parliament and demanding the Constitution be abrogated in favour of a Bill drafted by his cronies is, to say the least, against the grain of democracy. Can a few thousand people be allowed to hijack a democracy of 1.2 billion? In France, in the name of ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’

Robespierre guillotined all his political rivals and finally nemeses caught up with him when he himself was guillotined! Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Weimar Republic had their own slogans and tales to horror to tell. All revolutions have eventually ended up in the hands of dictators because the people have mortgaged their intelligence to the leader.

The script of Jan Lokpal Bill is well drafted and played out even better. What the gullible do not realise is that Anna is a mere mascot of vested ideologues awaiting their apocalyptical hour. You have to decide whether you want a gullible democracy or an intelligent democracy. Your decision will determine the future of India.