The Thai Times - II

Many years later when I Google-searched Phahurat out of nostalgic curiosity, I found that king Chulalongkorn (Rama-V) had named it in the 19th century after his daughter Bahurada (Sanskrit Bahuratha, meaning endowed with many chariots), which now seemed to have settled down as Pahurat or Phahurat. I have observed that alphabets ‘b’ and ‘p’ are used almost interchangeably by the Thais. And yes, all the Thai kings are Ramas in serial numbers. The image of Rama as the ideal king (as in India) has gone down real deep. Hindu / Sikh migrants started pouring in the 20th century post partition of India, from the newly born Pakistan. It is now known as the ‘Little India’ of Bangkok. Ever migrating Bangladeshis followed suit and established their restaurants there, under the garb of ‘Indian’ just as they do elsewhere in the world. I ate my last dinner in one such Bangladeshi restaurant that served a thick curry of fish and rice. The owner while serving asked me which part of India I belonged to. He was possibly looking for an eastern (Bengali) connect. But the conversation ended abruptly when I said west, post which he lost interest in continuing further. By the way, nowadays the nearby ‘China Town’ is slowly encroaching the space of this ‘Little India’. Any similarities with the current affairs? Yes, dragon is a space-hungry animal!

 

 

Next three of my trips to Thailand were for work, conferences; two of them to Bangkok and one to the western island of Phuket, facing our Andaman Sea. The last one was a personal one in 2013, when I participated in the Asia-Pacific table tennis tournament for the veterans, held in Bangkok, with a two nights Pattaya package thrown in. But all of them landed me on the new Suvarnabhumi airport, and not Don Mueang. First time visiting Indians are generally floored at the sight of the ‘Amrit Manthan’ installation on the airport; it is straight out of the Hindu (Bhagwat) Purana - gods on one side and the demons on the other, using serpent Vasuki as the rope for churning the ocean. One may wonder what a Hindu Purana scene is doing in Buddhist Thailand. But that’s how Thailand is, Buddhist on the surface and Hindu at the core. In one of those official Bangkok trips, I visited the Erawan shrine on one evening, which is Brahma temple, close to a Grand Hyatt property. Having digested the Suvarnabhumi scene in the beginning, the Brahma temple (one of the very few in the world) shouldn’t surprise. The traditional dance and music show there, a daily affair, takes one back to say Puranic time. Although the steps of the dancers are limited, one can connect them easily to Indian influence.

 

I had thought to stay only for a couple of days during my 1st trip. So I planned my local tours quickly through a nearby hotel that had a tourist company’s counter inside. I booked myself for two tours – 1 full day (Nong Nooch village, floating market etc.) and 1 half day (city tour of famous temples of reclining Buddha, emerald Buddha etc.). The first one was a window to how the Thais had perfected the art of entertaining visitors with simple things like training animals. In one of the shows, the football-playing elephants dawned banners bearing some of world’s then famous footballers like Alan Shearer (England) & Roberto Baggio (Italy), and entertained the crowds with intelligent goal-making. Another show enacted a thrilling battle scene between invading Burmese army and defending Thai army, both using elephants for the purpose, ending (of course) in hands down victory for the Thai army. That was the time I tasted my first Thai coconut water at Nong Nooch that got addicted me for life time. Howsoever proud Indian one may be, we just don’t have those coconuts that produce such heavenly water. The first time I drank it, I found it so addicting in qualities of sweetness and nourishment that I suspected it to be infused with something extra from outside, which obviously it wasn’t. Such superiority is found among Thai fruits like guavas and cantaloupes too, which I was to discover later.

 

The thing that got me attracted during my temples’ tour, apart from the cleanliness and calm atmosphere, was the discipline followed about the apparel one wears while entering. If you are not wearing acceptably decent (full body covering) clothes, you are required to hire them from an inside facility, and only then enter the main shrine wearing them. Similar practices are noticed in the temples in many parts of southern India, which need to be benchmarked by the rest, for the obvious reasons of upholding self-esteem. Although all the temples were Buddhist, one could easily notice the Hinduness of some other things like the three-faced (Brahma-Vishnu-Mahesh) idols with Indian features, placed separately on a pedestal near the entry of the main shrine. Even the most preferred flower for offering inside the temples is of lotus, which incidentally is India’s national flower.

 

Two more very interesting things I noticed in Thailand that fit closely in the Indian setting too. One was a Tulsi-Vrindavan like thing in the courtyards of independent houses and hotels, even global brands like Hilton, with or without a plant on top. On a closer look one would find an idol fitted in the centre that resembled a Bhairava or Kshetrapal, a guarding deity of a territory, a Hindu concept adopted later by Buddhism. The second thing was about the small temple-like piece of furniture in shops, where food was placed on a plate as offering, possibly at the time of prayers in the beginning of the day. The only distinct variation here, from the Indian angle, was that many a time the food was in the form of a whole cooked chicken or a small duck. Some Indians may frown at that or even turn away in disgust, but it is a matter of how you take it in your stride and try to empathise with the purity of thought behind it.

 

On one relaxed evening at the hotel swimming pool I happened to bump into a local businessman, a rice trader, India being one of the countries he exported to. When we sat down next to each other after the swim, he brought up the subject of Ramayana. He mentioned that the Thais believed that Ramayana had actually taken place in Thailand. Although I experienced some obvious shock, I didn’t let it show. He looked at me for a response. I simply said that Indians too believed similarly, and left at that. I had actually been overwhelmed emotionally by the simplicity with which he had stated that, endearing me instantly as a brother would.

 

Oh, that reminds me to take the Ayutthaya trip next time (which I’ve not been able to manage so far somehow). Friends, this Ayutthaya is nothing but verbal distortion of Ayodhya, which was the capital of the latest (pre-modern) Thai kingdom by the same name (as the ruling kings were Ramas), and thus the capital of Thailand 400 years before Bangkok. The Burmese had attacked and ransacked it. The Thais then moved to Bangkok and maintained the ruins out of respect, which by the way is a big tourist attraction.