I'm being eaten alive here! Ants and ants everywhere. Big chunks of me are being bitten off and taken off on little backs to some feast in my honour. They crawl over your food. They crawl over your laptop and fall stupidly into the gap between the keys. They crawl up your feet and then up your legs. They get into your hair, your ears and up your nose. And worst of all they get into your camera lens! As I write this they are marching back and forth in a straight line from my breakfast. Nifty little red buggers with super fast reflexes like tiny Formula 1 cars . They seem to have developed a taste for humans: humans leave crumbs. Humans leave the leftovers of their breakfasts. Humans wipe their sugary-greasy hands on their clothes. Humans are dirty and their ear wax is full of proteins. We love humans.
Then there's the mosquitoes. Don't talk to me about mosquitoes! Like miniature helicopter gunships they are:
[Mosquito No.1] Human spotted Captain!
[Captain mosquito] Well done. Describe target, No.1?
[No.1] Male. Fat. American I think. Has a layer of thick, pink, juicy flesh. Head covered in New York Yankees baseball cap but I can attack the legs Captain. He's wearing shorts
[Captain] What activity is target engaged in, No.1?
[No.1] Sir, target is currently eating breakfast. American breakfast: sausages, toast, and dollops of marmalade
[Captain] Good. Good No.1. Commence attack. Go for the legs. Good luck! Over and out
Plenty of sunlight and rain - that's what attracts them here to Thailand. Why don't they buzz off to England? Plenty of rich pickings there? If I was a mosquito or an Ant I'd head for England. Just imagine:
[Wazee Mosquito] Alright guys, I'm off!
[Others] Off? Where too?
[Wazee Mosquito] To England!
[Others] England? What for?!
[Wazee Mosquito] Duh-Duh! You guys are so dim. For the culture man. The movies. The lights. The 8 million obese humans bursting with goodness ready for a good sucking. The galleries. The language "Ya'll rite mate!". For Brick Lane. For real luurve. For literature. For William. For Freddy. For Wazeem.
[Others] Who?
[Wazee Mosquito] For Wazeem
[Others] Who's that?!
[Wazee Mosquito] Someone famous
[Others] Really? Can't say we've erd of im'
[Wazee Mosquito] Course you can't man. Not many mosquitoes have, he's a writer, but I digress. Anyway, London will be my new playground. The tropics have been done to death man! Thailand is like so old time man! All the mosquitoes hang out in Thailand. You wanna try sumfink different. Like London. Just imagine. London Liverpool Street! Just imagine it in the mornings. That bustling crowd of lumbering ripe fleshy humans; staring at the train timetables like lost maggots. Pick & Mix man! Pick & mix! I'll zoom down from the terraces, wings swung back in dive mode, zip between the suited commuters, ready my proboscis, flash of flesh, take aim, fire, ouch - gotcha!
****
On telephone conversations
[UK relative] So any Muslims there?
[Me] What in Thailand? A few. Not many
[UK relative] Oh, so you're alone then?
[Me] Alone? What do you mean?
[UK relative] No 'apne lorgh'. No 'our' people. No Muslims.
That says a lot doesn't it? Just those words: 'Apne Lorgh - Our People'. The assumption being that you will be alone if you are not surrounded by you're own people. It's a common theme. I've never felt part of a larger community in England so for me atleast the theme doesn't exist. My immediate family and a few close friends are all I have. Thus the concept of aloneness in foreign lands is alien to me; failing to enter my mental realm. But it is interesting to see how others view it. They assume you will be challenged by the aloneness. But I believe that this is more an indicator of where they are coming from. It says more about their lives than yours; who their friends are. Who they feel comfortable with. And more importantly it tells you how big 'their sphere of comfort' is.
My Father came to England in the 60's. He's old now and I am eternally grateful that he made the migration. That he made the jump. Many didn't - and it takes gutso to do it; no doubt the spectre of seeing those boatloads of immigrants from England returning in dapper suits and bearing gifts helped him make the decision - and my life would be different if he hadn't. Travelling through Pakistan amomgst the down trodden made this realisation starker.
The point I want to make is that my father has been in England for 45+ years now. He has lived and worked here bringing up a family. But, in those 45+ years he made no lasting white friends. Why is that? And it's quite telling if you think about it. I think a big part of it is no doubt due to the racism he had to live with in the benighted days of his youth, terms like 'Paki' and 'Blackie' were common and I'm sure he suffered a lot. He dealt with it by putting his head down and working hard. Like most of the immigrants he wasn't a professional and he worked long hours in a factory returning at night to a home that my parents shared with many other families. He probably worked with people of a similar background and all the while he harboured dreams that his sons wouldn't have to do the same. That they'd get educated - the perennial immigrant dream. I think in those days it would have been hard for the white people he was working with to accept him. He would not have been able to go out for a drink. He would have eaten his own halal food out of a tiffin box and he would have spoken English poorly - so this would have limited his social interactions to people of his own ilk. And this is expected.
But the point I want to make is that now 50 years on, wouldn't you expect things to be different? And they are. Things are better now; communities less segregated; multicultural friends normal etc, but even then, when you go to places like Small Heath in Birmingham, you feel as if you have stumbled into a ghetto. And the telephone conversation above confirms this. I don't know why this is (that is not the subject of this piece). But I do know that it is not the right way to go. Maintaining one's culture and life is fine. I would rather live in a world where people are different, such a world is so much more fascinating, but it should not be an all or nothing thing. There should be give and take. Otherwise as a community, as a person, as an individual, you will never grow.
You will see the world more clearly in colour then when viewing it in black & white. If you do not add colour to your world view: by reading, imbibing, keeping an open mind, trying something a little different, perhaps visit a country you'd never dream of going to, then your time on the earth will have been wasted and you are a fool. Your time on earth is the only time you have. This is it. This is all your gonna get. Don't waste it.
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On couples
I see a lot of couples. They're everywhere - like the ants and mosquitos! In fact more often then not I see couples on holiday. I was on the WWII bridge yesterday and who came up asking me to take their photograph? Yes a couple. So she smiles; squinting in the sun, her partner next to her and you snap a picture. Ah lovely! What a nice couple you think. So right for each other. Before you've finished pressing the shutter someone else touches you on the shoulder: can you take our picture pleeease?! - another couple. How can you refuse! Being alone makes it easier for couples to ask you favours - but you don't mind. Perhaps being alone makes you more approachable. Who knows. But you do think: why am I not like them? Why do I not have someone to share myself with? And sometimes it bothers you.
Dark clouds start drifting into your mind: what's wrong with me? And they get darker and before you know it you're in a deep trough: Yes I knew it. I'm a weirdo and a freakshow - you're now officially in the midst of a tempest; a tropical storm - a depression. But it doesn't feel like a storm; more like as if you're down at the bottom of a deep well and you can see the sky, a bright light at the top, but you have to climb out, up the rungs, into the light, to get out. So you start climbing. Up and up you climb and every rung in the ladder constitutes a reason why it is better to be decoupled as opposed to coupled:
1) Women smell. Why would you wanna be with a smelly person? (lame excuse? well it works)
2) You can stay in cheaper hotels and save loadsa dosh and spend the money on treating yourself
3) Have you ever seen couples on holiday? They look miserable. The women is thinking: I wanna get out of this! - Trust me I know (I can read minds)
4) The whole trip costs less. One mouth to feed (No, I am not a cheep skate)
5) Mood swings: how can you have a wonderful time with a person who has 7 different personalities - for each day of the week?
6) You can do whatever you want and you don't need to seek approval (surely that's gotta be worth some browny points?)
So you climb out of the dark well into bright sunshine. You smell the fresh air. The wide open spaces. The grass. The flowers. You get stung by the mosquitoes and the ants crawl up your legs, but it's ok. You're glad. Glad to be uncoupled. Works a treat!
