Tuesday, September 23, 2008

The first story

My daughter is 2 1/2 years old. She just loves to hear stories and also thinks she can tell them too. Her stories are largely anything goes disjointed sentences but I just love listening to them. Yesterday, and i assume inadvertently, she constructed a story which made sense to an adult mind.

So here it goes, enjoy the first story by her, narrated as heard...

She: Dada, I will tell you a story
I: Ok, tell

She: One day, there was a jungle
I: Then...

She: Jumbo elephant came from the jungle
I: Then what happened

She: He saw a little girl crying
I: Then what happened

She: Jumbo came and, and piched her up in his trunk and, aaaaaaaaaaa, and put her on his back
I: Did she stop crying?

She: No she cried again
I: Why did she cry now?

She: Little girl cried for her mama
I: Then what happened

She: Mama came and took the little girl
I: Then what happened

She: Then jumbo cried
I: Then what happened

She: Story over

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Impressions from ThighLand and BangCock

Post written in a hurry so that I do not lose the thread of thought. Would come back to it sometime later and try to craft it better.
Just back from a short visit to the Bangkok. The basic impressions I assume have been well captured in the post title.
But that is not the reason for this post though that would make a spicier post to write.
Here we go with the raison-de-etre of the post, albeit a short post.
Women dominate Bangkok. They are everywhere. They just control every sphere of that city, any and every kind of business. Men seem to play a secondary role and are hardly seen. Now and when you do see men they confuse you the hell out of you. They look, walk, talk and exhibit more female traits then men.
My theory (and I am sure there would be better ones) is because as a country they probably suffer from low self esteem. And this low esteem probably is a result of thriving sex tourism that exists in that country. History as witness, there have been more battles fought for the honor of the women than anything and even wars fought otherwise the victors first action was to ravage the women and humiliate the opponents by this public act of dishonor. And here is a country where people from all across the world come and pillage, despoil their women and there is no recourse for the men but to accept it. The suppression of the natural male traits leads to them cloaking themselves and changing more into like women. Seems like a good and probably the only recourse for the men to hide their shame. Be part of the shame than an audience.
Even this is not the reason for this post.
The point is that this behavior of men really stands and looks really odd. Rather weird. And at some level you feel embarrassed. But if you step back you find the world over women are doing the same thing. They are turning into men, for reasons which are valid enough, but then in their new avatar they are also as far away from their true self as the men in Thailand. And in turn weird.
The question that I ask is, should women lose themselves and evolve into something that’s not them just to survive? Is being men the only way for them?
Such men in Thailand are weak, spineless sissies.
But are you also the same?