A Spanish lady
- Part 1 -

By Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei *

The lady conductor was half awake, she walked up to me to get the money rubbing her eyes with the back of her right hand. After she had given me the ticket she went back to her seat near the exit door and slouched there wrapped in a large jacket, head resting against the tinted glass and in her slumber-drowned voice she released the names of every bus stop completely relying on her subconscious mind and memory.

The long orange air-con bus stopped right in front of the notorious red light area of this city. Standing on the lowest step to hop off I was between the shivering artificial air and the humid air trying to fight its way into but somehow confronted with the cold artificial air. Soon I was on the concrete pavement, richly littered and there was no sign of sweepers.

I believe it was still early for anybody. The city still depended on the yellowish street lamps. Below the street lamps were the colourful taxis. I could tell that the place had just gone to sleep, after having exhausted itself in the arenas of lust, pleasure, cacophony and commercial interactions.

On the long plastic bench of the bus stop was the wretched man in his rags, his bushy head resting on a pitch-black sack, sleeping sideways, his gnarled and blackened hands were released every now and then to scratch the exposed parts of his body. His lips, concealed by the bushy beard, moved but the movement was noticed only in the bushy beard. I examined the city man and by looking at the city-man I felt the importance of being under a roof.

The feeling that a prolonged stare could disturb the man's deep sleep made me leave the place soon. At the back of bus stop were the high-rise buildings representing the symbols of economic prosperity of this South-East Asian country, but the prosperity it had achieved had only been planted in some selective places of the nation.

Everything here had arrived so suddenly from developed and imposing countries that they still had no idea of how they should deal with it. The arrivals had patronized them to the point that it had exposed their incapability to lay their claim and they stood behind the strange but glittering things with their bodies in awkward looking outfits and their eyes starry and faces confused.

In this process of adopting what had arrived from the developed and imposing nations they had naively resolved to disown almost everything which they had been theirs except for the servility they still are capable of. The buildings were built by the Japanese companies so were the roads, the goods were manufactured in other developing countries, the decision makers were the people from other countries.

Only the employees at the lowest strata were them. The buildings built with Japanese money were named after Japanese names and the customers were Japanese. I left the wretched man in rags still sleeping and in his unconscious state his hands scratching the exposed parts which had been repeatedly bitten by the ubiquitous mosquitoes. My walk along the Japanese buildings was comforting as some momentary breeze out of the blue swept across the area making the tree-tops sway. This subdued the heat for a while.

Only for a while and when I got to the last building and turned left to get into a long street walled up on both sides by dilapidated buildings still bearing their seedy names. Had I not been slow with my steps my boots would have landed on the back of a naked figure lying on its chest against the grimy path, only when I ceased my steps and turned around to examine the figure I could have stepped on I realized it was a well-built human figure and his well-built body was tattooed all over.

His face was rested on a crumpled white shirt, his white feet were bare. People of his kind were on demand in this part of the world. I knew he was too drunk to get back to his hotel so I smiled to the figure and continued walking but my brief observation was noticed by someone and from a Japanese building a frail security guard jumped out and he said as he was required to say 'no..no.no.. you no sleep here. You go..you go sleep!'

The certainty in me was proved right, the man didn't go beyond what he was required to do and he was quickly snuffed as the drunk man snapped back ' you son of a whore! I was shagging your mother.

So, where I lay my head is your mother's lap.' The guard apparently didn't understand a word but he was rather scared and withdrew uttering few words below his breath ' white man..humm white man' and clicking his tongue he disappeared. As I furthered my walk I could discern the distant figures behind pushcarts bearing cauldrons and large woks bearing cooked local dishes, their heads were exposed by the bright tube lights.

They had been awake the whole night to sell food and they would go to sleep around nine in the morning. When I got close to their carts I was able to see the ladies much clearly. They must have been in their thirties but hard work and little sleep had stolen their beauty and what remained in their faces were endurance and the unreleased smiles. Their feet were in Willington boots and their clothes were below the long stained aprons.

Behind the carts veiled with thick shadows of the carts were their obese men seated at an iron folding table bearing cheap local beer and a jug containing ice-cubes. They giggled and their giggles ceased when they raised their mugs to the spluttering lips. I only had to walk till the middle of the street, and then I had to get into a lane through which I could get to a parallel street on which my work place located.

The lane was quiet; the stray dogs must have been rounded up and caged ,if they were lucky, otherwise they might have been transported to other south-east Asian nations where they would be served as delicacy. Along the parallel street I knew I would be ogled by desperate homosexual men who I always found in front of ' Boy-to-boy paradise.'

They ogled in the same manner they had been ogling at me and they exactly knew I wouldn't respond to their desperate emotions.

To be continued.....

Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei

* Nameirakpam Bobo Meitei, a resident of Bangkok, contributes to e-pao.net regularly.
The writer can be contacted at bobomeitei(at)hotmail(dot)com
This article was webcasted on October 23 2010.