In Mourning

The Garden wore a deserted look

Today was a national holiday. Guru Purab. The 548th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, founder of the Sikh faith. But the Garden wore a deserted look, as though in mourning. Even the late-comers did not bother to show up. Usually when the prabhat pheri crosses the street across the Garden, people rush out of the gate to greet the procession and collect kada prasad. But today, there was none of that fanfare or cheer.
It was therefore

Checking the night life in Pattaya

left to Bijoy Gupta, as always, to brighten the morning for us. And he started out by saying how left-out he felt, regretting why he did not go to Bangkok (see earlier posts). It was actually a teaser directed at Shekhawat. But as the latter was in no mood to fool about today (he had to take his wife to a doctor in Santa Cruz), he turned his attention towards Banoo Apa. “They say when you go to Bangkok, you knock off 20 years of your age,” he proclaimed in mock seriousness.
For a moment Banoo Apa was taken aback. Upon realising that it was a joke, she promptly cut Gupta short: “Had I gone to Bangkok, by now paigaams would have started coming for me!”
Gupta has a peculiar theory about Bangkok being peopled by mysterious other-worldly creatures (“neither male, nor female”) who can hypnotize anybody with their seductive charm, such that “you will forget who you are”. He claims that some of his close friends failed to even recognize themselves in the mirror and behaved funnily after returning from Bangkok.
“I'll know the truth when Pushpa (his wife) comes back,” he said tongue-in-cheek. “I don't want to disturb her now. She is with her friends and as far as I know, they are having a gala time. I believe they have left Pattaya by now and would stay put in Bangkok for the next three days.”
Here’s a picture of Pushpa Gupta (ext left) with four of her friends at Pattaya’s main tourist thoroughfare, the famous Walking Street.