BANGKOK PETER

When in India, be ready for the shocking.

Peter was the foreign correspondent for the German paper Die Welt in Asia. He was stationed in Bangkok. It was Peter’s job to travel throughout Southeast Asia, covering political hotspots. His reports on the economic and political stability of these regional problems influenced investment decisions by his pro-business readership.

Gloria and I met him under a hotel umbrella on a beach in Sri Lanka. He was drinking a glass of whisky at 10 o’clock in the morning. The bottle stood nearby. He told us that it was only because of his aching foot that he had taken relief in alcoholic medication. He had crushed the big toe in a motorbike accident and now it was infected. He gingerly undid the dressing to show us the toe. The nail seemed to float loosely on an abscess of puss. Infection in the tropics is never a good sign.

He was tall and thin, clad in jeans and tennis shoes, and was a tremendously congenial guy. He was in Sri Lanka to report on the ever-simmering war between government troops and the Tamil rebels. Being a reporter, he had to be available to follow any late-breaking events. He would often get a call from his editor with instructions to immediately jump on a plane. He would fly to some strange town in some remote country, and interview some news-making person. After gathering all the facts, he would throw it together in a 300-line article for a 9AM deadline.

“I’ve always worked under deadline” he said “but don’t find it to be a problem.” Today he was on his way to the northern port town of Jaffre to interview rebel leaders. Afterward he would write a feature column for dispatch back to Germany.

I was enjoying our conversation as we hid from the sun under that far spreading umbrella.

Yet, as I looked into his face, I could not help but think that Peter had sad eyes. Somehow, he seemed to have the cares of the world on his shoulders. I suppose that is understandable, considering that it was his job to report on some of the more unsavory aspects of human nature. His was a stressful profession. All the time under the gun, having to travel, find the right people, get interviews and then produce a coherent article.

When traveling along the ‘gringo trail’ that most tourists take through Asia, one meets lots of new people. In a way, that is a lot of the reason why people choose to travel. Between some of these new acquaintances, there forms an instant friendship, leading to a bond of earnest camaraderie. With these new friends, you know that you would never be at a loss for conversation and affectionate conviviality. Gloria and I immediately felt this way about Peter.

Well, for a couple of hours, the three of us had a swell time together under that umbrella. We swapped travel stories and made lots of stupid jokes. Finally Peter’s car arrived. He was off to the world of political reality after a short break on the beach. Before he left he gave us his card and told us to give him a call when we got to Bangkok. We swore it would be the first thing we did upon arrival. In reality, none of us really expected a subsequent meeting to take place.

BANGKOK

Two months later we were in our Bangkok hotel room and I came across Peter’s card. I thought why not give him a call. He might be in town. A half-hour later I was talking to Peter on the phone. He said he was pleased to hear from us. We made plans for lunch the next day in downtown Bangkok.

We got up early the next morning to see the King’s Golden Palace. We thought we had allotted plenty of time for the cab ride to the luncheon hotel. Unfortunately, it took us 45 minutes of heat and fumes to go two miles in that terrible Bangkok traffic.

We finally arrived at the swanky Dusit Hotel in the heart of Bangkok’s commercial and shopping district. Peter met us in the lobby. Congenial as ever, he was still wearing his oxford button-down shirt, jeans and sneakers. He took us to the top floor, where the Foreign Correspondents Club had their restaurant.


After seven weeks in India, it was quite a thrill to see a fancy western restaurant again. Linen tablecloths, gleaming flat wear, carpeted floors, and a line-up of freshly starched waiters at your beck and call. All surrounded by the 15th story view of the great alluvial plain upon which Bangkok is built. A view grandly presented through the floor to ceiling windows.

Over a mug of beer, and a great view from a window table, we caught up on our news. Peter listened attentively to our travel stories of India, a country he had lived in for three years.

I had started with a story about the “Black Hole” of Calcutta. Then I told a story about an adventure we’d had in the holy city of Varanasi.

VARANASI

Varanasi is the most sacred of all cities to the Hindu. It is to the Hindu what Jerusalem is to the Christians. It is on the banks of the Ganges River. Devout Hindus will gain merit if they can, once in their lives, make a pilgrimage to Varanasi and bathe in the river’s holy waters.


This is what one traveler wrote about Varanasi. “Varanasi is the oldest living city in the world and it reeks of humanity in every way. Its labyrinthine stone alleyways swallow you into complete disorientation and propels you from fear to amazement to disgust and horror, and absolute awe. If makes you want to run from it, but it’s also a wonderland of beauty that makes you want to stay and to understand why it exists.

Varanasi is not for everyone. She offers herself warts and all and doesn’t expect you to understand her or judge her. You will need a strong stomach and a sturdy heart, but your rewards will be infinite. Love her or loathe her, it’s impossible to be indifferent to her. More than any other city on Earth, she demands an emotional response.

It’s the place where a Hindu Indian most wants to die. Being cremated here and finishing one’s life in the River Ganges brings release from the cycle of reincarnation. It’s a place of continual celebration among ancient architecture; where pilgrims make puja en masse at dawn, at dusk, at any time, to the constant beating of drums and to the Indian string instruments and to the sounds of vendors taking advantage of their market.

It’s a place where the laundry wallahs beat their clothes in the river as the remains of a cremation are dispatched to the bliss of the waters, mixing with the sewerage of the city and the flowers and candles that each Hindu sets to float in prayer; where thousands of people bathe every single day.

It’s a place where boys play cricket meters from a funeral pyre and fireworks maim a beggar; where a rickshaw wallah proudly claims that he beats his wife and a sadhu tells you why peace is his goal.

Varanasi…simply the most fascinating city in the most fascinating country in the world.” Robin Crago


Hindus will incur special merit if they can manage to die there. After they are cremated, their ashes will be thrown into the river. Because so many people come to Varanasi to die, the town is loaded with old folks, close to death. Most of them live in Death Houses. Crowded together in large rooms, they patiently wait to meet their maker.

BURNING GHATS

I was telling Peter about my walk among the ghats, which are the stone stairways along the river. Here, 24 hours a day, cremating pyres burn. There is usually a good-sized crowd of observers. You can watch the whole process from beginning to end a number of times in an afternoon. There might be four or five fires going at the same time. I couldn’t help but think that it might be the biggest BBQ in the world.

This is what you will see. First, workers carry a load of firewood to a platform close to the river. They build a pyre about four feet long and two feet high. After death, the body is wrapped in a shroud and carried by three men, usually overhead to avoid the crowds, down the narrow alleys to the river’s edge. There it is placed on the pyre. Flammable powder is liberally added to the firewood to accelerate combustion. Usually family members are in attendance, uttering prayers.

When all is ready, the attendant lights the wood with a torch. The fire quickly spreads the length of the pyre and engulfs the body in flame. Attendants soon back off as the power of the roaring flames gains strength. Before long the shroud has burned and just the blackened corpse is left. As the human flesh begins to sizzle, a sick-sweet aroma wafts up the bank to the spectators. It is a smell not unlike barbecued liver.

In the old days, if the departed was a married man, the widow would climb into the crematory flames, and burn along with her husband. This practice was called ‘seti’. The reason was quite simple. In impoverished India, where famine was always a menace, there was no place for a woman who could not feed herself. After the death of the husband, the assets of the marriage would invariably go back to the husband’s family. For a widow to have to live with her children, where she would have been a burden, or to become a street beggar, was a fate worse than death. The widows of India understood the choice they had to make and usually opted for ‘seti’. To fortify the widow at this trying time, she received a large dose of a powerful narcotic, usually hashish. Now, ‘seti’ has been made illegal by the national government. Yet it is still practiced in some of the remote villages, where the burden of another mouth to feed is still onerous.


The fire rages for about a half-hour and then begins to subside. If the fire is not burning well, the attendant will add more powder. Otherwise he stands by, holding a bamboo pole. I do not know the reason, but occasionally an arm or leg will suddenly fling itself out of the fire. There it lies….. smoking….hanging limply outside the flames. The attendant will then use the pole to push the limb back into the fire.

As the fire burns down, the attendant stirs it continuously to get as complete a burn as possible. When all is done he picks out the remains, mostly bone fragments, and casts them into the river.

BATHING GHATS

On either side of the burning ghats are the bathing ghats. All day long, they are crowded with bathers and worshippers. As these pilgrims say their prayers and drink the holy waters, they can easily watch the death drama unfolding nearby. One day, if they are lucky, these worshippers might have their bodies cremated on the banks of the Ganges. Lucky because many of the poor cannot afford the price of the firewood, which has to be barged down the river and is stored in locked warehouses.

Families that cannot afford the wood will simply hire a boat to take the corpse into the middle of the river. There it is lowered into the depths. In time the current will sweep the body downriver past the town, and into the mouths of the huge crocodiles and snapping turtles that wait to feed.

If there is no money for firewood or a boat, then the corpse is unceremoniously thrown into the slack water at the river’s edge. There it bobs along in the choppy waters and slowly makes its way down the river. Eventually it sinks. However, after three days the decomposing body produces enough gas to re-float the corpse. The remains will then re-emerge, frequently right next to the bathing ghats. After three days the flesh has softened to the point that it is an attractive meal for a vulture. These birds will land on the shoulders of the floating corpse and feed upon the meat around the neck.



I noticed that Peter had suddenly gone very quiet. I thought I had seen him wince when I mentioned Varanasi

His lips drew up tight, as if a bitter memory was flashing through his mind. He didn’t like Varanasi, he said. He said he had been there one day with his wife. They were walking through town and were approaching the ghats along the river’s edge. Out of the crowd came a small, swarthy woman. She was dressed in dark rags. With one arm she clutched a baby to her breast. It was wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The woman headed straight for them and held out her hand for alms. When neither of them responded, she suddenly held out the baby with both arms to Peter’s wife. For some reason, instinctively, Peter’s wife unfolded her arms and accepted the youth into her hands.

But a sickening feeling filled her stomach as she sensed the unusual form inside. There was something very wrong here. She slid the cloth off the baby’s face and her suspicious were confirmed. The tiny baby was dead.


“Oh, God” she gasped, as she shoved the carcass back into the arms of the beggar woman. She wailed miserably as she turned on her heel and plunged away through the crowd. When Peter finally caught up with he, she was in hysterics. She was sobbing uncontrollably and screaming. A small crowd gathered to watch. Peter tried to calm her, to comfort her…but in vain.

She said: that was it. She’d had enough. She tried to do her best, but she couldn’t take it any more. She’d tried to adjust to living in India, but this was the last straw. She just couldn’t take it any more. She wanted to leave and she wanted to leave now. Back to Germany, and away from the horrible place called India.



The blare of the news program coming out of the restaurant’s TV set filled the awkward pause in the conversation. The clink of glasses and the subdued murmurs of business lunch floated through the room. Streaming sunshine cascaded through the widows, as businessmen conducted their affairs over drinks and lobster. The glorious view beckoned the eye as life in Bangkok hurriedly went about its way.

“I guess you could say that was the beginning of the end.” Peter continued. “Maria had never been happy overseas and that day, well…she’d just had enough. She left India for good ten days later, and six months after that we were divorced.” I stared at my drink, playing with the glass, feeling Peter’s pain.

“But enough of that,” he continued, as he drained his second beer and motioned the waiter for another. “So tell me about Agra. How did you like the Taj Mahal?”

When I returned to the United States I searched diligently for Peter’s business card. Unfortunately I never found it. I was going to send him a thank you note for taking us to lunch. Now I suppose I will never talk to him again.

POSTSCRIPT: 2 years later

In February of 1993, I found Peter’s card. I had used it as a bookmark in Krishnamurti’s "The Flight of the Eagle." I was happy to have found it again. I wrote him a note and included a booklet of “True Life Trucking Stories” that I had written a number of years before. I mailed it to his old Bangkok address. I have yet to hear from him. So I suppose he is still wandering the globe, still sticking his nose into other’s people’s business, and still hitting that deadline. I wish him the best.