"I was in prison for the last 26 days"

 September 7,2014- I was flying to India on a very short trip and it had been 2 years since my last visit. When you are homebound, not just your love and affection for the loved ones back home brims over, the tongue starts to drool thinking of the street and home food which makes India so much special for the NRIs. I was on a trip down the memory lane mentally and physically I was going through the moronic exercise of having the security and immigration check done. Once it was all over, I finally settled in the plane,got my kobo reader out to immerse myself in an intersting book.

In a while, I had 2 youngsters in their 20s walking up and settling their eyes on the seat next to me. Malaysia is a place where you find most Indians from the south of India.I noticed that these 2 guys were slim,well built with a square jaw ,gelled hair with chunky jewelley hanging from their neck. Their accent however was a pure giveaway and being an Indian it didn't take much for me to decipher that they were pure punjabis. I have spent almost all my life in the north and find myself identifying more with the north though my ancestry takes my roots to south. Once they were seated, I went back to reading while the cabin crew started their insipid safety instructions.I am not a guy who normally initiates a talk with  strangers unless it serves the purpose of sorting a problem out. I am not antisocial ( no one has actually said that so far at least!) but maybe I can be slotted as a person who prefers to be in the company of his own thoughts than that of people. 

Anyways, I took an exception from my routine behaviour and went ahead and broke the ice in hindi - "Hi, are you guys from north India? Where are you heading to?" Pat came a smile hearing me speak Hindi and the thinner of the two blurted out - "Going to New Delhi.We are from Punjab. Actually both of us just met in the airport but happen to be from Punjab and coincidentally also have seats adjacent to each other"

Having hit a bullseye  as to their origins, I went ahead and bragged that I had spent my time in Chandigarh (the capital of Punjab) earlier-a fact which I am very proud of and feel fortunate about. I thought this conversation was heading towards the regular "my place, your place, what's the weather  and how's the food" kind of conversation with a curry of words sautéed in niceties for a fellow countryman. But I was in for a surprise. 

I asked the youngster the next question-"So, where are you coming from? " I was hardly interested in the answer as I expected it to be Kuala Lumpur- the Malaysian capital with a good amount of expats employed for hard labour.....these guys were north indians in Malaysia flying back to India- it was pretty obvious that the men were here for work with the agenda of adding some cash to their bank balance .But then the guy sported a very plastic smile and replied -" I was in the prison for the last 26 days. Was released just now". I didn't take the guy seriously (who would??) and gave him a shut-the-hell-up look and smiled back. He went on -"You don't believe me ? Really I am coming from the prison ..." 

I played along -" Really? Why were you jailed?"  He said -" I was caught on an expired visa and jailed.I came to Malaysia on a visit visa 6 months back through an agent who promised me a good job which didn'it materialize. The agent vanished with my one lakh rupees the moment I landed here and I stayed put with a friend for a while and worked for an employer who never paid me enough or got me a visa to work. Once the visa expired, I got back with the friend and got into drugs..actually I was sent to Malaysia by my parents because I am heavily into drugs and my parents thought I would be able to get rid of it by leaving the friend circle back home in India. But I managed to find my source and got back to it. I kept asking my friend to get my visa extended and everytime he would just say - don't worry, nothing will happen, I will settle it ....though he never did . 26 days back, I was caught by some policemen on a surprise check and was taken into custody" 

By now, I was all ears and pretty sure that the guy wasn't talking crap and seriously telling about his life.  For those wondering if I felt scared and was on guard being seated next to a drug addict and a self confessed convict released from jail just a while ago, well no... I wasn't scared.Being a doctor, we come in close contact with convicts and prison inmates in heavy chains and handcuffs in the hospital when they develop any ailment related to our speciality. But I surely got interested enough to dig deeper into this unexpectedly interesting encounter. I tried to hone up all my journalistic inquisitiveness and thought of all the questions which a journo would think of asking in this situation. So my next question was - "How is the condition in the prison in Malaysia and what's a routine day like?"  He started to shake his head as he replied- "The condition in the jails are horrible. We were around 50 guys holes up in a small room and there was nothing to kill time except empty vacant stares. Many guys were from Indonesia as they tend to easily enter illegally via boats and some of their borders are not more than 30-45 minutes away by ferry. We were given a small cake of soap and a toothbrush with a broken handle ( since the authorities fear that it might be used as a weapon to attack or escape ) which were our only possession. We only got to bathe on one of our luckier days and sleep was bartered. The guys who sleep in the night had to stand in the day to let the other lot sleep who stood awake at night. There was just not enough space for all to sleep at the same time. Food was served once a day. The same menu everyday- a very small bowl of rice with a dry fish on top...no curry ...bland and tasteless. Eat once a day and relive the memories when hunger strikes again because the next instalment of meals would only be served the next day... Only one glass of water at lunch was given and breakfast was a cup of black tea ...period.... 

I was zapped hearing the inhumane conditions of stay and went on to ask -"Were you given any task to perform to kill time and earn your bread in jail?" He said - "No ....thats only for the hardcore criminals, we were in the illegal immigrants cell and all we had with us to kill time was this " He deftly produced 2 rubber bands and skilfully showed me some amazing patterns and made the bands dissapear from one hand and magically made them appear in the other. "These rubberbands came with the food packets and many long term inmates (some of them were there for 3 to 6 years) have come up with some amazing rubber band tricks which they taugh to us ." 

I asked -" What language did they communicate with these immigrants since they were all expats and I dont think they would all be knowing Malay?"  He replied-"Oh they hardly spoke, most of the times their sticks and batons are what they used to communicate with us,hitting us everytime they wanted to interrogate and when they really had something to speak in words they spoke malay....they didnt care if we understood or not" 

I was pretty shaken and taken aback by these details. And took sometime to get back to asking my next question - " You must be so glad to be finally out. How did that happen?"  He gave a genuine smile and replied- "It feels amazing to see the sun and nature after 26 days. You never know its worth otherwise. Thanks to the friend I was put up with, my family got the information that I was holed up for all the wrong reasons and I dont know how but they worked things out and got my bail. Had to spend another couple of lakhs but thank God I am out... Though I was pretty convinced that I would be spending my lifetime inside." I couldnt stop myself from blurting " Thank your luck that you didnt get caught for possession of drugs. It would have sealed your life in prison!" He sheepishly agreed. I good heartedly said- "As a doctor and an Indian, my sincere advise to you- keep away from drugs and everything illegal. You have seen the worst from close quarters" . Immediately, he caught his ears with both hands,vigorously shaking his head replied -"NEVER AGAIN!"

It was time for the refreshments to be served and I am sure my Indian friends couldn't have asked for anything better to get them to celebrate the freedom. They went on to watch some punjabi movie on their phone while I got back to pondering on this information tsunami which was served in a short time....... 

Fitness & Me

I was never a fat guy-thanks to my genes and also to my "healthy" vegetarian lifestyle. But I was nowhere close to be declared fit. My over enthusiastic efforts to lift and arrange everything myself with the added bad posture during my teens and the twenties had landed me with a slip disc. The situation became worse with time and I was once in a position where the Hunchback of Notre dame would have appeared more straight than me. I was in constant back pain for 15 years and a simple and insignificant task like getting up from the bed was a challenge for me. Strangely, I got so used to living with the pain that it didn't strike me as bothersome. I was used to having it like a nails on the fingers and hair on the scalp.  

I have never entered a gym with the idea of working out and never have I bothered to even know what exactly goes on there. It was always a place where people who are fat or too ambitious about getting the right curves visited… not a place for me…. who defined fitness simply as not being sick. 

I guess the ambience has a lot to do with fitness. I had been to a couple of gyms earlier during my med school days in India as a lame accomplice of my fitness enthusiastic friends . And the memory I have of the so called gymnasiums in India is a crowded small room with the nauseating stench of sweat and loads of shapeless men experimenting  with a few broken fitness equipments, a much garlanded picture of Hanuman (Indian God of Strength), and the only thing that could be called fit in the whole set up were the men in the cheap glossy posters flexing their muscles.My opinion however changed in Brunei. I actually visited the gym because there is not much to do in Brunei after work (thats another reason I took to braying on a blog).This may sound like an advertisement for the gym that I work out in, but I need to hand it out to those guys because the gym has played an important role in getting me out of inertia and setting the ball rolling for me towards getting a fitter physique. A four storeyed building with every imaginable fitness equipments,rock climbing wall, swimming pool, volleyball and badminton courts with instructors parading around in their smart uniforms and cool tapping music in the background - it had all the right ingredients and beckoned me to take a plunge into an aspect of life which I never really cared about until now.

 So finally I made up my mind to add the word fitness and gym into my daily schedule and paid the membership fee. As I moved out, I was pretty sure that like many of my new year resolutions, this idea of fitness will also die a sudden death soon and I will back to being a couch potato. Nevertheless,I would at least make a few visits to this happening place just to have some change from the ordinary.

T he golden rule about doing anything sporty is  -no matter what you do about the activity per se is to make sure you are in the right gear.So I got myself into the fitness gear. I was totally lost on the first day like a fish out of water not knowing how to go about starting the treadmill to begin with. Call me too shy or too proud to ask someone to help me  (this trait is mostly true for all males in my opinion whenever we need some help). The last mill I had a close encounter with was the wind mill in my kindergarten book. I almost fell and dropped trying to walk on the treadmill before I got the rythm and somehow managed to save myself from making a fool. Day one made me realise that my dream of looking fitter would  be impossible to realize without a guide. My knowledge of muscles and movements was restricted only to the anatomy of it till now and to shed the tires on my waist would need help from a trainer. After a long debate over the expenses, I finally decided to hire a trainer. In case you didnt know- indians by nature have to convince themselves that the investment of any kind is profitable ,before they think of parting with their bills... so mentally going through this grill of convincing myself to invest in hiring a trainer was like a genetic exercise which I went through unconsciously. 

And thus happened Lito - my trainer- a happy go lucky philipino who was not the best in the business probably, but surely good enough for an out of shape man to make a beginning. You need a good company and someone with a positive vibe for you to be able to go back and do things which you never really are interested in to begin with. And Lito provided that impetus. Slowly over a period of days, weeks and months, the machines started unravelling their mystery to me. The clanking of steel made more sense and beckoned me to get back to it as soon as I was done with the mundane affairs of the day.  Lito had to move back home to the Philippines for a while but he made sure I was not left in lurch. He transferred my training to Eddie's hands.  Eddie came in as a blessing in disguise. A Bruneian with malaysian origin and Chinese roots, Eddie was Mr.Muscles come to life.. Eddie was into fitness for 9 years and at 32 he was Adonis in flesh and blood. Bulging with all the right curves and an 8 pack abs, we looked David and Goliath every time we got together during the training sessions.I guess I brushed some good charm on him too because he went on to win a couple of body building competitions and was crowned Mr. Malaysia 2013 after taking me under his training.  

Eight months  have passed, I have lost a lot of flab, my back has come back to life and the muscles now say "Hey there! We are here". Gymming is now a routine and  an essential daily activity close to the verge of being labeled as an addiction and obsession.And who in the wildest dreams would have thought that a person like me would get interested into fitness and obsess about it. Such is the way of life….always the unpredictable waiting to happen. As long as its got some good in it, no one's complaining…. :)_ Cheers!

Open House!

Selamat Hariraya Aidilfitri! These are the 3 words I keep hearing over and over again for the last 10 days or so. Brunei Darussalam (meaning Abode of Peace in Malay) is an islamic country. I came from the Maldives which was an Islamic country too but there is a major difference in the celebration of Id or Hari Raya as its called in this part of the world, following the ending of the holy month of Ramadan. After a month long fasting where all the muslims eat before sunrise and end the fast after sunset, a noble way to cleanse their soul and body, the fasting culminates with Id-ul-fitr, Id meaning Festival. The celebration has the same ring and importance as Diwali has for the Hindus and Christmas for Christians. But in most Islamic countries, the celebrations is a one day affair though the festive mood lingers for a while.
However, in South East Asia, the festival culminates in another noble way. After having fasted for so long with so much of self-control, the people here celebrate Id with a month long celebration of hosting lunch and dinner. Nothing special about the celebration if it was just eating with your friends and family but thats not the case. The celebration here is an OPEN HOUSE ...the house is thrown open for the public for a festive lunch or dinner. Anyone and everyone is invited to come and have dinner with the hosts and there is no distinction between rich and poor, hindus or muslims, friends and foes. There is a tent put up outside the house with the world as its invitees and a variety of mouth watering delicacies is served to anyone who wants to join. Of course, the family has its set of invitees and its kind of tricky and doesnt go down well if you dont wish to attend the same once invited. But never have I seen a concept where there is an open invitation by every muslim in the country who has the blessings of Allah to host a festive meal for his fellow human beings. I was really impressed by this thought and gesture.
The Sultan of Brunei also throws open his palace for lunch/dinner for the commoners for a period of 3 days and during this time meets each and every person who wishes to meet him. But naturally, the queue for this day to shake hands with the richest king in the world is never ending and you need to muster up quite a bit patience and energy to shake hands with royalty. It should come as no surprise that the Sultan holds the Guinness record for shaking hands with the maximum number of people in a day in a stipulated time.
Selamat Hariraya Aidulfitri to all of you once again!

Cambodia and a man who flew miles to rediscover history

Today I wont be braying anything....I have someone who will talk intelligently and provoke one's thoughts instead.... someone who has been influenced by certain events in history so much so that he flew all the way to a lesser known country to see with his own eyes, what he had read about it in history. He is an ex-colleague of mine and a dear friend. Dr.Nishikanta Verma, another Indian ENT Surgeon like me settled in South East Asia .... an interesting character who has always talked and lived life on his terms and taken most things in life not too seriously until he got influenced by Phnom Penh and the atrocities of Khmer Rouge in the 70s. For him, a casual reading of the events lead to an in depth viewing of the happenings in an Oscar winning movie,The Killing Fields, a movie revealing the torture and crime of the Khmer Rouge and finally lead him to the fields where it happened to get a first hand experience of the place which suffered the atrocities. Nishikanta has just completed his tour of Phnom Penh and was kind enough to be my guest writer on my blog. I leave you now with him and his experience and thoughts....


Reflections of an Experience-My Journey through Phnom Penh

Even the weather was perfect-cloudy skies, a cool breeze and little rain.
As the plane flew over the rice fields of Cambodia, dipping through clouds and finally emerging over the confluence of the Mekong and the Tonle rivers over Phnom Penh, I gazed at the flying countryside and city below, not just a little amazed at the fact that I was actually here.

In Cambodia. In Phnom Penh. Alone. In the last city anyone would have expected me to be.
I suppose 3 days confined to a city, with no real plans and a very bare agenda, would be what a travel brochure would call “A relaxing city break away from the stresses of daily life”. I would disagree but my trip was undeniably just a city break. It was just that the city and the country in question had been on my mind for the last four months. And it still is.

When I first mentioned Cambodia to family, the immediate assumption was a visit to Angkor Wat. No one really thinks of Phnom Penh as a tourist destination in itself, yet, here I was, trying, but failing to explain why exactly I wanted to visit a city that had essentially no landmark sights and a reportedly high crime rate.
I now realize that it was inevitable. I went because I had to. Phnom Penh, and on a wider scale Cambodia itself, had come alive for me just a few days into reading it’s history and it’s place in the Khmer Rouge Revolution of 1975-1979. Riveting accounts of the fall of Phnom Penh in April 1975 had geographical references to the city that have certainly changed dramatically, but still exist. And of course, there was S21-the notorious Khmer Rouge incarceration centre- and the related “Killing Fields” of Choeung Ek.

Coupled with this were the incredible events of the 1960’ and the early 1970’s-a military coup in 1970 and the US cluster bombings- a lethal mix which would combine and lead to the rise of the Khmer Rouge, an event which, sadly however, was by no means was  an inevitable. I had read about the politics and the manouverings of the foreign powers in that period and the sad fact that Cambodia, when all was said and done, was simply a victim of the next door war in Vietnam. And I also read, with mounting disbelief, at how Cambodia became the battleground for the last 10 years of Cold War politics, after the Khmer Rouge had destroyed the Kingdom of Wonder.

However, these kind of reasons-essentially a desire to visit the S21 prison and the execution grounds of Cheung Ek- sometimes dubbed “morbid tourism”, are difficult to convey to worried parents or incredulous friends, but , as I read more about what has been termed as “Per square mile, the worst holocaust in the 20th century, even worse than The Holocaust itself”, it became obvious to me that practically every Cambodian, with few exceptions, has been a direct or indirect victim of the Khmer Rouge era.

I went with very vague plans of seeing S21 and Choeung Ek-2 institutions that are at the heart of the Khmer Rouge era- but I also got a glimpse of the soul of a country and a people I had read much about. I went to relive history-and it’s not a history for the faint hearted-but I also ended up falling in love with a city and the warmth, genuiness and smiles of practically everyone I met. Over the course of my three day trip, I found a bit of Cambodia that once was, before war and politics tore it apart. And I saw that in everyday life. My entire hotel staff who made hotel a home, Thun my tuk tuk driver, a roadside bookseller whose handshake and smile I’ll never forget but whose name I wish I had asked, my guide at S21 who shared her life story or Chum Mei and Bou Meng- whose photographs with me I will always treasure.
As the Sun dipped below the horizon over the banks of the Mekong, I gazed out at the mighty river, on whose banks many a battle had been fought and as night fell, sipped Long Island Ice Teas on the roof of  the Foreign Correspondents Club, where photographs by Al Rockoff adorn the staircase walls.  Many of these were taken around April 1975-the time when Cambodia’s history fractured and the beginning of a fresh set of  events that would shatter and nearly  destroy the fabric of a gentle, innocent country.
I spent evenings walking by the promenade or sitting on a waterfront bench and I just saw a normal city, a people going about their lives. Children playing by the waterfront, bars and pubs open for business, a beggar sitting by the roadside, monks emerging from a nearby Wat.
I saw no crime there, although I took the precautions I’d take in any place. I was completely unfazed by the traffic, which is far more civilized that that of the average Indian town.
I spent three days in this city and Thun was my tuk tuk driver on all my little trips in Phnom Penh. Thun-an unfailingly polite, always punctual, uassuming, gentle man-who spent three days driving me around Phnom Penh. On many occassions, as we passed the sights, back roads and boulevards of Phnom Penh, I could not escape the feeling that the two of us-me at the back, Thun on his attached motorcycle-were in a cocoon, an isolated twosome looking at a city and a culture from the outside in. From just another tourist, I felt myself changing into a privileged observer, interacting with the people and the institutions that define them and then respectfully withdrawing, and Thun was my partner-an unwitting participant, waiting patiently by his tuk tuk, studying a Khmer text he kept on it's roof while I took my time and indulged my fantasies. Thun would always drop me off, point to a spot and say “I wait here”. And he would be always be there.

The only occassion where Thun was not exactly where he'd said he'd be was after a visit to the Royal Palace, when I got caught in a downpour and he had sheltered his tuk tuk under a tree. The rain was warm and I did not mind, but after watching me standing getting soaked and looking for where Thun might have parked his tuk tuk, another tuk tuk driver offered me shelter inside his own till Thun and I found each other. The driver asked for nothing in return. Thun did not apologize-he did not need to.
Thun took me everywhere. In the morning, I would step out of my little hotel and find Thun and his tuk tuk waiting by the kerb. He wasn’t waiting for me in particular of course and when I would walk up and tell him to go someplace, he would ask “You want to go with me”?, perhaps grateful and perhaps surprised that I would choose him over the other tuk tuks scattered by the kerb.
We went to the all the usual sights-The Royal Palace, The National Museum, The Central Market. We visited Wat Lanka and Wat Phnom-the hill temple where Phnom Penh was founded.  We even landed in the middle of  huge political rallies-marking the historic return from exile of a Cambodian opposition politician, but Thun steered us through it all. We drove through the backroads and the main roads. We passed wide green parks and trundled over broken, potholed roads. On occassion, I told Thun where to go-sights like the Gate of the French Embassy or the Preah Ket Melea Hospital near it. Thun may have been wondering why I wanted to spend a minute at these places-places that are not on any tourist itinerary but hold a special esoteric historical interest for me.

Thun did not ask once, and I never told him.
Of course, we also went  to S21 and the “Killing Fields” of Choeung Ek-the two sites that now define the Khmer Rouge Era in Phnom Penh. Twenty thousand people went into S21 and not more than about 150 survived. The last two known survivors are Chum Mei and Bou Meng are still alive and I had the lifetime honour of meeting them. Visiting these two sites is a profound, indescribable experience-one that may not change my life, but has redefined perspective.
All Cambodians know S21 and Choeung Ek. Thun certainly does I am sure, and I don't know what goes through his mind every time he is asked to go there. It's not for me to say.
I spent three days wandering all over Phnom Penh. For Thun-a man in his 20's, driving his little red tuk tuk, waiting patiently for his charge to return from a sightseeing stop, I was undoubtedly just another tourist, stopping by his city. To think anything otherwise is to indulge in a wild fantasy.
But Thun, along with the staff in my hotel who made me feel like family, the tuk tuk driver who kindly sheltered me asking nothing in return, Chum Mei and Bou Meng, whose lips part in an obligatory smile for a photo but whose eyes cannot hide their pain, a guide with a brilliant smile who lost many members of her family, the old roadside bookseller whose slow smile and firm handshake are indelible memories and the thousands of ordinary Cambodians I was privilged to see from Thun's tuk tuk-living normal lives, trying to forget a past that may be impossible to move away from.
On my last evening in the city, I found a roadside cafe, one of many within walking distance of my hotel. The cafe was right across the road from Wat Lanka, and sitting there, alone, my mind empty of thoughts, I heard the soft chime of bells from the temple. The evening was cool and subdued rock played on the stereo.  Some mild traffic passed by, mainly tuk tuks looking for a ride. I sat alone next to a group of barangs and watched in silence as a small girl, not more than five, skipped in with a bunch of flowers. And I watched transfixed as the girl and the barangs-no doubt long term regulars, bonded and chatted in pure Khmer like old friends. They did not buy the flowers but the girl’s smile never left her face.
These are the memories I carry and the images that play in my mind.
Sitting barely 10 minutes away from Cambodia’s most notorious Khmer Rouge Institution, on my last day in Phnom Penh I found a peace, a soul satisfying stillness I have not experienced before and will be fortunate to savour again.
And as I walked back past Wat Lanka and the Independence Monument back to my hotel along the wide roads of Norodorm Boulevard,  I thought about “resilence” and what it means. Resilience implies a choice-one either is or is not. But to use it for many Cambodians in the context of what happened in Cambodia and what happened to a city once called “Paris of the East” seems unfair because for four years, there were no choices, no battlegrounds and no last stands. There was no question of resilience.

One survived and one lived. Else, one died. It was as simple as that. There was no fate, no destiny. It just was. One talks about the spirit of survival and there are many examples of that from that time that left me frozen in place, but at that time, in Cambodia, you survived only because you were not the next randomly chosen victim.
Cambodia lost 30% of it’s population-an estimated three million people, including nearly  all of it’s intellectuals and it’s Buddhist clergy-an entire generation- in the space of four short, brutal years. It gave rise to Pol Pot and Duch-the S21 Commandant, among others, and the unmatched ferocity of the Khmer Rouge.
But it also gave birth to Haing Ngor and Dith Pran-the two men whose intertwined stories first put me on this path and whose stories would come together in one of the finest movies Hollywood has ever made. Their stories eventually led me to many more- stories of pure survival,  stories of pain that no words can do justice to, stories of unbearable despair but with moments of pure love and happiness, stories of war and politics that made me cry with anger and shame.
When you hear someone say “Cambodians eat spiders”, take a moment and think why. When you get stuck in traffic in Phnom Penh, take a second and imagine the city completely abandoned, empty and quiet, as it was for four long years. Pass by the Gate of the French Embassy and while your tuk tuk sverves to avoid incoming traffic, try to imagine the desperation and chaos of April 1975. Ask  yourself why you hardly see anyone who looks older than 50. And when you do, don’t think too much about what they were doing for the worst four years anywhere in recent history.
And that’s the crux of it all. In a sense, all of this hasn’t even been confined to history yet. The men directly responsible for killing three million of Cambodia’s population and creating the world’s biggest refugee crisis for many years are on trial right now, as I type this, nearly 40 years later. A  nation that had once bombed and then abandoned Cambodia supplies aid and is it’s self appointed moral guardian.
I went with no specific purpose other than to see S21 and Choeung Ek but I came back with the deepest respect for a population that, despite all of it’s “Third World Problems” (but none that are unique to it) has reached where it has.
To understand what “resilience” means, visit Cambodia-anywhere at all and open your eyes.
Cambodia is not a utopia,  but one cannot pass judgement on Cambodia’s present without sight of it’s historical context. The fact that Cambodia exists at all today is a miracle in itself. It has it’s issues but it is solving them. Cambodia, I like to think, is healing. And though the past will always be present, Cambodia is moving on.
I came to Cambodia as a tourist with some vague plans, but I left a bit of myself back there.
Phnom Penh will not be a once in a lifetime trip, but it was a once in a lifetime experience.

P.S. The author of this article Dr.NishikantaVerma when asked to give me his bio wrote the following which actually conveys almost all about the man :)

'I am a surgeon currently living in Melaka, Malaysia. I don't travel as much as I want to, spend way more time on the internet than my family likes and love writing sense and nonsense. 

I am always available on email (drverman@gmail.com) or follow me on twitter (@jipmerdays)! "

Singapura and Merlion

Its been a while....I promised to bray incessantly but then I proved that donkeys are better than humans. They do what they promise to do. Humans like me PROMISe but mostly split the word up and land up being a PRO at MISsing most of what they promise. I can come up with a million reasons for not penning thoughts here but I guess I will just accept that laziness and lack of effort to make the brain work stopped me from coming up with a post.
I was busy with three things staring with S last month ( and that can be a lame reason for me not updating the blog).A trip to Singapore,hosting the birthday of my daughter whose name starts with S and the biography of Steve Jobs.Children make everything seem special to parents but its nothing out of the ordinary actually and I will spare you the details of the celebration. Jobs is too complicated and  interesting to restrict a discussion on him here. So, I will concentrate on something from my trip to Singapore.
Singapore is synonymous with glitz, shopping and as everyone will vouch is a place worth visiting. There are enough travel sites to give you the details on what to see and where to stay and all those who have already been there must have cozy memories about the place. No...I wont be talking the same thing.
I will talk of the Merlion...It was in Sentosa and our destination on day 3 of the visit where I came to know about the story behind the Merlion which all associate Singapore with but probably not many know why we associate Singapore with it..For those who are still at a loss about what I am talking of...this pic should be helpful...

Merlion,as the word suggests, is a fictional character with the body of mermaid and the head of a lion. It all goes back to the discovery of this island hundreds of years ago.The great king Alexander had a grandson Sang Nila Utama, a brave and strong man, who not only inherited Alexander's kingdom but was also worthy of the throne just like his grandfather. Once while on a hunting expedition, King Sang Nila Utama was chasing a stag and reached the edge of a hill.He lost track of the stag but from the top of the hill he saw a beautiful island standing in the middle of the sea which immediately caught his fancy. He had a deep desire to get to that island and asked his men to get things ready to sail across. The king's wish was respected and King Nila Utama with his men started the journey but the sea was rough and the weather turned ugly scaring all aboard that they would die before reaching the destination. The sea was angry and King knew exactly what he had to do to calm it down. He offered his crown made of the costliest of jewels to the sea goddess and asked her to let his men and him sail through. The sea goddess was appeased and the weather turned just right to carry on the journey. Finally, the king and his men stepped on the beautiful island and that very moment a lion leaped in front and seemed enraged with the invasion on its land.However, as the king and the lion locked their eyes, the lion slowly calmed down as an unspoken word of understanding crossed between the two and the lion left. The king declared that this beautiful island guarded by the lion would be developed from now on by him and it would be called SINGAPURA (Singa = Lion and PURA = City in sanskrit).
Keeping this mythology in mind, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) adapted the MERLION as its symbol as a respect to the Lion and the fish which have been gaurding and helping the city flourish into the fourth prosperous economy in the world. The Merlion was designed by Alec-Fraser Brunner and has been in use since 1964. It appears on all souvenirs and its use needs approval from the STB.

Where Left is Right ...

 Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Isaac Newton,Charles Darwin .......and me...we all have something in common... we are all southpaws or left- handed. Also there is another thing not common between us- while the rest of them are dead and died famous, I continue my journey with life and living a commoner's obscure life...

As you must have guessed, this post is about left handedness.I don't know how or why but I am glad that the moment I was born, I was put among the minority 10% of the world population which differs from the rest of the world population in their handedness. Unlike humans, the other species of animals have handedness equally distributed among their population. Some studies attribute this to human social behavior where tasks are grouped and shared in the community involving sharing of tools and equipments which has moulded nature to make humans prominently right handed. It's interesting to see that quite a few studies have been done to unravel the reason for the handedness of just 10% of the population. One study says that a momentary lapse of oxygen supply to the brain while in the womb,leads to the change in handedness of the person from right to left. Most of the left handed people are males, and so also a theory that the handedness has something to do with the testosterone levels and exposure to it inside the uterus of mother. There is surely no hereditary involvement in my family at least, since I am the only one in the entire family, maternal and paternal sides both included,who enjoys the tag of being left handed. There are quite a few accolades passed on to the left handed- more artistic, genius, linguist, intelligent..blah blah.... * sigh* if only it were true... Phew..

Now coming to the handedness and how left handed are at a disadvantage. Most of the equipments are built with the right handed people in mind.... The first thing that comes to my mind is the chair with the attached writing table which I used to find so difficult to write on in the school, since they were all built with the right handed in mind ( there might be ones built for the left handed, but the schools do not buy stuff thinking of 10% of the world population). I being an ENT surgeon face the left handedness being a problem a bit more since our examination chairs are on the side and they are placed and built for the right handed. In the operation theatre, the nurses are pre instructed about my southpaw flaw as all the equipments have to undergo a mirror image change before I carry out the surgery. Explanations about holding instruments and operating are mostly detailed for the right handed and "changes to be made accordingly for the left handed" that's about the only detail added for the lefties..

No no ...I aint cribbing...I am glad and thankful to God or whoever else who is responsible for my being a lefty. It's stylish to see a lefty bat even if its a poor shot... to see a left handed Martina Navratilova flay her hand in air... and see my own pictures caught while I am penning some thoughts on paper ;). We manage to attract quite a few stares from the opposite sex since its kind of sexy to be different ( wink wink) ..until the myth is broken... 

So until next time,

Venice of the East

No....I dont have much to write in my blog today. Empty thoughts and nothing noteworthy has happened except that I bought my six year old a keyboard and by the amount of time that she has been spending on it since we got it home,it looks like she will turn into a Mozart overnight. 

I did make a visit with my mother and daughter yesterday to the largest water village in the world which is here in Brunei Darussalam in south east Asia. I didnt actually realise that this was worthy of noting down until I started thinking of what to write in the blog today and suddenly it struck me that its not often that one gets to visit a 1300 year old water village  and that too which happens to be the largest in the world.

Kampong means Village and Ayer means water in Malay. Its also known as Venice of the East for reasons which are self explanatory. 

Kampong Ayer lies over the Brunei river which happens to be the sole river running by the side of this small,rich but relatively unknown country. My first advise to anyone planning a visit to Kampong Ayer would be -Don't go by the look of the village. The first impression wont be the best with the murky water and rusted stilts on which quite a few dilapidated houses can be seen. It almost resembles a slum or ghetto. But a closer look reveals the basic amenities plus the luxuries which are desired by any person are available here over the stilts and footbridges.With a population of around 30,000 and having around 5 schools, a fire station, a petrol refilling station, 2 clinics,mosques, restaurants, cable tv, aircons and  .....almost any facility that you can think of, its probably one of the wonders of sustenance of man over water with over 29,140 meters of footboards connecting them all .  

We were told by our water taxi driver who double roled as our half hour tour guide, that the present Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, who is well known for his richness and owns one of the largest fleet of cars ( 500 Rolls Royce and other cars worth 4 billion $ as per The Guinness Book of world records), had his humble upbringing in one of the houses here before he went on to become the richest King in the world. Another trivia which the water-taxi driver,Eddie, gave was - the Sultan's earning is around 90€ per minute and he has around 1178 rooms and 250+ bathrooms in his Istana i.e.Palace in Malay ...sulk sulk... Ah richness!...who wouldn't love to bask in it... Alas, God was too preoccupied with others while I stood waiting for my share of wealth... Lol ;) He also told us that the popular Saifuddin Mosque, which we cross so often while walking on the main roads of Brunei has its dome made of pure 24 karat gold!

The tour ended with payment,smiles, goodbyes and taking visiting card of Eddie, who promised to show the fireflies on a night tour besides taking us to watch the otters and crocodiles if we book his boat next time. So, look out for a post of another nat geo expedition of mine sooner or later :)