A Night in Tunisia, Or, A Bus Ride to BKC

August 9, 2019 at 7:35 am (Essay, Kiran David, The Arts)

After recently revisiting Proust’s. “In search of lost time”,  after a gap of 48 years, I watched Raul Ruiz’s ” Time Regained” a work I was familiar with, the title of which is the last volume of the literary masterwork.

Bob Halliday about 10 or even 20 years older then I, three times my girth, when I last saw him: used to eat Durians, marvelous fruit, albeit an acquired taste. He with cohorts would eat the fruit and belch in closed public places much to the horror or more likely disgust of the surrounding mini mass of humanity.

Proust with his ruminations is impossible to film, or, should I say the “terrible”, simulate in the medium we call cinema, the last volume, ” Time regained” even more so, the section, beginning with the time Marcel, the Narrator, who is both not Proust and Proust, in the book, the film credits him as Marcel Proust, trips on a stone tile till his time spent in the Prince de Guermantes library, a section of over 100 pages with ruminations that inform a crucial decision, and the artistic process.

In 2000 Bob Halliday, a retired journalist living in Bangkok, I thought or wanted to believe was CIA, from the 60s, an American, a film and classical music buff and the guy who has, if still alive, the best knowledge of Thai food, possibly in the world. Thai’s seek his advice. Jirawaid Wongtangjian, a Chinese Thai, spiritual, in a Buddhist sense also has a profound knowledge of food. He owned a delightful DVD shop off Sukhumvit, latter rented out to another business. I chanced upon, Alfred Birnbaum translator of some of the Murakami Haruki books into English. He was also a journalist and a concert level pianist, who seemed to know well, how,  the reasons hazy to me, Kuldeep Nayar, Something Kyoko whose surname was never mentioned, Japanese, she taught aesthetics as professor in Hungary and finally I, the regular tapori from Mumbai were heading to a 130 year old, at that time, restaurant, which only Bob and Jirawaid called Jirwo knew of.

The importance of this place was that it specialised in ancient authentic Bangkok cuisine, something not available easily, at least not commercially, the food is extremely subtle and refined, different to what we know as Thai food, which is really the rural, having seeped into the city and colonised the tourist mind and then the world, a few years prior, Jirwo, the wife and I were lunching in a regular Thai joint in Silom, with some unusual options, when in popped an opulent desi tourist family overdressed for any occasion and especially the heat, sat down.

Kyoko, for reasons more obscure than Jude Usiscartiot, was worried that the dinner would prevent her perusal of a world cup match, happening in some far away part of the world, but most certainly on Television with multiple verbose opinions, voiced by tiresome experts, featuring that moment a footballer and probably unwittingly honey trap, of those years named David Beckham, he probably chose like Chester and his chest NUTS. Reeking of money and overpowering perfume, they ordered with clumsy language, fortunately, punctuated with a sense of rhythm, by the waiter’s no: no: no: to their, GREEN CURRY, YELLOW CURRY, RED CURRY. Appalled, they shouted, ” What kind of a Thai restaurant is this?”, then,walked out. We convinced Kyoko that sampling of choice superior viands, offered greater possibilities to the human experience, than watching a third party kick what appears to be an inflated ball, in the bargain, perchance having his kicked; in the heat of the moment.

A year earlier Bob, Jirwo and I were wondering, despite agreeing that the Ruiz film did indeed come as close as possible to a cinematic option and that the cast was by and large exemplary, Deneuve: Odette, Béart: Gilberte, Gregorry : St – Loup,Perez: Morel, Scob: Oriane de Guermantes, Pisier: Madame Verdurin, Mastroianni:Albertine, Vadim: Bloch, the virtually unknown Italian actor Mazzarella: Marcel voiced by the famous movie and opera director Chéreau and though they do not appear in the book, their journals do and is discussed.

The great Nouveau Roman writer Alain Robbe-Grillet as one of the Goncourts, though persuaded, Kyoko: was on occasion, though not often, prey to thoughts of football and Beckham, the restaurant was thankfully despite its marvelous food, somewhat unhip and did not possess a TV. You came here to eat marvels. Kyoko was trying to glean through the environment to locate the device this purveyor of manipulative synthetic electronic images.

The problem was how does one deal with Malkovich playing the most complex character in the book Le Baron de Charlus: Charlus whose character evolves in its complexities across seven volumes some 3700 pages, whose traits will find echos in both minor and major characters, distracted, five sets of chop sticks with delectable fish between suspended mid-air between bowl and lip, a sentence emerges a question in fact to me uttered through a chorus in unison by the four I was dining with, have you they ask 370 articles of transparent lacy revealing underthings, NO, I sez, 35 teeth though , lost one rotten, and extracted, though that was then, later, time acts, two more bit the dust, at 2hrs 40 odd minutes, it would be impossible to compress the whole of the last volume, which if truth be told is not being. attempted by the filmmaker, Bob as himself, is in a couple of short stories by S.P. Somtow, the stories, fiction in English.

Don’t forget Bob’s your Uncle. Miike Takeshi’s star was rising internationally those days, 75 films in 10 years, Audition, meanwhile, Vicious Buckramjit Mullgawtawny maybe stately and plump drags Ghoshtaba who Walkeshwars, to our table interrupting our meal, Ghoshtaba shrieks, the virtuous and the evil are as always equally wrong, they walk like headless chickens in a viscous fog, forever: ignorant fucks, pontificators, he degenerates farting, a blob on the floor. The Ghost of Hamid Ali Khan, dead then for two years, many more now, erstwhile hunter and actor, howls from the neighbouring table, having been deprived by faith of the porcine, for Singapore style spare ribs soup Bak Kuet.

The waiter says to him in Thai, this is Bangkok, Khan leans toward a girl, alive, Mona Darling; sitting across him, he wraps a dead peacock round her neck: a stole and whispers, Tha Mor Ab No Mor, discussing Ruiz’s work further, while chomping some shredded beef, we agreed that there would be two types of viewers, meaning, of serious disposition, those who hadn’t read the book and those who did, not included are those buffoons who always say you need to read the book to understand the film or the other type who feels the film betrays the book, both irrelevant but that’s another discussion, “O Propheta, Certe Penis Tuus Cælum Versus Erectus Est!”
The repast was prodigious, bill payed, late into the night or maybe early morning the five of us embarked in what was referred to as a Durian hunt under the tutelage of Bob and Jirwo, Miike wanted to meet Bob to make a film on the Somtow story Bob was in as Bob. Bob refused to be observed. Bob, Bob Bob too mant Bobs, the hunt was to essentially visit wholesalers of fruit and source the best available that night or technically morning.

Somtow was considered a musical prodigy, western orchestral, as a child he wrote music, educated in England and belonged to the royal family. Somtow Papinian Sucharitkul. Looking for THE Durian walking the streets, Beckham surfaced briefly, but was quickly laid to rest.

*****COMPOSTELA*****

There are all sort of stories about Somtow, he was a musical wizz, his first poem was published by the Bangkok post called ” Kith of infinity” when he was 11 quoted by Shirley Maclaine in her bio, mistaking him for a woman, saying to Kyoko and others that I wished to make a pilgrimage to Compostela, Symphonies, a Ballet and a Requiem based on the poetry of Whitman, Dickinson and Eliot, are his contributions to music, Kyoko is unlocked talks about Compostela with a tremendous intelligence and wit, dumping the last vestiges of Beckham in the gutter, we get a rare Durian that is getting extinct, the Nontaburi Durian, the finest in the world, expensive too, Ruiz, I say to the folks, that my reason for the pilgrimage is not religious, nor to see the architecture or place but, the seeds are small compared to other types, there seems to be fused parallel worlds that simultaneously exist in the short stories of Somtow.

Bangkok for me I’ve always experienced, as the melding of two grids real/ virtual; this DURIAN is the fruit, rare almost extinct even then, what :now, one can exist between these two cities at the same time unaware, but experiencing both, concurrently, only Bangkok: not even Tokyo or HK, the division is more pronounced, there is a rupture, obvious, to experience the residual exaltation of Bunuel on the path lingering in the air imbuing the place with heresy, Ruiz, to those who know the source, is in fact not making a film version of the last volume, there are many replicated occurrences, but a work that evokes the entire novel, triggering our memories of the book and life: a dialogue. To those not familiar but attentive to the film it expresses Proust’s ideas and art concisely.

We head to Bob’s house 3:30 in the morning, to watch the Miike crossover film Audition, we have one concern with Time Regained. Somtow is waiting for us at Bob’s, jeez need to enquire if he is still alive, Uncle Bob, I mean, maybe I’ll email him and await an answer or a silence.

After the film, Jirwo and I drop Kyoko who lives on the way by tuk tuk. The fin of the dragon emerges, before crashing out, I use an interdental brush to remove flecks, there are concerns about the film: Ruiz’s I mean, tends to on a couple of occasions illustrate ideas, evocation is the thing, however, a minor issue. FORGIVABLE. Family Court doors open.

Don’t forget Bob’s YOUR UNCLE, YOUR UNCLE, YOUR UNCLE, MON ONCLE, MON ONCLE, MON ONCLE,

MON ONCLE d’Amérique.

– Kiran David