“But you are wrong when you say that these crazy things only happen in Asia.” He says he had found on the internet a case of a jilted bride in the west acting in the same way. He shows me the news report on his laptop. Alison Innes, 20, of Scotland, was ditched by her caddish boyfriend shortly before her wedding. But the whole thing went ahead, with a friend marrying her in place of the original groom.
I grab his laptop and read through the story, which is from a UK tabloid newspaper.
“There’s a key difference,” I tell him. “Ms. Innes was eight months’ pregnant. In Asia, her ballooning condition would have prevented alternative husbands springing from the audience to romantically proclaim: ‘I suppose I’ll have her if no one else wants her.’”
Sunday, September 7
On a New Delhi street early the next morning, someone tries to sell me an aunt. I’ve been offered all sorts of things by shifty-eyed men at street corners but elderly relatives? This was a first. “No thanks,” I reply. “I already have WAY too many aunts. You have no idea.”
I later mention this curious exchange to Priti, one of Tomasz’s India-based staff. She says: “You were probably being offered a hot aunty. A hot aunty is a buxom woman who will offer you, er, comfort, if you know what I mean?”
At the hotel business center, I type “hot aunty” into Google. It produces a list of 374,000 references, all featuring images of well-fed women in saris.
It’s hard to find a more dramatic example of how India differs from other cultures. To me, the phrase “hot aunty” brings to mind my Great Auntie Seema, a large, sweaty, upholstered woman the size, shape and weight of a three-seater sofa, but possibly less mobile and definitely less intelligent. Yet in India, those words get young men so over-excited they fall over frothing at the mouth and other parts.
Discussing this over a meal of uttapam with the insurance roadshow team at the hotel that evening, a scheme evolves. Why not use cultural differences to find partners for unloved people?
In the US, three out of four people are overweight, and many feel unattractive. Tomasz says: “All we have to do is find a place where excess flab is considered a turn-on, and Bob’s your uncle. Or better still, Bob’s your customer.”
Monday, September 8
There’s too much eating on business trips. Over a huge hotel buffet breakfast of curry, Agnetha tells me that in Mauritania, West Africa, obesity is considered hot, in the western sense of the word, i.e., sexually attractive.
“Women are miserable unless they are overweight, and they go to special eating camps to pack on the pounds,” she says. “Cellulite is no problem and local men consider stretch marks a sign of beauty. I wish I lived there.”
“So in Mauritania, the bigger you are, the cuter you are?”
“That’s right.”
“So if tall, slim, western supermodels turned up in Mauritania, everyone would think they were hideous, revolting women suffering from eating disorders? Wait. They ARE hideous, revolting women suffering from eating disorders.”
Agnetha, who is a big girl, smiles.
Tuesday, September 9
In the car on the way to the next gig, Tomasz raises a practical problem in the way of our mad scheme: “How do we go about exporting three-quarters of the population of the US to Mauritania?”
“Emergency airlift?” says Priti.
“We get finance from the new health-care plan that Obama has promised to implement,” suggests Agnetha.
“No need for that,” I tell them. “Once you spread the word that there is a place on earth where cellulite is considered sexy, just stand back and wait for the stampede.”
And thus, in an idle conversation in India, we potentially solve one of the west’s most intractable problems. Now all we have to do is find a country full of lonely uncles and send them to South Asia to meet the hot aunties. I just feel sorry for whoever will end up with Great Aunt Seema.
* * *
On BBC World TV news at the hotel, I learn that a proton beam is about to be circulated in a giant machine called the Large Hadron Collider (so called, one presumes, to distinguish it from such common household items such as the Middling Hadron Collider, the Small Hadron Collider, the Teeny-Weeny Hadron Collider, etc.).
Several people say that the world will end in a few hours as a result. This item is low on the news list, below an announcement that Lehman Bros has filed third-quarter losses of US$4.9 billion. There’s an image of the boss of Lehman Bros looking rather depressed about money worries. I feel like clapping him on the back and saying, you and me both, brother. Then a thought strikes me. Hang on a minute. He’s an investment banker. Like Mr. Woot. I thought these guys were invulnerable, like dark-suited Supermen?
Wednesday, September 10
Despite the colliding hadrons in Europe, the world fails to end.
At my fourth public talk in India, an ancient guy with a walrus moustache raises his hand and asks a question. “Brother. Talking on funny marriages, are you seeing that thing in the newspaper today about a man in Europe who married his own sister?”
I yawn. “Listen, bhai, my file of Asian weddings includes one in which a nine-year-old girl married a dog, an adult woman married a statue, and people regularly marry ghosts and paintings. So the European wedding in today’s paper was comparatively normal. I mean, at least the bride was human. “
He gives me a thumbs-up.
I return the gesture. “Asia: bizarre and proud of it.”
The audience applauds.
Thursday, September 11
There is a knock on my door. It is Priti. “You know a lot about relationships,” she says, wildly inaccurately. “Can you give me some advice?”
She explains that she has been investigating dating websites, since she wants to choose a suitable guy before her parents select someone for her. The young woman boots up her laptop and shows me the sites she has been visiting. She wants to know if she is doing the right thing.
This is the ad that she has highlighted on one of the Asian dating sites: “Tall Guy, Age 36. Are there any nice guys left? After me, I’m not sure.”
“How arrogant,” I say. “There are three and a half billion men on this planet, so there must be a few other nice guys.”
“There aren’t,” says Priti. “I checked.”
She clicks over to the women’s page of the same website. “Female ads seem more honest,” she comments. The one at the top of the screen says: “Hong Kong female, age 38, seriously looking for a good and sincere man for marriage. I am fun to be with sometimes.”
I nod. The presence of the word “sometimes” speaks volumes about her truthfulness.
Priti shows me the dating websites of other Asian countries. “Some people are too honest with their ads,” she says, turning the screen to face me.
Together, we read one from Bangladesh. “Male, 34, Dhaka. I am a fighter looking for someone who will fight with me. Interests: Chess, cricket, cooking something special, jokes, singing, fighting with someone special.”
Then one from India: “Female, 22, non-veg. I am very emotional as 70 per cent of Indians are.”
Some advertisers ask for too much. This is a personal ad from Sri Lanka: “Male, 20, from Ettampitiya area. I’m looking for a girlfriend who should be a friend, a sister, a mother and a lover to me. That’s all.”
I am saved from giving her relationship advice when her phone rings and she is summoned away. Thank God.
Friday, September 12
This road tour is getting weird. Because I am talking about marriage all the time (and using chunks of my speeches on the subject to fill my blog and the newspapers) I am getting a wide reputation as an expert on relationships. Me—a good little Asian boy who married his first serious girlfriend.
At lunch today, Tomasz asks a question which quickly silences the conversations among other members of the group. “Love is supposed to be blind, right? Well, how come all the east-west couples are tall western guys with petite Asian women? How c
ome there are so few Asian guys with western girls?”
There’s a room-wide intake of breath. Clearly this is a fascinating subject that many people have thought about, but few would raise in a culturally mixed group where attitudes are unknown, and we are all supposed to be on our best behavior.
Before I can respond, Agnetha leaps into the fray. “Because Asian men tend to be runtish, puny, wimpy and taciturn, no offence intended,” she says, instinctively looking at me, although not in an unkind way.
I tell her I am not offended. “Actually, those four words appear on my most recent medical report.”
Everyone looks expectantly at me to respond to Tomasz’ question, so I point out that there is at least one fascinating celebrity exception. “Britain’s late Princess Diana, the ultimate celebrity blonde of the 1990s, was obsessed with Asian guys. That gal had taste.”
The Indian guys in the room turn to stare. “Diana was madly in love with her doctor, a skinny Pakistani named Hasnat Khan,” I say, going on to explain the full, amazing true story of the Princess and the Asians, which I researched once for a newspaper feature.
His family was suspicious of this married, tiara-wearing hussy. The lovesick princess bought several midriff-baring south Asian costumes to add to her allure and even plotted to convert to Islam. Hasnat’s family quickly married him off to a real Asian girl. Diana, utterly broken-hearted, looked for Asian male substitutes and hooked up with other swarthy, dark-haired men, such as Dodi Fayed. And she was particularly “close” to Indian businessman Gulu Lalvani at the time of her death. I used to know Gulu quite well when he lived in Hong Kong. “He was a clever, funny guy, like many South Asians. She would have had a ball,” I say.
Back in my room, I realize that had she not died, Princess Diana would almost definitely have ended up in Asia as a tai-tai (east Asian term roughly equivalent to “ladies who lunch”). I write a sketch on this subject for newspapers and the web.
DI-DI THE TAI-TAI. A one-act play.
Diana: What’s this white stuff?
Asian husband: Rice.
Diana: Oh. Does it have any calories?
Asian husband: I hope so.
Diana: Well I can’t eat it, then. Do you have any organic lettuce?
Asian husband: No.
Diana: Isn’t there any British food available in this part of the world?
Asian husband: Like what?
Diana: Chicken curry.
Asian husband: Yes, we have that.
Diana: Thank God. I guess that’s one of the benefits of colonialism. We can share our British culinary treasures with you people. Is the chicken organic?
Asian husband: Well, it has organs, yes.
Diana: I don’t think that’s what organic means.
Asian husband: Well, it is made of organic material as opposed to inorganic material, if that’s what you want.
Diana: Well, I suppose that’s all right then. Hey, where are you going?
Asian husband: Out. To get you some chicken curry.
Diana: You can’t go outside! This is Asia. You’ll be killed by landmines. They cover the whole of Asia!
Asian husband: The whole of Asia isn’t covered with landmines.
Diana: It isn’t? Then what have I been campaigning about for all these years?
Saturday, September 13
Whoa! Violence in the inbox. Waiting for me this morning are lots of angry comments complaining that I should not have written such negative things about Princess Diana. “You are being disrespectful to a Modern Saint,” says one writer (a resident of Calcutta).
I reply: “Thanks for your note. However, she can only be classified as a saint if she has performed two certified miracles, and I’m not sure that sleeping with her bodyguards without getting caught by the media counts. The Pope is not big on that kind of thing.”
Later, I send him a gentler reply: “Mind you, I’m very sad that she died. If Diana had lived, and pursued her interest in Asian men, she would have transformed our reputation. We’d be wearing badges saying: ‘Runtish, wimpy, puny, taciturn and proud of it.’”
At lunch, Priti shows me a report in an Indian newspaper which has put her off the idea of marriage. “It’s not a happy story, so you can’t add it to your talks.”
Two young people, Monica and Kunal, met, fell in love and got married. The families were outraged. How dare the bride and groom think they have a say in the matter. The young couple asked judges at the Punjab and Haryana High Court for legal protection from their increasingly threatening family members. On the day of the hearing, the mother-in-law turned up at the court and beat up the couple’s lawyer. Pitched fighting broke out between lawyers and family members. The media arrived and started filming. Fists flew, cameras were damaged, and the media people also joined the fisticuffs. Eventually a group of international border guards, the Indo-Tibet border battalion, were summoned. If they could keep a billion people in China and a billion people in India separate, they might just have a chance of keeping these fighters apart, police hoped. At the time of writing, the fight was continuing.
“Do all marriages involve so much fighting?” she asks.
“Of course not,” I tell her. “Some have more.”
But I add that marital disputes can be easily solved by making compromises. “The male party apologizes. The female party accepts the apology, folds her arms and looks smug. This works for me every time.”
“I like the sound of that.”
Priti decides that her best bet is to marry a western guy, since they are relatively independent of their families. She says she is thinking of moving to the UK.
Sunday, September 14
This morning at breakfast, Priti tells me she has scrapped the idea. “The average British man has slept with 2.8 million people,” she said. “Agnetha told me she read it on the internet last night.”
I tell her that this couldn’t be right. Clearly, the fact that Madonna is now living in the UK has raised the averages.
After my talk today, I ask readers through my website to find the report she has quoted about guys in the UK. A male reader quickly locates the original study, issued by a pharmaceutical group in London.
“It includes partners of partners of partners,” he writes. “It doesn’t mean each guy has actually slept with 2.8 million individuals, just that he could technically have acquired germs from that number of people.” He was trying to help, but just made it sound worse.
“Each British guy has 2.8 million germs?” Priti says, making a theatrical shudder. “Eeee.”
Monday, September 15
My mobile phone rings early in the morning. It is Jennifer Weiss, the Canadian reporter, wanting to ask me a question: “I’m doing a piece on Asian sexuality. I see from your blog that you’re in India. Do Indians celebrate Valentine’s Day?”
“Sure. In India they get these heavy wooden clubs and form armed gangs to force pairs of friends caught sitting next to each other to get married. It’s really romantic.”
“That doesn’t sound romantic.”
“It’s an Indian thing.”
Down in the hotel breakfast room, Priti tells me that she has changed her mind again and decided to look for a husband in Asia, since westerners have trivialized marriage. As evidence, she tells me about a US man who interrupted his own wedding vows to update his Facebook page. A video clip of him doing this got hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube. The man was thrilled with the response, which consisted largely of comments ranging from “What an idiot” to “What an idiot”.
I tell her: “In that case you should move to Sri Lanka, where 98.5 per cent of people stay married; or to the Philippines, where technically 100 per cent of couples stay together— divorce being illegal.”
Agnetha slides into the next seat and offers another option. “Or you could simply give yourself more time to choose by moving to Canada, where the average age of first marriage is 33.”
“Why so late?” Priti asks.
Agnetha
shrugs.
I tell them: “Probably has something to do with the thick clothing Canadians have to wear.”
Nine hours later, another exhausting day comes to an end. Doing anything in India is tiring: the traffic is so dense, the air so hot, and street life so intense. Checking my email before retiring for the night, I find a short, shocking bulletin from a Korean reader named Kim (not the Dear Leader of the same name, or at least, I don’t think so): “Whatever happens, tell your friend Priti to avoid South Korea. Laws protecting women from lying, predatory men have been rescinded. See the story at this link.”
But before I can click the link, the hotel is plunged into darkness by a power cut.
Tuesday, September 16
After a sweaty night, power is restored. This morning I get back on to the internet after only 15 attempts to log on. I click last night’s link to learn that the famous “sleazeball law” of South Korea has just been repealed. For decades, any male jerk who pretended to be a sincere, marriageable person in a bid to get a woman he was trying to seduce to drop her guard, and other things, was hauled off to jail for two years. But judges in South Korea have decided that this sort of sleazy seduction technique should no longer be seen as a crime—it was just the sort of thing guys do. Their verdict read: “The government should refrain from interfering in men’s sexual activities of tempting women in an unharmful manner.” Court spokesman Noh Hee-bum told reporters that men who think they had been harmed by this law could ask for state compensation. That’s hard to imagine. “Excuse me, I’ve been a lying sleazeball all my life, can I have some money please?” Curiously, women’s groups in South Korea have approved the change.
At breakfast, I show Agnetha and Priti the article and ask them why they think Korean women are in favor of it. Agnetha says: “All women know men are sleazeballs. Remember we’re far smarter than you. We’d rather handle it by ourselves than have the law try to handle it for us.”
The Curious Diary of Mr Jam Page 22