A Strange Symphony

I was walking on the beach in Pattaya, Thailand when I saw this sight. Of course when one is in Pataya, nothing should really be considered strange, but this scene had some poetic beauty in it too. Our ‘Man on the road’ is Peter from Canada (seen in the picture).

Peter is an engineer who left his job, his relatives and friends in search of himself. His mode of finding himself is traveling on basic minimum, ‘learning and living’ as he puts it. But what struck me about the scene, was not the bare chested Peter and his ‘silver prayer balls’ (yes they are prayer balls that you see in his hand), but the sheer absurdity of the scene.

A woman dressed from head to toe, looking like a character from an ancient Victorian novel and a man in bare somethings, rolling balls in his hands, discussing engineering, Himalaya, poverty, world peace & sex life in Pataya, who by his own proclamation meditates at least 18 hours a day!

Peter has been to the Himalayas and to several countries in between and back. What first attracted me to the scene was the absurd calm between the bare chested yogi, busy with his chants and ‘silver balls’, listening rather lazily, yet attentively to the pitter patter of the lady in the pink costume.

When I talked to the lady, she said she was, “simply walking” along the beach. Well, one has to give her brownie points for originality as it’s not too often that you would chance upon someone wearing a costume as Victorian and make up as gothic! And yet both seemed to be equally at ease with the absurdity of it all and completely immersed in their own and oblivious to the world at large.

I was fascinated by the duo and talked to them, asking them about what they were doing in Pataya. Peter said he liked to meditate by the sea and asked me to take the ‘Silver balls’ in hand and see if I felt anything. While I tried out the silver balls, fascinated by their glitter in the sun and zen like rotation, the lady suddenly broke into a beautiful Soprano! I was reminded of Dame Joan Sutherland..a la Stupenda!

Idiosyncrasies and silver meditation balls aside, this irresistible and magnetic duo took my breath away. To the ‘Man and the Lady on the road’

Maitreyee B Chowdhury

Maitreyee B Chowdhury is a Bangalore based creative writer and poet. Apart from being a professional web content writer, she is the author of two books on poetry and regional films in India. People watching is a compulsion for her. She is fascinated by ‘ The man on the road’.

The idea of writing about ‘The man on the road’ came naturally, says Maitreyee. “Some of the most compelling, beautiful and bizarre stories unfold on the road. The everyday man’s struggle for existence, his tenacity and the beauty of the stark is what is absolutely fascinating”, she says.

Maitreyee writes for us every month her column, The Man on the Road. She can be contacted at maitreyee@thesipoflife.com