Road to Phnom Penh

Photo Credit: A. Peter

A speeding shot of a day fast turning to night. This was taken from a car on our way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, after a great two days with friends. We'd been to Angkor Wat, the men and sole teenager absenting themselves from a visit to the temples on the pretext that they'd been there before. 

Since it was new year 2019 we spent the night in Siem Reap's Pub Street crammed into a young crowd, the most peaceful gentle mass of public I have ever been squeezed into, and swayed to some catchy Cambodian music. 

I liked the music enough to try looking for those party music tunes on YouTube. Couldn’t find anything that sounded familiar, but liked what I heard enough to keep listening for some days, mostly Cambodian pop and rock. 

That night we weren't able to get a meal anywhere, finally finding a small South Indian restaurant that was almost closing and had very little food. We were able to eat and found out the owners were Malayalis from North Kerala. The wife and family were Cambodian. The world is indeed a small place. 

Oh, btw, I'm proud of this shot. Reminds me of my years fiddling with a Yashica camera's aperture/shutter speeds to take night pictures. A lifetime of trying to take good pictures. Now I use the camera phone. Something good died along the way. 

                                    ******

#Cambodia #Sunset #Cambodiamusic #Cambodiapop #siemreap #phnompenh #pubstreetsiemreap #pubstreet #cambodiatemples #templesofcambodia #angkorwat #newyear #newyearincambodia #newyearinsiemreap #music #newyearparty #YouTube #teenager #nightphotos #aperture #shutterspeed #Yashica #cameraphone #photographs #wife #northkerala #southindianrestaurantincambodia #travel #traveldiaries #southindianfood #travel #indiansincambodia #malayalis #mumbaimalayalis

Fishy Chronicles 60: A Step Too Far

We tried calling Genie, but he didn’t pick up his phone.

“Do you think he’s left?” I asked Anjali.

“Left where?”

“I mean, gone. Taken his stuff and left.”

“Let’s check his room and see if his things are still here.”

We did the unthinkable and went into Genie’s room. I rarely entered this room, even though I was tempted. The room was extremely neat. Tidy paperless surfaces, with no personal belongings outside. A pink-themed patchwork bedspread my mother and I had made for Genie covered his bed.

Anjali gingerly tried the door handles of the cupboard nearest the door. It was locked. “Don’t you have extra keys for these cupboards? They usually come in doubles and triples.” She looked at me hopefully.

“Why isn’t there a mirror here?” Anjali said absentmindedly, drinking in the entire room.

“Oh. One of the cupboards has a mirror on the inside of the door.”

“Do you think that’s where he keeps all his toiletries and things?”

It was like the room had no character… save for the picture of my parents, Genie and I in happier times. The photograph was in a slim silver folder, the kind that could be propped up, kept in a pocket or slid into a briefcase. I’d never seen anything like it in India. I picked it up and stared at my parents. A lump soon formed in the back of my throat and my eyes blurred. Anjali took the slim picture frame from my hands and set it down and her arm went around me.

                                                                 ******

This is a fictional series surrounding the narrator, her parents’ former man Friday Genie and Fish. 

The narrator and her friend Anjali are unable to contact Genie and enter his room to see if he has packed and left. Unfortunately, they get carried away.

                                                                 ******

Then she went and tugged at the handles of all the cupboards. The ones without key holes opened, revealing Genie’s toiletries, clothes and other things. “If he keeps his clothes here, what must he be keeping in the locked cupboards?”

That was an interesting question, because there were two tall cupboards with locks and one short cupboard with a lock, in addition to a locked steel almirah.

“He only wears white t-shirts…” I said.

“… white t-shirts and jeans. And how many cupboards of white underwear can a man have? I think the cupboards are empty.” She went up to them and knocked. We couldn’t figure out if the sound was hollow.

“Well, looks like all his clothes are here. Nothing has gone. Maybe we should check the shoe rack.” I opened a drawer in his table. Stationery was neatly organised, instantly putting Anjali and me to shame.

“I really want him to be my housekeeper,” Anjali mumbled. “And I want to bonk him.”

“Me too. The tidy part, for the most part.” Except for the numerous bumps in my life, I had not seen anything ruffle Genie. That included the running of a household. If he didn’t know cooking when he first entered our home, he did by the time my parents left this realm. The only plus was I was a better cook.

“You know, geniuses are like this. Everything in neat rows. Look at this,” Anjali picked up a box of paperclips. “I bet the clips are in neat rows, spooning each other.”

“Okay. Open it.”

We opened it. There were a couple of coins in them. We stared at the Queen Victoria half anna. There was another coin in it, but I slapped Anjali’s hand away from it.

“What did you do that for!”

“We’ve poked around Genie’s things too much. We have no business doing so. Come on!”

“Yes, Miss Potty-Calling-Miss Kettley-Black. Where to?”

I walked to the sitting room. Fish were arguing on the phone. I stopped. It sounded like they were speaking with Genie.

“When will you be back?” Penaaz asked.

“You’ve got to come back,” Pervez said plaintively.

“Who’ll keep order here? And we may run out of food… or toilet paper… or just… things,” Portas said.

“You can’t stay away for long, old man. That Danny business fizzled out long ago. Uncle Joy was a tiresome old fart. A tiresome, game-playing, manipulative old fart. Fortunately, our little one hasn’t inherited any of his genes,” Gregory said.

“Please come back, we’re worried sick. Besides the girls will be alone. What if things get worse… TV news sounds worse by the hour. It’s safer for you to be here at home than outside. Please come back soon!” sweet gentle Dimitri said.

“He’s so annoying and stubborn,” Penaaz grumbled.

“Yes. How rude of him to cut us off while we were speaking,” Portas said.

“I don’t think he had a chance to speak at all, with us yammering and cutting him off every time he spoke,” Gregory said.

That silenced Fish. I moved into the sitting room, wondering why Anjali wasn’t with me. I sighed in frustration. She was examining the other coin in the paper clip box and taking a picture of it. “Anjali, stop that!”

“Stop that, you! You nearly gave me a fright,” Gregory shouted. I could see Fish hold their hearts, panting in shock and pressed into the sides of the fish tank.

“Er, sorry, guys. Do you have any idea when Genie will be back?”

“No,” Penaaz said.

“Did you call him?”

There was a long pause. “No,” Gregory said, looking at the top of my ear and adjusting his glasses. I looked at the other fish, each one of them was acting innocent.

They had learned well the fine art of fingering. It didn’t take a lot. I felt my piss fizz. I wondered what it was. Did they think I only needed to know on a need-to-know basis. Or I was just a helpless useless nut that needed to be manipulated like a puppet whenever they wanted. I screamed shrilly in my head, glaring at them all the while. Idiots!

I looked behind me. Anjali was now sitting on Genie’s bed and looking through a notebook. She then lifted a pen, that looked… my God! I sprinted into the room and grabbed the pen from her hand. “It’s a f****** Mont Blanc. What the eff! Do you think it’s real?” I put the pen to my nose and sniffed.

“Eek! Do you have to smell everything, you crackpot! What if he used it to scratch his balls.”

“Why can’t he just use his hands like everyone else?” I said, still looking closely at the pen. It looked like an original. I’d bought a couple of fakes at the Russian Market in Phnom Penh last year. And I had eyed the originals often enough at the mall. The markings seemed right. I pulled off the cap – it was a fountain pen. “You know, I have never seen him use this pen.”

“Maybe he has a secret journal he likes to write in with a special pen. There are some books and diaries in this larger drawer here. Shall we look?”

“I think we should stop touching his things. He may figure out we’ve been rifling through them. Do you think he’s one of those people who remembers the way he leaves a book or pen in his drawers?”

“I imagine you mean the drawer in this table and not the other type,” Anjali smirked. I felt exasperated but also strangely, and reluctantly, titillated. Anjali shrugged and sighed. “Yeah, I think he’s the sort who’ll remember what went missing and who’s touched what. I better put it back in his journal.”

“Journal? Give me that.”

“Don’t know if it is one.” She showed me a green moleskin diary. It looked like it had been well thumbed, and the sides of the book and pages looked grimy, though they were blank. Most of them. Some had words that didn’t make sense.

I had a sense of foreboding. “Put it back exactly the way you found it, Anjali.” I pushed the pen and notebook into Anjali’s chest. “We have no business touching Genie’s things. Put it back, put it back now!”

“Damn right you shouldn’t be touching my things. Put them down and get out of my room. Now!” Genie said coldly from the doorway. I felt Anjali gasp and I shrank into her, feeling intense shame at our actions and being caught. Anjali pushed me and we stood. She put the pen and book on the table and we walked slowly to the door.

“Very sorry, Genie. We didn’t mean to,” Anjali said.

“But you did.” He moved to the side of the doorway to let us pass, then went in and locked the door behind him.
                                                        ******

Fishy Chronicles 20: The Strangeness Of Happiness

I stumbled against a flower pot and felt Genie's tight grip steady me. I don’t know which was more painful, his fingers biting into my fleshy forearm or my stubbed toe.

“Why are we crawling about in the dark? I’m going to my house. I’m not doing anything illicit! Going home in pitch dark feels like I’m doing something I’m not supposed to,” I grumbled.

“Shhhh,” said Fish.

“I’m saying...”

“Too much,” Genie said. He grabbed my bags, went up the stairs in a flash and I heard the faint sound of my door being unlocked.

I wheeled the fish tank toward the lift and glared at the sleeping watchman. Our racket hadn’t woken him up. Some people were blessed. They could sleep through storms. Even though I had slept in the best beds in Cambodia, I had tossed and turned. I had heard strange noises and had had strange thoughts and only near the end of my holiday had slept long stretches, mostly because I was tired each day.

Genie loomed in my face. He picked up the fish tank and moved swiftly up the stairs. I saw a light in an upstairs window. Old Mrs Glory Gonsalves was smoking in her balcony. She only ever smoked at night and out of sight of our neighbours from the Dark Ages. She blew me a kiss and I blew one back at her.

I walked up the stairs and stopped. Genie was leaning against the wall near our home, ostensibly waiting for me, his arms crossed, his thin white t-shirt clinging to his muscled arms and torso, his nipples showing and one of his legs in front of the other, with the ankles crossed – like those middle-aged society madams trying to look thin and hip. Really, Genie, a minute and you got tired waiting for me?

I entered the flat. I sighed. It was so good to be back home. Fish were already rushing about their home tank, moving furniture, hiding their eats and trying to find their comfortable spots. Their luggage was strewn at the bottom of the tank. Five fish, so much luggage. So materialistic.

A throat cleared behind me and I turned. Genie smiled. “Good night. Your suitcase is in your room.”

                                     ****** 

This is a fictional series about the narrator, Genie, her former manservant and now friend, five opinionated fish, a devoted mosquito called Nobby and a visiting North Pole elf called Donny. They have just returned from a holiday and are now face to face with a neighbour who is in love with Genie.

                                     ****** 
I heard the doorbell ring.

Ignore, ignore, ignore! It was the weekend. I tried to shove my pillow into my ears. Then I heard a familiar voice. I immediately jumped out of bed and tiptoed to my bedroom door and listened.

It couldn’t be! I listened for several minutes. Nothing! What a time for a door to block out sound.

I tiptoed into the corridor off the hallway to hear better, but Genie caught sight of me.

“Oh, look, she’s awake,” Genie stood, smiled and gestured at me to sit near him on the sofa. I felt grubby and shabby in my long loose nightgown, especially as Zeba was looking her best in a tight, flower print halterneck dress.

He took my arm and led me toward the sofa. Genie sat next to me, leaned back, put his arm along the back of the sofa, stretched his legs and smiled expansively at Zeba.

My eyes bulged the minute I felt his arm behind my head. What was Genie thinking! His smile was cool, and hovered only around his mouth. 

My head whipped around. Zeba's smile had faltered and it was clear she was making an effort to keep smiling. 

“Zeba was asking about our trip,” Genie’s moustache said.

“Yes, Cambodia. How exciting. What did you both do?” Zeba's eyes bored into me.

“I was on a yoga retreat. But they,” Genie's free hand gestured at me, and he instantly corrected himself, “she, had the time of her life. Didn’t you, my love? Tell Zeba about your adventures.”

My love? I could feel a stake through my heart already. “E-Er... H-h-had an excellent guide and all. Went to the temples, Angkor Wat, Bayon, Ta Prohm. Y-you must go, it's a traveller's delight, for sure."

“I’m sure.” Zeba said, her eyes feasting on Genie and him smiling back at her lazily. Shit, shit, shit! I turned, desperately looking at Fish. Where was Donny, my dear elf?

I spotted them, pressed against the fish tank’s wall, watching us with no expression at all and very still. Nobby was watching from atop the tank. I turned around and saw Donny hiding behind a large potted plant on my sitting ledge near the window. I felt a little confidence creep into my being.

I looked back at Zeba and was startled by an angry look, quickly replaced by a fake smile. I felt Genie's arm fall onto my shoulder and him saying loudly into my ear. “Go get our present for Zeba. It’s the bag on the kitchen platform. Go on. And some of those chocolates.”

I got up. There were about six mangoes tied up in a fancy gauzy bag, a big red ribbon tied neatly around its neck. I opened the fridge and found two large bars of liquor chocolates in a narrow checked gift bag, sitting on a shelf. Genie seemed to have thought of everything.

When I returned, Genie and Zeba were standing and kissing each other's cheeks. I handed Zeba the mangoes and chocolates and she thanked Genie effusively and ignored me. 

He put his hand on the small of her back and guided her toward the door. She attempted to hug him but he held back. So she threw her arms around his neck and then moved back, out of the door and out of my line of vision. Genie waved and nodded and smiled and then closed both doors.

“What's going on, Genie?” I asked.

Genie shrugged, sat on the sofa and shook out the newspaper he had been reading before Zeba rang the doorbell.

I stood in front of him, plucked the newspaper out of his hands, shoved it into my left armpit, crossed my arms and waited. 

Genie grinned broadly, stretched his legs, for which I had to move out of the way, and relaxed, staring up at me, his head tilted to one side. “Fraternising with a beautiful neighbour.”

“A hateful woman.”

“Tut, tut. A human being. And an esteemed member of this Society.”

“Bullshit.”

Genie laughed. He looked at my angry face and laughed again.

I looked up. The top of the tank had slammed against the wall behind it, and against the laws of physics stayed upright precariously. 

“What the fork, Genie! What the hell are you playing at!” my dear, dear Penaaz shouted. Water splashed out of the tank, as the other fish first flew around the tank and then jumped to the top.

“Yeah,” Portas and Pervez shouted together.

I could see Genie was surprised at Fish's reactions. What did he expect! They hated Zeba as much as I did.

I remembered Nobby. He was now sitting on the bookshelf. “Why didn’t you bite Zeba, Nobby?”

“I have renounced violence.”

“Bullcrap and bullshit!” 

Genie and Nobby burst out laughing. I threw myself at Genie, but I was no match for him. He pinned me against the sofa with an arm and continued to laugh while I and Fish shouted and swore. Finally Genie put his finger on my lips and said, “Shhh. We don’t want darling Zeba to return, do we?”

I wanted to call him a name, but mostly I wanted to bounce the hardest, biggest Cambodian mango we had on Zeba's fat, hairy head. When he didn't take off his hand from my mouth or stop pinning me to the back of the sofa, I nodded angrily. After an eternity, he let me go. The idiot!

I stood up. “What is going on, Genie?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit!”

Genie laughed.

“Stop playing around with me, Genie! Are you fooling around with her?” I demanded. 

Genie stopped laughing, but continued to smile. He shrugged one shoulder.

“Out with it, Genie,” Gregory said from the tank.

“I didn't expect Zeba to visit. So soon, in any case,” Genie said.

“We're listening,” Gregory prodded.

“And I’ve been thinking these last few days... especially after her phonecalls while we were in Phnom Penh...”

“And?” I pressed.

“And I think I’ve been handling things... inefficiently.”

“Meaning?” 

“We’re going about Zeba the wrong way.”

“So all the mangoes you bought in Phnom Penh were for Zeba?” 

“No. The mangoes and chocolates on the kitchen platform were for Ms Glory. Zeba just beat her to it.”

“But you’re sending Zeba the wrong signals!”

“I’m just trying to do the neighbourly thing. Sharing fruit.”

“Sounds like bullshit to me,” I told him.

“Good to know.”

I had a thought. “Are you two going to be coochie cooing on a regular basis?”

“I can’t say."

“It would make me sick,” Portas said from the fish tank.

“I second that,” Gregory said. The lovers, Penaaz and Pervez, had retreated to a corner and were murmuring to themselves.

Genie patted the seat next to him. When I didn’t move, he pulled me onto the sofa. “I’ll make some tea. I offered yours to Zeba.”

I was going to say something rude when I remembered. “Did Nobby...?”

“Yes. He had the first sip. Happy?” 

I shook out the crumpled entertainment supplement of the Bombay Sentinel. What I wouldn’t give for Zeba to know a mosquito had dunked his proboscis into her tea, especially one who often chugged her blood. I struggled not to chuckle.

Papa was right. Happiness came from the strangest things. 

                                    ******

Fishy Chronicles 18: When Mount Kailash Beckons

“Who is calling you, Genie? Why don't you pick up the damn phone?”

He looked at the screen with distaste and lobbed the phone at me. I scrambled to catch it and switched it on angrily.

Too late. I stared at Genie in shock. He was sitting on the floor, stretched out, his back against a wall, his long legs in front of him and a broad smile was forming.

“W-w-what, Zeba? What was that?” She had never spoken to me in such honeyed tones. What did I do to deserve it.

“You! You!” she choked.

“Who did you think it was? Genie?” I winked at Fish. Just before Ms Z called, Genie and I had been watching Fish and Donny swim in the tub. Now they were hanging on to its rim, all ears. Or gills. Or whatever.

“What are you doing with his phone?” Zeba demanded.

“He gave it to me.”

There was silence, a shrill groan of some sort and then, like molasses, “Where is he, darling?”

“Travelling, I think.”

“You think? Where?!”

“Genie told me not to tell. He said there were strange people calling him.”

“Does he have your phone?”

“No.”

“How are you contacting him?”

“I’m not.”

“Rubbish! You two are joined at the hips!”

“I assure you we are not. Mobility would be an issue. You want me to pass on a message?”

My laughing Genie suddenly sat up straight and glared. He made slicing movements against his throat with his index finger. Hah! Like I was scared.

“He's talking about himself, you dope,” Gregory said scornfully.

“That means you know where he is!” Zeba continued angrily from Peaceful Society, Mumbai. India right now was not far enough for me.

“Yes. He's gone to Greenland... to meditate...”

“That's utter crap!”

“... something about perpetual darkness and beautiful ice maidens dancing under the Northern Lights. He sounded off. Too much meditation or the cold getting to his head maybe.”

I heard a scream and then the line got cut.

“Well?” I smiled at Genie. “What do you think?”

“The true test will be whether Zebby comes back for more.”

                                     ****** 

This is a fictional series surrounding the narrator, a divorcée who lives in the distant suburbs of Mumbai, Genie, her ex manservant, a former underworld don turned world traveller, and a school of vocal, irascible fish. They are currently travelling around Cambodia but have been tracked down by a neighbour, Zeba Bobby, who is nursing a huge crush on Genie.

                                      ****** 

We were having tea with Genie's friends on the terrace of our service apartment in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, when his phone interrupted the camaraderie resulting from a beautiful sunset, snacks and tea-induced gup-shup.

Genie silenced his phone and slipped it back into his pocket. It rang several times more, eventually silencing us all. Genie switched it on but didn’t talk. He listened for a few minutes and his mouth tightened. He cut the call.

Sunset, friends, tea, snacks and gup-shup.
(Photos: A. Peter)

He did this several times and then caught sight of me looking at him. A faint smile appeared on his mouth. The phone rang again.

“Your turn, darling.” He slid his phone on the table towards me.

I took the phone reluctantly, involuntarily  remembering Zeba's last call. I stared at the number on the phone's screen. It said Peaceful Lech – Genie's moniker for Mr Duggal, Peaceful Society's Committee Secretary. Zeba was Peaceful Witch. Strangely, in this respect, Genie and I were similar. Zeba was simply Bitch on my phone list and Duggal SickSexPest.

“Hello?” I said nervously. I absolutely hated this Peaceful Society man with his many complaints.

“Where are you?” Mr Duggal demanded.

“Why?”

“It's important the committee knows!”

“Why?”

“Because... because... because it is best practice!”

“For what?”

“You don’t have a family. We need to know if something happens to you.”

It was too funny.

“Why are you laughing! I tried your number, it’s switched off. Then I tried Genie's number and after many tries you picked up! Are you on a holiday together?”

That question again. He might have said ‘are you having an affair’ with him. Dirty-minded pig.

I said, “Last year when Mr Roy died in his flat, we didn't know for more than a month. And only because the kachdawali raised a stink about the smell from his doorway. No pun intended.”

I heard sputtering noises. “Besides,” I continued, “This invasive practice of knowing members' travel plans has to be made a Society regulation and not turned into a means for the Society’s committee to harass single members!”

“But, but, but, it’s for your own good!”

“How?”

“Er...”

“No problem, Mr Duggal, next time I’ll inform your wife of my whereabouts.” Mrs Duggal was a suspicious, jealous woman who hated all the single women and any beautiful woman in Peaceful Society or even outside its walls. I suspect she turned that way because of her spouse's extraordinary ability to swivel his head 360 degrees at the sight of the opposite sex.

“No. No. Noooo. No. No need!” he almost shouted.

“I think I’d trust Mrs Duggal with that information. I’d be sure it wasn’t shared, that I wouldn't be the butt of a joke by some dirty old men. Plus she’d probably look out for me better.”

I could hear an argument in the background. Several phone buttons got pushed and the line got disconnected. It had sounded like people arguing in the background and a scuffle for the phone.

The Peaceful Lech called immediately. I took my time answering it. I counted nine rings and finally picked up.

“Where is Genie? Where have the two of you disappeared to!” Zeba said aggressively.

Shit. It was all Zeba's doing. And I was nonplussed. Why the interest? But apparently I stayed too quiet for too long because suddenly she screamed, “Are you there? What are you doing with Genie?”

I stayed quiet until I mastered my emotions. I had to think of our friends too.

“Right now?” I asked unnecessarily.

“YES!”

“Are you sure you want to know? What did you say, Zeba? Really? It sounded like a cuss word. I don’t think you'll be able to handle what you hear.”

“Are you with Genie?!”

“You saw us leave home together. In any case why should it matter? In soul and spirit we are,” I heard giggles and a snort. I couldn’t look at the others. I needed to do this straightfaced. “Where his body goes, my soul wafts along. When he meditates, my mind immediately scouts for comfortable spots on Mount Kailash...”

“Shut up!”

“Aiyyo, Zeba, don’t be like this. I told you he’s left me his phone because mine doesn’t work. Plus meditation is required without phones. And where he is, he needn’t bother with connectivity.”

“Er, where’s that,” Zeba asked hopefully.

“He said he wanted peace...”

“Yes, he likes his solit...”

“... nirvana...”

“Yes, yes...”

“... no drama...”

“Whe...”

“... some place without me.”

“Where would that be?”

“At home. Reading the newspaper in peace, I imagine.”

I gently disconnected the call and put Peaceful Lech and Peaceful Witch’s phone numbers on Genie's auto-reject list.

I grinned at Genie and handed him his phone. “Buys you time until you come face to face with Lech and Witch. By the way, nice names both. Suits them brilliantly.”

                                    ******