Some years ago...

Bangkok to Madras last night. Taxi from the airport through an assortment of dust, grime, soot, cows and goats, motorbikes and trucks, bicycles, ox-carts, beggars and slums, the smell of sandalwood and urine, rice curries cooking over cow dung fires, noise everywhere, the drone from a mosque in prayer session and…well…just the usual, everyday bedlam of India.                                                                                                     Stuck in traffic, a small boy shrouded in noxious fumes, swaddled in tattered rags, appears at my window and starts to sing: ‘Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way, oh what fun…jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way…Please sir, one rupee…one rupee for I sing you nice song - please sir” It was nine o’clock at night. The kid was six, maybe seven years old. I hadn’t changed any money so I gave him a ballpoint pen I got as a promotion for buying a bottle of mouthwash. He thanked me with such beautiful brown eyes and a sweet, sweet smile, then ran off to show his little pals.

         Checked in at the Hotel Mars. Not bad. Big room, small bar downstairs. Drank three large beers while talking to a local guy just back from Saudi Arabia where he works as a pipeline engineer. Returned to Madras to marry a girl he’d never kissed.

         “An arranged marriage?” I asked.

         “Yes sir, but I’ve known the girl for two years now. I understand that where you come from marriages are unarranged. Is that not true , sir?”

         “Are you asking me a question or are you trying to make a point?”

         “Ha! Jolly good for you, sir! The point is simply that we do things differently. In America, a man and a woman fall in love and then they get married. In India, we get married and then God willing, we fall in love.”

         Given that in India there are a plethora of gods, it's not certain which one he was referring to but, I opted not to make an issue out of it. God help me!

         “Suppose after you get married you find out she doesn’t like sex?”

         “She does.”

             “How do you know?”    

         “We’ve discussed it.”

“Talked to her about sex?”

“Of course.”

“So you’ve had oral sex, so to speak?”

“So to speak, yes sir. Not, of course, the kind of oral sex that you may prefer.”

“And she likes it?”

“She says she will like it with me and I believe she will. That’s good enough, don’t you agree.”

“Very much agree.”

“She is twenty-five years old. A very pretty and very clever girl. And, yes, she is a virgin.”

“A very pretty, very clever twenty-five year old…virgin?”

“You consider that to be most remarkable don’t you, sir?”

“No comment.”

“This is India, my good fellow. We have our customs.”

“Well, we have our customs in Chicago too, pal. One of them is to buy a drink for any good man, such as yourself, who’s about to get married.”

“Thank you very kindly, sir.”