In the Flesh

In a darkish alley, on a red-brick wall with a giant wooden door was a sign that said Angels 038; Devils. The three of us stood there, as if admiring a portal that would lead us into a world of intoxicating self-discovery. Or so I thought.

We were led through the door to what seemed like a small makeshift reception, where a slightly balding man first looked up at us, peered intently through his thick-rimmed glasses and then proceeded to say just one line: 8220;600 baht, no touching, no spitting, no kissing and no fing8221;. That was followed by the bouncers flexing their muscles. Message clear. That8217;s professionalism for you.

We entered the dingy club, only to be greeted by thick streams of smoke and the glare of garish lights. Red, yellow, blue, green, I don8217;t remember seeing more colours anywhere else. As the dark silhouettes became clearer, judging by the crowd, it was pretty clear it was a busy night. Everyone was drinking, and the audience was more local than foreign. They were all sitting around a small elevated 8216;stage8217;, which had four poles on the sides and fluorescent lights everywhere. Above everything else, the music was deafening.

But what really grabbed our attention was the sight of a young Thai girl on stage, already well into her job of exciting the patrons. She must have been wearing a G-string earlier, but now all she had was a string in her hand and no G. She swished and she swayed, then she wiggled some more, while the audience looked and looked. A dead audience, some might say, but I suppose if you8217;d been there as long as they had, it8217;s probably like watching a saas-bahu show. Naked.

Around this time I cast a wary eye over the club. There were definitely more locals, but apart from the handful of white tourists, there were, surprise, surprise, quite a few middle-aged Indian men. So they do this all over the world, was my first thought. Smug with my observation I sipped my drink, when one of the Indian men turned to address someone. A woman. Worse, a wife. Even worse, HIS own wife. I rechecked the specs of the room and then it dawned on me that the entire room was not filled with middle-aged men, but with married, middle-aged Indian couples.

Married men and women who must have put the kids to sleep and then trooped down to this strip joint for a nightcap. Or more. As the young girl8217;s act started reaching its end, a naked man suddenly appeared and wrapped his arms around the girl. Soon, the act was turning into a live porn film, with the couple trying to muster as much passion as they could.

Realising that the act was losing steam, the manager quickly sent out a short-haired girl, who was brimming with enthusiasm. The lights dimmed even further and the fluorescent lights came on in full blast. The music changed to Tata Young8217;s Dhoom Dhoom, which really got the crowd going. At some point during her time in the spotlight, the naked stripper began pulling out a glowing strip of orange paper from, ahem, inside herself.

But it didn8217;t end there. She pulled more and more paper out of her8212;orange followed green, green followed blue, and so on and so forth. After 10 minutes, the girl wrapped the string around the poles and used them as a part of her act. With one end of the string still inside her, she created a ring of fluorescent paper around herself, using the poles, and proceeded to do what I can only describe as a sensational ballet that had most of the men on the edge of their seats.

After her tease, another girl, more fervent than her predecessor, came on. Her definitive act of distinction was the use of blades. You can figure out the where and how yourself.

As each act progressed, I found myself concentrating less on the 8216;8216;performances8217;8217; and more on the Indian audience. Most of them sat like statues, frozen in expression, as they stared blankly at each act. One woman bent her head, another looked away whenever a performer was too close for comfort. Another man kept trying to get his wife to watch, while she kept refusing, choosing to nurse her drink instead.

A thousand thoughts entered my head, as I kept wondering what they might be thinking. Maybe they didn8217;t know how to react to the stripper who amazed everyone by handling a furiously blazing torch extremely delicately around her partner8217;s naked body. Maybe they just couldn8217;t understand why another girl would master her muscles to shoot darts at flying balloons.

Some of them were even looking in our direction, probably wondering what two young men and a lady were doing in a strip bar. We probably looked like we8217;d run away from our parents, out for a night of debauchery.

Our night was beginning to turn creepy. After almost an hour, we were bored. After all, there8217;s only so much nudity a person can take. Squeezing out of the crowded room, we managed to cross several of our countrymen, who shoved and pushed like it was a local train compartment. Leaving rather hurriedly, we were glad to find our trusty tuk-tuk driver still waiting for us. He rode us back with a huge grin on his face, as he kept asking whether we liked the sex show. None of us had the heart to tell him the ironical truth. That we had been driven out of the strip bar by our uncles and aunts.