Dolly Koghar will never say never – and neither should you!

Let’s say you’ve had enough of your best friend’s dramae-bazzi – you blurt out, “I’ll never speak to you again,” but suddenly realise you’ve shared too much private info, so best to scramble back into her ‘friends’ list. But if in your irritation you’d hollered, “I’ll never, ever, ever, talk to you again,” then girdle yourself for spilled beans and bad blood. The point is, whether intentional or unintentional, the words “never ever” literally translated themselves and successfully severed your ties.

However, when it comes to life, the “never ever” you’d shouted from rooftops, whether it was something you’d “never ever” do, or a person to whom you’d “never ever” marry, or a country you’ll “never ever” relocate to, not even as a tourist; the more emphatically and vehemently you said it, the higher the chances that the exact opposite will manifest. But then again, life is a tragic comedy; a broth of the unexpected, undreamt and unpredictable twists and turns; never ever boring. Maggie Smith’s matriarch in Downton Abbey: A New Era (2022) wisely summarised it: “That’s life, isn’t it? Getting past the unexpected and perhaps learning from it.” However, life’s lessons went wasted on me – I didn’t understand that life just happens, and it couldn’t care less whether I trudged along, willingly or begrudgingly.

I didn’t get to marry my dreamboat ‘cause I hadn’t even started dreaming yet; neither do I remember wishing to live, almost forever, in a hitherto-unfamiliar, non-English speaking country like Japan. More and above, even in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t have envisioned my genes being passed down to four other lives. The unplanned isn’t always all bad after all. But little did I know that a huge storm was brewing around the corner.Now, I wouldn’t know if in some past life, I’d yelled or whispered, “kabhi, kabhi, kabheeeee naheeee,” (never ever), to which I must have fervidly shaken my head the side-to-side, North Indian way, and definitely not the ambiguous, down-South way of sliding the neck side-to-side. What I’m saying is that relocating permanently to India wouldn’t be on any Thai-Indian’s must-do list, and especially not in my case, having already been accustomed to precise, perfect Japan. Even though today, Bharat stands centre on the world’s stage, boasting top-notch facilities, malls, eateries and pubs far surpassing our good ‘ol Krung Thep; very rare brave souls would enthusiastically leave behind our familiar hometown’s traffic and pollution, to relocate to an even more chaotic Indian town. Though just a stone’s throw away, India is another planet, one that’s been portrayed for too long as dirty and dusty; a land of snake charmers; a picture of poverty and beggars; rife with thugs and cheats. But just for argument’s sake, which country on this planet doesn’t have its fair share of all of the above? So why is it that during my childhood, this joke was floated around in excess: that if you left your hand out of the window, be it of your car, a train, or even an airplane, your watch or kara would disappear before you even knew it? And this, despite the fact that it was about the same time that handbag-snatching and daylight robberies were the order of the day in our City of  Angels!

It’s uncanny that when the move to Bangalore began, I didn’t bring down the roof and protest, “Bah; are you being funny? I’ll never ever go to that stinky country, with beggars and dirt everywhere!” But Fate didn’t ask my opinion, and almost overnight, as if life was on auto-mode, I landed up in India. To clear any confusion, I didn’t say “never ever” to India simply because I never dreamt I’d go there, ever. But life is amusing and if given a choice, I’d now like to spend my sunset years in Bangalore. Also, the honest truth is that, although I’ll always be a true-blue Thai- Indian, choking up at the national anthem, I did say “never ever” to resettling back in Krung Thep. But life has the last say and the last laugh, and here I am in good ‘ol Sukhumvit!