WHICH WAY TO GO?

One of Manit's favourite photographs in this book shows a tuktuk driver staring at an elephant as it ambles past him on the street. Manit has named this photograph 'Which Way to Go?'
He says: "The elephant is forced into the city because the forests, its natural habitat, have been destroyed.
(Elephant owners bring their animals into Bangkok for people to pass under their bellies for luck, in exchange for money.)
A similar fate forces the man to leave his rice field and migrate here to drive a taxi for a living.
"I feel a personal connection with them both, although I am a city person by birth, because the same dehumanising forces are steamrolling over my society and way of life.
I also have no alternative but to succumb to the onslaught."
At times his vision is darkly humourous, as Bangkok is, seen with the horror-struck eyes of a child.
The marauding army of cars that march inexorably out from the dark night, demonic eyes beaming at us.
The Ronald MacDonald rubber dolly grinning obscenely, vacuous yet with evil intent. The plaster dinosaur with her prim handbags.
They make us feel hysterical.
But ah, to be hysterical. To feel alive. Economically, socially, spiritually, Thailand is going through her worst crisis in living memory, and Bangkok is her hysterical heart, giggling insanely as the world collapses.

Ing K
Bangkok, June 1999.