Around the corner

I'd walked this path, in inner-city suburbia Bangkok, more times than I can recall. It was my favourite path to walk when I visit my grandparents - my final destination guaranteed a smorgasbord of mouth-watering food.

I take a left past the motorcycle-come-taxi men lounging on the street curb. Then I shuffle down the street in my flip-flops, mindful not to trip over the mini mountain ranges in the crack concrete pavers, or get caught in valleys of dust and leaf litter. I'd usually get distracted by the pet store, it was a menagerie of squawking birds in small, fine, bamboo cages and fish locked in makeshift plastic bag fish tanks, dangling like baubles along the shop front ceiling, with every spot of colour on their tiny bodies catching in the light, and my eye. I'd say hi to Kun Moo, in his mesh T-shirt (his quiet rebellion to Thai authorities demanding he wear a top while cooking his fixed menu of pad thai, pad se ew and lat na). After I turned around the corner, I'd be facing a street filled with hawkers, hoping that I'd caught the the right shift so I could fulfil whatever craving I had at that exact moment.

What was different this particular evening, was on one side of the bustling side walk, it seemed as if the famous Bangkok traffic (jam-packed and unmoving) had translated to the pedestrian traffic. On closer inspection, I realised that on this small street in the middle of Bangkok - far away from the hoards of tourists, many streets across from any major shopping complex - was a baby elephant. For a moment, I forgot that I was in a big city - concrete and fast-paced, unfeeling sometime - and for a moment felt a part of a community. A local, friendly, community, steeped in age-old habits that came together and formed an ad hoc eating area next to this baby elephant and his owner. I was speechless. It truly was amazing what one unexpected change in habit can do to a local community, and how engrained it now remains, in my memory.