By Graham Gaston

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This is the romanticised and semi-factual story of Nitipoom Navaratna, who is the International Columnist for the Thai Rath Newspaper and Gold Logie award winner for his presentation and production of the documentary series : Open the Lens to View World, World Wide Watch, The World Beyond : Travelling for Building Our Nation

Graham Gaston has interpreted and romanticised the first twenty years of Nitipooms life and included his observations, interpretations and perceptions that he has gleaned from knowing Nitipoom for more than 28 years.

It is the romanticised story of Nitipooms life as a poor country boy growing up in Trat Province who succeeded against the odds.

Nitipoom reached for a dream and succeeded only to have this dream taken away from him.

He then at the age of twenty had to virtually start his life over again.

So this story as narrated presents a semi-factual account, tinged with the romanticism, of Nitipooms life up to the age of twenty.

Nitipoom was brought home from Australia at this time to face serious charges brought against him by the Thai Government. So it is a story of hardships encountered and defeated, and highlights his determination to succeed against all odds.

It demonstrates his ability to survive and use the environment to enhance his lifestyle.

The message from the book is that anyone in Thailand with a will to win and a will to succeed can improve their lifestyle.

Democratic Thailand still offers all people this opportunity.

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A Teaching Manual

The teaching manual at the end of the story offers practicing teachers advice on how to use this book, and other publications, to present the English language in a meaningful way for all Thai students at any senior year level.

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The story begins….

It is the 22nd of September 2000, and Nitipoom is driving his car from his home in the suburb of Bangkok back to Chantaburi จันทบุรี; the province where he spent sixteen of his first twenty years of life on this earth.

He had been invited to give a speech to the people and students of Chantaburi Local University, a speech outlining his thoughts on the essential qualities needed by a parliamentarian to represent the Chantaburi Province and also some pointers for voters to look for in assessing their choice.

Some thousands of people on campus would hear the speech and there would be television coverage and a region-wide radio broadcast.

As he travelled along this long straight road to Chantaburi, an air of melancholy pervaded the car and many thoughts raced around his brain about his life and he starts to question his life style.

What is he doing?

Where has he been?

Where is he going in life?

Where would he be in the future?

Then he starts to think of his earliest formative years.

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Nitipoom has come from an extremely poor background, a small, frightened, often intimidated boy who crashed at aged twenty and saw his future disappearing before his very eyes.

Today he is the International Columnist for the extremely successful Thai Rath Newspaper หนังสือพิมพ์ไทยรัฐ ,television documentary producer/commentator and a person whose opinions are greatly sought after and respected both locally and internationally and a Member of the Thai National Legislative Assembly.

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He was born in Baan Dong-klang บ้านดงกลาง or Dong-klang Village, Khoa-saming District อำเภอเขาสมิง, Trat Province จังหวัดตราด near the Thai/Cambodian border.

The word Dong-klang means middle of the deepest forest; a sacred area of the forest for many wild animals and rare plants.

Trat Province borders Cambodia and is Thailands wettest province averaging 180 wet days and 6,000 mm rainfall annually.

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His mothers name was Chean Klin-you เชื้อน กลิ่นอยู่ and his fathers name was Meing You-prom มิ่ง อยู่พร้อม.

His mother was 19 years old and his father was 29 years old when Nitipoom was born.

His mother and father had both been educated up to grade 4, which was the norm at the time, and both left their school to help on their parents small farms.

At the age of 20, his father served his country in the armed services, as was expected of every 20-year old.

This service in the Thai navy extended his fathers thirst for education and reading.

When he finished his compulsory military service he returned to Chantaburi but the land he dreamed of farming was too expensive for his meagre finances.

He had heard of the forestland that was available for selection in Baan Dong-klang.

He left for this area, selected a forest area to clear.

With his axe he carved his own piece of farmland close to his wifes family farm.

Her family had the same ambition to farm here.

Nitipooms mother and father met, fell in love, and soon were married and children followed.

His mother later told him how he was named, as he was originally called Tissanu ทิษณุ, a name that his mother selected from a novel that she had read.

The sub-district officer had never heard of this name and just recorded his surname.

A month after his birth the sub-district chief went to the main district officers house to register his name and birth date.

He had his surname written down but no Christian name so he simply plucked a name out of the air Boonchuay บุญช่วย and told his mother that was Nitipooms name from now on as he had registered it.

So, for the next seventeen years this was his Christian name.

He changed his name in year twelve to that of Nitipoom because he liked the sound of it and because it was modern and was a very unusual name at that time.

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The difference in ages of some ten years between his mother and father was a problem for his father.

Couples with such a wide difference in age traditionally and culturally did not marry and this, combined with the fact that his mother was considered very beautiful, caused my father great jealousy.

Little things in the household became major events and his dad angrily and physically took his frustration out on his mother and Nitipoom.

Because Nitipoom was so small he bore the brunt of his fathers anger.

His mother tried to protect him but was often unsuccessful.

As a one, two and three year old small, frightened boy, Nitipoom turned to the delights in the sounds around him from outside the house.

Right now he often thinks of his house, which is still standing today, an extremely small house, high up from the ground built to protect them from the wild tigers that roamed his forest and occasionally snatched an unwary person from the village for a meal.

Attacks from wild grunting pigs and bites from the silently ever-ready poisonous cobra snakes were added dangers.

Twice a cobra snake had hid in waiting around a very small waterfall near his home and had bitten his father.

His mum and neighbours saved his fathers life on both occasions, treating him with a substance from the root of a tree that grew near their house.

There were no hospitals or doctors so you had to rely on local skill and knowledge for all medical help.

Their knowledge, combined with his fathers fitness, saved his life.

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As he continued driving he remembered myself as a poor, frightened boy who when alone in the house on some nights Nitipoom would turn to the solitude of his environment.

He would lie alone on the floor on some nights with his eyes wide open staring into the darkness.

His ears were straining to catch the slightest sound of movement and his nostrils were twitching, searching for any smell from the environment around him.

The hillside and the trees surrounded his house closing in on it like a blanket every night.

Visibility was reduced to meters.

He would listen intently to the squealing, cajoling, grunting, screeching and snarling of the forest animals underneath and around his house.

For more than half the year the rain would fall steadily, then torrentially, beating, plunking, thudding onto his roof and the many banana and durian trees in close proximity.

As we spoke Nitipoom said he could still hear the rain falling on his thatched roof and then cascading to the ground to form many puddles on the uneven forest floor for him to play in the next day.

There was always this wonderful pungent, acrid smell of dampness just hanging in the air.

On some nights there was the lightning often appearing to pierce the gaps in our walls as it criss-crossed the sky, fleetingly turning his lonely night into to day.

The lightning was often followed by the echoing, rolling thunder that clapped its way across the blackened sky with the sound disappearing into the distant night.

All this was sweet music to his ears on these nights that allowed him to shut out the hurt and anger his father had vented upon him.

This happened when his fathers feelings seemed too much for him to bear alone.

Despite all this, Nitipoom knew that his Dad really loved them both.

Both parents worked so hard to make a success of their dream but nature and the elements were to deny them of that opportunity in Baan Dong-klang.

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He was told that his mum would load up one basket of fruits once a week with bananas, durian and natural forest fruits and place it one end of a long pole, then place him in a basket at the other end.

When balanced, she would stoop down and raise the many kilograms to her shoulder and shuffle off down the many elephant tracks that those animal bulldozers had created in their travels between our village and the market that was some 10 kilometres away.

When she finally arrived, sometimes exhausted, at the market she would display her produce and sell all she could and barter the rest.

She would ensure that she had rice and other necessities and, with any money over, would sometimes purchase a newspaper or magazine, or the occasional novel.

His Mum and Dad were only two people in the village that could read at this time.

His mother would load her new purchasers, and what she had not sold, sometimes the load only fractionally lighter than the one she had first brought to market.

Shed pick him up and the load again, and head back along the long 10 kilometre track to their home.

So you can guess that Nitipoom was very close to his mum for many reasons and this is true of most Thais to whom their mum is their queen.

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His mother told him when he was a baby she would always keep him with her while she was working outside in their orchard.

Often placing him at the foot of a large banana tree, because its huge, leafy foliage held back the bright sunshine from his baby eyes and the leafy foliage also blocked the rain that often fell while she was working.

His mother was also wary of the wild animals that hid in the trees camouflaged by its foliage.

These animals might find that Nitipoom would provide them with a good breakfast.

So his mum was always careful and extremely watchful.

Today Nitipoom has this mystical affiliation with the banana tree.

As a young police officer he always planted, or had access to, a banana tree.

In his home in Bangkok he has a banana trees growing in the house garden.

Why a banana tree?

It is strange and difficult for him to convey in words what actually happens to him when he is near a banana tree and reach out and touch its giant foliage.

It is as if some magical spell is caste over him.

The tension of the day, or the sometimes stresses associated with so many demands on ones time, is immediately gone from his mind and body.

The leaves themselves seem to float him back to his earliest childhood where his mother gave him to the banana tree for its protection and comfort.

Now everyone knows why he loves this tree so much.

He suggests to every Thai to grow a banana tree in your garden and reach out and feel the magic of this tree.

Perhaps you too can experience the tranquility and piece of mind that he experiences in its presence.

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In these early years there was a ritual that involved the fruit of the banana tree.

When a villager died everyone went out into the nearby forest to collect dead branches and sticks and bring them back into a cleared area in the center of the village, stacking them into a funeral pyre.

When the wood was piled high enough in the clearing they would bring the dead body out and lay it in a prone position in the center of this bonfire.

Before the fire was lit we would place a small coin in the dead persons mouth and tie their hands together.

When this was completed they would then get a few coconuts and break them open, bathing the dead persons face with the milk from these coconuts.

They did this so that when the dead person entered the next world they would be more handsome or more beautiful than they were in this life.

The coconuts would them be thrown into the open and the kids, would scramble and fight to get them.

The villagers would then take bananas, cut them into two pieces, and then press coins into the soft yellow banana flesh.

The older villagers threw the bananas into an open area and again they would scramble for the bananas and the coins.

Nitipoom remembered one time catching a banana with the one baht in it and he paraded around the village bragging to anyone who would listen that he had the one baht prize.

He was so proud!

Finally the fire was lit and the dead body gradually cooked but to the children there was one really terrifying aspect to this burning.

As the body heated it suddenly seemed, to the kids, to come alive as it moved in such a ghostly fashion from the prone position into a sitting position.

Nitipoom used to run screaming into the nearby bush or hide behind his mum.

To this day he had never asked why the body moved.

He suspects, that when the flesh and the stomach muscles cooked they contracted and propelled the body into this seated position.

It was not until he was half way through secondary school that he ceased to believe in ghosts.

When the fire had consumed the whole body and only the embers and charred bones remained they collected these bones, crushed them and placed them in a number of bowls.

One bowl would be placed in a relatives home, one in the temple and the third bowl in the bush.

His parents still believed in ghosts and his father was a magic man who believed in black magic.

He had earlier been a monk and his grandfather had owned a movie theatre โรงหนังตะลุง that his Dad performed his magic tricks in.

This theatre was unlike todays movie theatre as his Dad made and showed shadow stories made from buffalo skins.

His Dad put on these show in the half light and said a few magic words to set the scene for the story.

His father believed in mantra so he would murmur the magic words and the audience would use their imagination as his Dad moved the skin shapes across the screen and create magical shadows.

He was very successful and people believed in his powers at this time.

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One thing that frightened Nitipoom during these early years was the balloon.

He loved to watch them as all the children threw them around.

They floated as if by magic so gently and effortlessly to the ground but, when one was accidentally or intentionally punctured, the sound of the banging terrified him.

As he only knew the sounds around him he did not understand this new sound.

It was all so new and so different for him as a young boy.

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Prior to his family settling in Baan Dong-klang there had been many wild fires that had destroyed this area.

The fires came again.

When a wild fire came through his village and they were left with nothing his father asked his mother if she would come back to his home in Chantaburi and start their life again.

These fires even started during the rainy season.

The wet ground and damp foliage did not stop the fires from starting and burning out large areas.

His Mum agreed to leave their farm, so when he was four years of age, they all left what was supposed to be their family dream but, in fact, had become a nightmare financially for them.

After packing all their possessions and much traveling they arrived at a fishing village near the Gulf of Thailand with virtually no money or possessions and started their life again.

What a change from his previous environment!

Here the land around this coastal village was so flat but still very beautiful, surrounded by mangrove and swamp forests.

The mangroves love the mudflats and are easily identifiable by the masses of roots that are exposed and support each tree.

There were many small businesses and farms in this village.

Their village was approximately 315 km from Bangkok and the roads were not sealed at the time.

After each rain these unmade roads became extremely muddy so virtually no cars traveled near their village.

When a car did arrive, it usually became bogged.

This news would spread like wildfire throughout the area.

People would come from everywhere just to see this bogged animal, the car.

What made this animal move was the question Nitipoom asked himself.

He would stand frighteningly listening to its moaning and squealing as it tried to escape the bog?

Its engine roared and tires thrashed the ground as the villagers helped to release it.