Sunday, April 19

The New Baghdad, land of 1001 vice varieties

When i read this, I felt quite good in a way. Human nature is again poking its head

Vice is making a comeback in this city once famous for 1,001 varieties of it. A liquor store in the Karada neighbourhood of Baghdad. The stores were tolerated by Saddam Hussein but shut by militiamen after his ouster in 2003. Gone, for the most part, are night-time curfews, religious extremists and prowling kidnappers. So, inevitably, some people are turning to illicit pleasures, or at least slightly dubious ones.

Nightclubs have reopened, and in many of them, prostitutes troll for clients. Liquor stores, once shut down by fundamentalist militiamen, have proliferated; on one block of busy Saddoun Street, there are more than 10 of them.

The best remark was this:

“If I had my way, I’d destroy all the mosques and spread the whores around a little more,” the detective said. “At least they’re not sectarian.”

Welcome to religion, this is what happens when the religious nuts run amok. I am happier to take the seamier side of human life rather than the self righteous, murderous, horrible religious nuts. Of any persuasion.

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2 comments:

larry schwartz said...

That is MY kind of detective. And that line is MY kind of line in a crime novel. We honorable company of librarians NEVER get to have lines like that, fiction OR non-fiction.

Ranjan said...

Honestly, the lines looked like its coming from some kind of Booker winning novel, terrific.