SEOUL

SEOUL SEARCHING 

Preeti Verma Lal was swayed by the swishy technological world of Seoul even as shopping and culture beckoned....

OVERWEIGHT. 

The slip of a doctor hiding behind the sleek monitor pronounced as much. In Seouls incredibly high-tech Digital Media Centre (DMC), I had swiped my card and was standing on a blue footprint while invisible sensors scanned every sinew of my body. I waited with bated breath for the verdict... 
A heart of gold A blemished soul Guilt piled up Needs a holiday I was not too sure what the sensors were prying . Until that green message in 24-point Boudoni tagged me Overweight . Huh! I went woozy. Overweight Not an ounce, I thumped. 
Then I looked at my heavy camera bag , those leather mules, a weighty tweed jacket Ah! So the tech-doc added them all to my body weight and slapped that Overweight verdict. At the DMC the doc had my facts addled, but, trust me, in that sleek structure with a glass faade you can never fault technology. 
With the swoosh of your hand or the touch of a button you can paint like Van Gogh, race cars like Schumacher or stare on a humungous gleaming screen and have a sneak peek at life in 2050. On the glass floor of the DMC, all my tech-gyan seemed so archaic that I thought I was as technically challenged as a hobbit. 
Thats South Korea. Absolutely cuttingedge . Racing to catch up with all that is high-tech and high-fashion . Sloughing off memories of Japanese occupation in a hurry. Living its history with humility. Preserving its past with persistence. Confident in its modern avatar. 
On the macadamized streets women seem to be walking straight out of fashion catalogues and the men look moussed and gelled to perfection. On the bullet train the wi-fi is so steady and speedy that you can download a movie in three minutes flat. It never conks off, not even when the train is hurtling at 350 kms. per hour, not merely on straight tracks but also in dark tunnels. 
At the 312-metre high Seoul Tower, the elevator whooshes up without a shiver and at railway stations trains screech in and out with such clockwork precision that I wondered whether their clocks ever got tardy even by a second. Seoul with its skyline cluttered with skyscrapers where even pigeonholes cost a fortune was taking me by surprise. 
Forgive my prejudice, but before my tryst with Seoul I had imagined a city hazy with the polluted yellow dust from China and cowering under the hatred of a menacing , nuclear-rich communist neighbour North Korea. Boy! If this is not cuttingedge , what is 
That Spring day in Seoul so much more that fell my way, things beyond technology , beyond the clichd images, yet so mesmerizing . At the Nanta theatre, music shunned its everyday dependence on stringed and percussion instruments and b o r r o w e d heavily from the kitchen shelf - pots, pans, woks, ladles , knives, spoons, fat cabbages, plump carrots, straggly noodles, stout dimsums to create an orchestra that could even have a Mozart applauding. 
Four performers, not one spoken word, no sequined dresses, a magic hat and, of course, all the music that the pots and pans mustered had the entire auditorium foot-tapping . Never before had I realised that an inane knife was so musically inclined , never before did an eggbeater fluff such dulcet notes. When the performers beat water on the drums to hit a crescendo and to create a dreamlike backdrop, I thought the roof would fall with all the clapping. 
Tapping continuously, my feet had gone wobbly but at Nanta the music was so breathtaking that I was ready to wobble forever if in Nanta the knives could make music forever with their sharp edges on a dreary chopping board. In the muted light, a monotonous kitchen had turned into a musical theatre. 
But I had more to do. You see, I could not go back from Seoul with an empty shopping bag. That would have been absolute sacrilege in a city where shopping is akin to pilgrimage you can have all your chic prayers answered in the underground labyrinth of the 30-acre ritzy Coex Mall in World Trade Centre or go streetsy in Namdaemun street market that traces its beginnings back to the Joseon dynasty, the peninsulas last dynasty. 
I looked at my slim wallet and opted for the street bazaar that wakes up only when the tired sun starts making way for the evening; I was told that in the maze of slim streets one can find everything at wholesale rates. But before I could get tempted by the stilettos tumbling out of sacks on tarps and printed tees with the price of a peanut, it was the aroma of sauted silkworm , fried squids and octopus jerkies that had me distracted. 
The whiff was heady and the crowd at the food stalls countless; the vegetarian in me baulked, I walked away to the roadside kiosk where rice and peanut crispies were freshly made and diced in a jiffy. Full to the gill and nutty with the crispies that I had devoured in one long breath, it was time to shop the tags looked so within reach that even with my slim wallet I knew could redo an entire wardrobe. 
I was going crazy picking, haggling and swiping my credit card when I noticed the bluish-green celadon pottery that is oh!so Korean. A makeover for the living room, too I mulled. The celadon would look perfect against my stark walls, I mused. 
Celadon would have had to wait, for that night was booked for a traditional Korean meal that invariably includes the kimchi, fermented cabbage without which no dinner table is called complete. The bulgogi (thin strips of marinated meat) simmered on charcoal fire and the shoju was getting everyone tipsy, but I dug my spoon into bibimbap, the traditional vegetarian dish with rice, vegetables, egg and chilli paste and washed it down with sujeonggwa, a heady perfusion of cinnamon and persimmon. 
Seoul was getting under my skin, the clock had not yet struck midnight and the neon lights were beckoning. The signages of night clubs looked alluring but I had elsewhere to go. I dipped my feet in the Han river , rolled over and pretended dead. By the rock the raptor twittered and faraway the torso of the Seoul Tower changed its colour from a gleaming silver to a bright fuchsia. 
Seoul had gotten under my skin fully. In that happy moment I forgave the techdoc who called me Overweight. The fuss was over. I had sold my soul to Seoul.