Jan Dara (BD)

But Khun Luang’s hatred for the boy had nothing to do with his licentious behaviour around the Visanan compound in which they both lived. Jan Dara’s earliest memory was of seeing Khun Luang have sex with a maid, right in front of a portrait of his late wife. In fact Khun Luang was incapable of ever reining in his sexual desires, and didn’t care who in the household knew about it.  When Dara’s old friend Waad arrived from Pijit to be a surrogate mother to the boy, Khun Luang lost no time in adding her to his list of conquests.  And when Aunt Waad bore Khun Luang a daughter, Kaew, the doting patriarch taught the child to hate Jan Dara as much as he did himself.  In other words, Jan Dara grew up surrounded by immoral and licentious acts and perhaps blurred them in his mind with both the image of his beloved mother and the cruelty of his hated father.