JB Again

Numerous stalls of secondhand shoes, smiles and greetings from inquisitive passersby, working girls almost without exception Indian, and again a disproportionate number of cripples and amputees—all vivid and strong impressions over the three days.

The shoes were carefully cleaned (sometimes a double take needed to confirm); highly polished in the case of leather, which revealed the creasing. Where new were mixed the latter wrapped in plastic to highlight pristine condition.

Lunchtimes and rush-hour the Chinese appeared from the office tower; otherwise thin on the ground.

The first, most pitiable beggar did indeed retain one limb intact. The other leg was severed somewhere in the region of the knee. Even with both legs whole the man would have been short, around 160cm. With crooked good leg it was difficult to judge.

On a low stool he perched. At the base of the foreshortened leg he wore some kind of home-made cover the size and colour of a horse hoof. It had a look of leather, two or three inscribed concentric lines of decoration.

The short sleeved shirt was invariably clean and ironed; pocket always crammed (the blue of the single ringgit). Going by on one occasion at the end of the working day, the stall-holder closing, a glimpse behind a post suggested the man was using his teeth on his pocket. As in Singapore, common motor-cycle accident victims—first generation riders.

The young Kerala MBA helping out at his paternal uncle's eatery had the teh tarik coming as required now: kurang manis, less sweet. Handsome, dapper lad sticking to shirt collars. Newcomer to JB, with no Malay and good English, which served little purpose among uncle’s clientele. The girls in JB the MBA finds not to his taste. Make-up, revealing clothes, lacking the naturalness of Kerala lasses.

At one point the Kerala MBA had gone off and returned a little while later with a chap who looked like a mufti or ustad; or else perhaps the imam from the mosque. The mosque stood spitting distance here from a Hindu temple; another Sikh temple shared the precinct. On the higher rise a kilometre or two off a handsome church raised its cupola topped by a cross. There had been a number of Thai monks in their saffron robes, one mendicant among them. Like the Chinese, Buddhist temples were unapparent in JB.

The mufti was all in white, cap included. Around his shoulders a checked red and white shawl. The walk he displayed was that of an eminence, though one in a hurry. When he took a seat at one of the tables it was soon clear this was no ordinary guest. A woman in expensive coloured satin appeared and took the chair opposite. It could only be the mufti's wife, or relative attached to the eatery possibly. The mufti was early or mid-forties, learning making him seem older.

Soon the MBA was bent beside the man. The lad was tall, the tables made to measure for the average here. Low the Kerala MBA bent. A carton of Ribena the mufti had chosen for refreshment. (The absence of alcohol anywhere around another contrast to Singapore.)

Bent double the Kerala boy.

The plastic straw often sticks in the wrapping. Mufti awaiting his refreshment. The first few jabs missed. Eventually the mufti could drink.

The Kerala boy next proceeded to fetch the food. Grace, respect, deference that had disappeared from our laissez faire democracies a number of generations ago.

Another matter too; it takes some while to see things aright. In more than sixty hours now between January 18 - 21, one single photographing has been witnessed in Johor Bahru, the southern-most point of the Eurasian continent. After the mania in Singapore worth remarking.

Peep-hole glimpses only off the main roads, where little shanty-type living can be seen in overgrown greenery, make-shift walls and leaning corrugated iron, mothers nursing young children and boy-sized men sprawled on tarpaulins.

....The mufti in disguise turned out a friend, not even a relative, from Kerala.