The Scarf

The echoes and remembrances, the buried past, emerging in this unlikely, foreign yet familiar place. Despite the heat and language barrier; despite the lack of connection and the high costs. The woman going by just now, possibly Indon, perhaps Malay. From a remove often impossible to discern the distinction. The people share essentially the same language, religion and culture; there have been countless waves of migration between the islands, creating a thorough cross-fertilization (important small, local differences everywhere, to be sure). The woman prompts the unexpected question whether mother ever wore her shoulder length hair tied back like that by a single, simple band. Pins were the usual resort back then; not here. The colouration is about right, both of hair and skin almost. Like her, often these women retain their hair colour well into middle age. Stature and spare frame. Nimbleness. Self-possession. A bicycle might have been locked up around the corner. There was a bag slung over her shoulder from the pasar here at the wonderful market at Geylang Serai (likely the cheapest on the island; Babi would have found it out quick-smart!). Unexpectedly too, we even had the same word for trade or market: from hundreds of years ago the Arabic influence splitting in every-which direction.
         After father died early Babi donned her widows weeds and maintained them longer than the regulatory twelvemonth. (A dreadful fright at the school-ground bringing a forgotten lunch. Panicked shame.) Prior to that and after too, like her mother and all her kin, she had worn a headscarf. These firm matrons here at the eatery tables, their inner strength and large capacity, bring Bab back daily; a comfort and a pleasure. The colours are otherwise, the jewelry and make-up — masking nothing of the correspondence. Bicycles here certainly outnumber cars for the transport of the older generation. The general visibility of the elderly here brings back the past too. (Weather and population density make an enormous difference.) Stout, upright, proud matrons, always ready with a warm smile even for a strange foreigner. The deep well of humour with which they are resourced reminds one of the more tinny and thin laughter on our streets. How dear Bab rollicked and heaved in her mirth, having to cover her face for shame like so many here. Well into her nineties. (The men here too perhaps more so than our own, more open.) With the prohibition of alcohol energies and further possibilities are released, tremendous advantages and safeguards.
         A twelvemonth on Thursday.