An old traditional Indian
grannie, perhaps late sixties, stopping at the table to point at the water jug,
the cup beside it.
Most certainly dear lady. Of course, be my guest.
Not a customer of Blue Diamond, she had no right really. Just then the boss's wife happened to be away from the register. A bona fide paying customer, albeit mainly confining himself to rasam soup, papadom and masala tea—under four Sing' dollars in total—hardly forming a substantial guarantor. Even so. (The boss's wife moreover refuses to charge for a cup of rasam soup. Soups in little cups or bowls are similarly given gratis in Geylang too when a chap, foreign worker usually, buys a plate of rice, meat and veg.)
Carefully a full measure poured by the woman from the jug that Prakasam has delivered to table as a special courtesy for a fellow author. (Prakasam—Bright, Effulgent in Tamil—is a poet, an example of his work presented to the white author who toils in the lesser form; a poem of unrequited love, appeal to the beloved to reconsider; presented in the original Tamil where the curlicue forms are as much a delight as the English sense delivered in the translated version from someone's effort in the back-kitchen. Prakasam has been in Singapore only eighteen months, working wholly in Little India.) Thought had been of an imminent, certain spillage. As usual Prakasam has not brought a half measure, not to a fellow author. Lifting the jug one-handed required care and concentration. A better look at the woman suggested a possible beggar, shaky hands, a fraction unkempt. Perhaps a cardboard and aluminum collector, a Tamil karung guni. Madame would be annoyed if she saw….
But no. In fact not a drop. Dangerously full cup poured into the bargain. From the full cup the gleaming liquid successfully cascading down the gullet thirstily without pause, 220 - 230ml, head back-tilted, fixed purpose, swollen bare midriff exposed above table level.
In the common fashion too—here is the real heart of the tale—in the usual way, the cup here not touching the lower lip of this woman in any shape or form.
Parching thirst in a dry throat in the middle of the day wholly slaked without the merest contact between lips and cup.
One sees the same island-wide and up on the peninsular too; down in the Indonesian archipelago, whether drinking from cups or bottles, whether glass, plastic, paper, or as here at the Blue Diamond and the other Indian eateries on Bufallo Street, off Serangoon Road, shiny stainless steel (jugs and cups both).
Always and on every side, whether Indian, Malay or Chinese, the stream of liquid free-falling from a steady, cocked position where the receptacle is held, falling into the mouth and from there the gullet and down, down into swelling intestines and onward. How many times has one witnessed?
Only twenty-eight months later remarked, here in this place because of the particular circumstances.
Nothing of the sort down in the great Southern land of course; nothing elsewhere in the wider travels. Fears of cholera or dengue from epidemics of years past the thought had been. Communities wiped from the face of the earth. Pestilence. As a child the woman had heard it at Ah-ma's knee, Patti in Tamil; conveying the same to her own grandchildren in her turn.
Evident all over the island. Tales to chill in the tropics.
Most certainly dear lady. Of course, be my guest.
Not a customer of Blue Diamond, she had no right really. Just then the boss's wife happened to be away from the register. A bona fide paying customer, albeit mainly confining himself to rasam soup, papadom and masala tea—under four Sing' dollars in total—hardly forming a substantial guarantor. Even so. (The boss's wife moreover refuses to charge for a cup of rasam soup. Soups in little cups or bowls are similarly given gratis in Geylang too when a chap, foreign worker usually, buys a plate of rice, meat and veg.)
Carefully a full measure poured by the woman from the jug that Prakasam has delivered to table as a special courtesy for a fellow author. (Prakasam—Bright, Effulgent in Tamil—is a poet, an example of his work presented to the white author who toils in the lesser form; a poem of unrequited love, appeal to the beloved to reconsider; presented in the original Tamil where the curlicue forms are as much a delight as the English sense delivered in the translated version from someone's effort in the back-kitchen. Prakasam has been in Singapore only eighteen months, working wholly in Little India.) Thought had been of an imminent, certain spillage. As usual Prakasam has not brought a half measure, not to a fellow author. Lifting the jug one-handed required care and concentration. A better look at the woman suggested a possible beggar, shaky hands, a fraction unkempt. Perhaps a cardboard and aluminum collector, a Tamil karung guni. Madame would be annoyed if she saw….
But no. In fact not a drop. Dangerously full cup poured into the bargain. From the full cup the gleaming liquid successfully cascading down the gullet thirstily without pause, 220 - 230ml, head back-tilted, fixed purpose, swollen bare midriff exposed above table level.
In the common fashion too—here is the real heart of the tale—in the usual way, the cup here not touching the lower lip of this woman in any shape or form.
Parching thirst in a dry throat in the middle of the day wholly slaked without the merest contact between lips and cup.
One sees the same island-wide and up on the peninsular too; down in the Indonesian archipelago, whether drinking from cups or bottles, whether glass, plastic, paper, or as here at the Blue Diamond and the other Indian eateries on Bufallo Street, off Serangoon Road, shiny stainless steel (jugs and cups both).
Always and on every side, whether Indian, Malay or Chinese, the stream of liquid free-falling from a steady, cocked position where the receptacle is held, falling into the mouth and from there the gullet and down, down into swelling intestines and onward. How many times has one witnessed?
Only twenty-eight months later remarked, here in this place because of the particular circumstances.
Nothing of the sort down in the great Southern land of course; nothing elsewhere in the wider travels. Fears of cholera or dengue from epidemics of years past the thought had been. Communities wiped from the face of the earth. Pestilence. As a child the woman had heard it at Ah-ma's knee, Patti in Tamil; conveying the same to her own grandchildren in her turn.
Evident all over the island. Tales to chill in the tropics.
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