Buying a Round

The chap early morning raising the thumb and pinkie in greeting from his table by the pillar near the service bay. Usually the hand is given a little wobble, a kind of rock-my-boat, as the man shows here. Nice warm smile.... 
         Having only just arrived, he needed to be passed en route to the drinks counter. One didn't pass a pal without extending an offer of course. 
         What's yours, Bud?... Thumb guzzling at the mouth like Baby-at-the-bottle in the usual way. 
         No, no, no. I'm right.... A plastic cup of what looked like Iced lemon teh three-quarter drained on the table. Smiling.... Nah, thanks all the same. No need. 
         The Malays are like the Montenegrins in these matters: the first offer was always declined; a second gracefully extended was pleasing to receive; with the third the prospect had opened up. Oh well, perhaps the fellow is truly offering. RightOh then.
         Here of course a problem arose with the Deaf, suddenly as it were.
         The first attempt at communication on the table-top with the forefinger the virtual pencil was impossible to read.
         Hang on. Just a tick. Flat hand pressing downward on runaway time.
         Back with the newspaper, the Classifieds, extracting a pen from the case. There you go. Lemme know.
         Large block letters: MILO - I.
         The popular drink had many fans on the equator; certainly not confined to children.
         Ya, Milo. But what was this big "I"? This was no No. 1. But neither was it a capped I with the usual pediment.
         Orders here can be tricky, even when the particular item is clear: teh, kopi, milo all come in varieties of different kinds.
         I, I, I??? Vertical palm shaken now. Help me out here bud....
         Answer not long, not too too long in coming. A crooked arm with fist shaken before the tummy; some accompanying shoulder wriggle.
         Oh. Oh. Oh.... I got ya now! Shiver, shiver. I see.... (Panas was hot. Ice had never been learned. It was heating up to be sure after the nor’east monsoon.)

        NB. Unrelated, though certainly worth noting, a brief newspaper report buried in the Home supplement, p. B11 this morning. The lawyer Mr. Ravi, representing many of the Indian rioters from the troubling incident of December, had begun fighting the authorities here with the aid of the press in India. Tit-for-tat the man charges, after the campaign mounted by the Singaporeans using their own media here. A Tamil friend of Ravi's messaged after reading the same report, fearing for the well-being of the man. 
     " "There's an attempt by the state and state media to tarnish the image of these Indian workers I represent, and attack the innocence of all the (repatriated) workers.... What can be more appropriate than to counter these allegations and to set the record straight in the Indian media, where all my clients originate...’ "
         It might have been Mr. Ravi who was described in the papers a year ago during another prominent defense case as suffering from Bi-polar disorder.

Everitt Road

This is a man who wins the respect of Mr. Lim the greengrocer from Haig Road. 

Despite appearances, the chap himself does not have a stall at the market. Only looks that way. What the man does is hang with his friends at the entryway to that back section of the market. 

One friend runs a tropical fish outlet, another a flower-stall and the third making up the party there, eggs. Lunch is brought over from the food section across the way, a couple of tables improvised to accommodate the group. They sit behind the altar there in the middle of the thoroughfare easy and relaxed, sometimes with a couple beers.

Chap lives in pricey Joo Chiat, Peranakan territory, $2-3+ mil bungalows, in his case Everitt Road. (Mr. Lim is up in the block directly behind his stall, in a three-bed flat with his mother in the Master-bedroom.) 

Everitt's family once owned a shipping company. In their Everitt Road there used to live a renowned neighbourhood horror on bad terms with everyone. The Doctor Professor who was the head of that noisome household was the chief malefactor, his mother, wife and children all following suit. Right royal pains in the bottom, notorious throughout the South-East. This chap joining his pals three or four times a week at the Haig Road market gathering somehow found a way with that crowd in his street, lord knows how! The one and only who managed that. Those others were impossible. This chap however found a way. Worth saluting that on its own.

That was one indicator. A couple of weeks ago there was something else equally, if not more striking.

            This was Mr. Lim's first sighting more or less of Everitt Road man's son, a teenager, sixteen or seventeen, one particular afternoon. In the two-three weeks the impression only grew and developed in Mr. Lim's mind.

The dad at his usual table with his pals chatting; the usual, regular get-together. Not much attention given that corner initially that day by Mr. Lim. 

Mr. Lim himself does not have a place at those tables. His stall is at the back-end of the market; the gathering in the main corridor. The chaps can smoke away from the stalls in the corridor there. Mr. Lim is a smoker too, but for some reason he cannot join the group. An unknown reason. 

Mr. Lim is in the same age group, a trifle younger. For some reason lacking entry card.

This particular day a couple-three weeks ago, it took a while for Mr. Lim to notice the boy against the pillar in the narrow passage between the two back rows of the market—manufactured goods upper end; fruit, veg, meat & fish lower. 

Sixteen-seventeen year old boy, tall for his age. 

Beside Mr. Lim's stall at the edge of the passage opposite the pillar there are numerous chairs for the oldies down from the flats, who like to sit beneath the fans and chat. Much cooler there than up in the pigeon holes. 

At some point Mr. Lim realised the identity of the boy and quickly offered him a seat at one of his chairs; either there on his side of the passage, or the lad could take one over to the pillar if he wanted.

Thanks all the same, but no need. Thank you. (Briefest words and gestures in the usual form among these people.) 

The boy continued standing beside the pillar, hardly leaning. It must have been at least a half hour. Without iPhone in hand. Without plugs in ears. Around the corner and out of sight at the regular table, the father sitting, the Everrit Road man. 

The boy had not been called to join dad at table, evidently. The lad waited. 

No calling to dad; no sightline from that corner. No pestering of any kind, nor sign of impatience. Waiting quietly and patiently the lad. 

Mr. Lim stole glances; set wondering.

Mr. Lim did not reveal how the half hour ended. It did not matter. 

As the minutes passed Mr. Lim kept returning his gaze to the pillar. All same unchanged the whole half hour.

Mr. Lim's two children are younger girls. A little trouble with junior already. Previously, Mr. Lim had told of her pestering. Elder had been to the Gold Coast. Elder had been on a Star Cruise. When would she, Junior, get a turn?.. A bright child. Could do better at school. Her answer: But I'm passing everything aren't I?

Sharp, astute observer and judge Mr Lim the costermonger’s son, continuing his dad’s trade and caring for his mum.

Songbird (Of the Political Genus)

After lunch the Long March Wednesday this week with Gabriel. The cleaning lady had not switched her days; Gabriel was working Thursday. What had the Angel devised this time? Well, first of all a little turn around the temple precinct off Paya Lebar Road not far from the MRT and the Police Station. Mr. Lim the Haig Road greengrocer had mentioned these temples when delivering his tale of the Sword Brothers in the culmination of CNY. True enough, in the midst of industrial lots serviced by busy, dirty traffic sewers, one soon came onto brightly coloured columns and wavey roofing, an unusual large gravel space in the forecourt that bore no markers for parking. In addition, as reported by Mr. Lim too, in the centre of one of the many altars under the roofs of this network of temples stood a large gilded figure wielding a long, heavy and menacing blade over-head. None other than the Elder Sword Brother of Mr. Lim's great story of Olden day fidelity. There he stood raised above lesser figures either side, smooth gold sheen coated over the entire torso, eyes and all. Children who had been told the same tale through the New Year festivities must have been awe-struck when they first stood before this large embodiment at the temple.
         Tall cylinders with small numbered compartments corresponded to the columbariums where the ashes of the departed were kept, the angel Gabriel fluted in a whisper. Presumably one paid to have this catalogue on the shelf of a fine, ornate altar. One or two people were bent on the prayer stools throwing shells of some kind onto the tiled floor. On first hearing one assumed a pair of chopsticks had fallen. A heavy middle-aged chap had lowered himself before the altar and showed a solemn face that made an observer avert his gaze. A moment later the clatter of the coloured shells recaptured attention. Again Gabriel had the knowledge: appeals for lucky numbers for the lottery draw. After the temples circling around to the McPherson shop-row the Lottery shop queue there snaked out of the premises, across the length of the footpath and around the corner out of sight. It was possible the petitioners at the temple immediately walked around here.
         A massive temple complex that looked far in excess of requirements. Perfectly maintained, clean and newly painted, bright and gleaming. Could New Year festivities, funerals and circumcisions support such extensive religious establishments on this tiny island with its tropical hot-house housing market? Again, according to the divine these temples were commonly thronged with worshippers, devotees, believers, what you will. After work, weekends. A stretch that Gabriel, but have it your way. Certainly the Angel did know his terrain. A good friend of the angelic Guide had familial roots in this very quarter. Once upon a time there had been kampung long-houses throughout this area, these temples the central focus of the old community. A short generation and one half later everything was swamped by the new order, the great, famous, much lauded transformation from Third World to First. OKOKOK Gabby. OK. Hard to believe, but OK. (After two and one half plus years one was unavoidably adopting some of the terminology and refrains of the locals.)
         In one of the alcoves of the temple precinct the shelves were crowded with ceramic figurines that almost to a man—there were no female pieces—bowed their heads slightly and lowered their eyelids. One was struck by the uniformity. More than a dozen small, colourful, elaborately attired male figures clearly of some distinction sitting on a single shelf, all casting their eyes down ten feet before them. Five or six shelves rose up the walls on two sides, the same along each row. Eyelids prominent. This was not Greek or Renaissance Western man, not even in a place of worship. Here was both another time and region. Often on the roads and pathways in the Tropics these lowered, abstracted gazes were noticeable, and not only in the case of demure women. The shuttered, or half-shuttered, beguiling Asian eye-lid. One certainly was reminded of the street here beholding this side altar.
         Beyond McPherson we happened to chance upon a tubby Tamil foreman working on one of the constructions sites, a new underground MRT in progress, one of two or three passed that afternoon. Here the chaps were working at 15 or 20 metres below; at their next project it was to be sixty metres. And could the chap have said twenty kilometres in length? More importantly, how did the tubby Tamil Acland Street busker from the 90's pick two Australians with a single, solitary Hello offered and nothing more, in the very first instant? The shuffling, winged angel Gabriel could not help feeling a sudden moment of self-consciousness. The goofy bushie hat flapping in the wind despite the secure strap under the chin, hanging corks or no, a dead give-away.
         — But I bought it in Singapore! trilled the Divine, jumping the gun.
         An acute working man, nobody's fool the South Indian. One knew the type. Down in the great Southern continent the man would have been the union Shop Steward, ensuring the young apprentices were getting a fair go.
         On we marched, a pensive angel bringing up the rear. Wounded vanity even for a fairy sprite. Some quiet reigned for a space, a light breeze, the sun glowering. Someone suggested recently at the Mr. Teh Tarik table that the heavier tropical air filtered harmful dangerous rays on the equator, much more so than elsewhere on the globe. On this day the heaviness was more weighty than usual, the PM2.5 levels hitting 60 micrograms per cub. m., the newspaper would report on the day following, highest reading for the year.
         A second feature of the day's program was to be the purpose-built foreign worker dormitories on Bartley East Road. Something over-much Gabriel had heard of late of foreign worker woes, discrimination, dangerous conditions. There needed to be some leavening in this excessively grim portrait. It was not all darkest night on this front here, by no means. The Asian context always needing to be borne in mind.
         — Truly Gabriel?... Built specifically for the workers?....
         A hissing Yea when the divine produced the adamantine affirmative.
         We trooped along the narrow maintenance track of the busy three or four lane Freeway, Bartelby East, tortured by the traffic passing so close. At regular intervals we needed to step outside the rail of the safety barrier and onto the narrow verge, stomping upon the double orange lines, strictly single-file and conversation impossible. Being so long in the Tropics the guiding Angel was not familiar with Jeffrey Smart. Here we were in a kind of moving picture of those tableaus of the famous painter. To our right the burnt grass of the embankment gave way to scrub and bush where on weekends the foreign workers here would reportedly disport in drunken stupor. 
         The newspaper was still full of the riot of early December, the first civil disturbance in Singapore for forty or fifty years. Four hundred young men running wild, pelting police and service personnel, torching and up-turning police vehicles. In Singapore, where not long past dropping chewing-gum on the street landed a citizen behind bars. Alcohol. Uneducated drunken immigrant workers suddenly off the leash. (One of their compatriots was dying under a bus.) In the first seven or eight days of hearings of the Commission Of Inquiry the emphasis was on alcohol and the history of drunkenness in Little India where the disturbance took place; police action or lack thereof; inadequate weaponry in the arsenal. One young policeman who had charged a large group of the foreign workers with nothing more than a raised baton was commended for outstanding courage, exemplary courage, by the Commissioners. (More senior police had needed to point out the recklessness and danger of such conduct in a situation of this kind.) On the night of the riot the PM had high-lighted the role of alcohol. In the last couple of days of the Commission hearings some dissident voices were heard. The living conditions provided for these workers, treatment by the rogue Construction operators, racist discrimination and contempt—a range of voices enlarged the debate. This now was an opportune moment to inspect the better living quarters provided here for foreign workers. One could easily develop a jaundiced view. It was not all crowded shipping containers and flimsy ply-wood forest shacks housing the immigrant contract labour in First World good global citizen Singapore. The Angel fully recognized the dissident counter case; here he would introduce the other side for balance. Fair was fair.
         Bartley East was a gentle gradient Fly-over. We might have taken the path beneath; the upper afforded a better view. A light industrial precinct at present, water treatment plant ahead, beyond a stand of trees further on Bedok Reservoir. Some liquor shops below; food outlets were perhaps awaiting the completion of the MRT's. HDB's would follow in good time, as the housing market was developed. In the meantime this six or seven storey building opposite was to be entirely devoted to dormitories for foreign workers. It was not quite clear whether it was an entirely new building, or some kind of conversion. A curtain of blue safety fabric hung the length of the long central structure. This building alone stretched more than forty metres; smaller others ahead were to be incorporated into the same development. Unscrupulous construction operators might sardine-house the poor old dark-skinned exploited foreign workers with a single bathroom serving fifty men—as reported in recent days in testimony at the COI: here was the other side to weigh in the balance.
         — This was dedicated specifically for foreign workers, Gabriel? You're quite certain? Built specifically by one of the big operators?... Not a housing project by another name that might provide temporary quarters while the market was calibrated and adjusted?
         The questions flew into the relentless roar of traffic, Gabriel only able to respond in brief, staccato affirmative. Coming down the incline later the Angel took up the cudgels once more. A feisty, demonstrative Divine; not your regular Lay-me-down-sweet-Jesus-in-your-meadowland. Here was perfectly good housing no mistake, at least so far as could be seen from the roadway; justice demanded proper acknowledgement. There were shades of many kinds in the Singapore story. The coolie forebears of the present day rulers had coped with far, far worse conditions. Far worse had they endured under the yoke of the Colonial regime. This was good, decent housing by any measure. Yes Gabby. To be sure. OKOKOK. True.
         We marched on us two Australians. The absence of a McDonalds or KFC outlet was unusual. Neither the Golden Arches nor the Finger Lickin' man anywhere in view. No hint of moisture in the air. Would it ever rain again? one was forced to wonder. The passing traffic was no doubt struck by the pair of foot-sloggers, easily identified even on the fly as Caucasian. There were certainly no white hoboes in Singapore. Loads of others of the genus; all excepting whites. A floppy, less than handsome bushie topi, partnered by a rather more impressive, though now frayed and lusterless panama. Back-packs. Marching along. Passing motorists were entitled to wonder. 
         At the Reservoir the water level had never been so low, the Angel plaintively intoned as he surveyed the rusty brown marking the shore-line. A long face beneath the old floppy. There were elements here of our own sun-baked land, the great Australian continent. On the rise where we sat a carpet of leaf litter was far spread. In the drought parched trees were weeping copiously. Not since the 1860's, the newspaper reported, had this place seen the like. To our right young men with expensive remote-controlled glider planes were watching their handsome birds in flight. The blustery conditions were no draw-back, one of the lads answered the enquiry; on the contrary, the more wind the better for this craft. The week prior the Malaysian airplane had inexplicably gone down in fair weather. There was water rationing in large areas of Malaysia; the capital was affected. Here in Singapore with its treatment and desalination plants an air of disregard. Disasters happened elsewhere. Was it eight or nine weeks without a single drop of rain? February, traditionally the wettest month of the year, was like June. With the foreign sweepers here, ordinarily a fellow was lucky to see a single brown leaf on the streets of Singapore, a city-state rightly commended for its urban greenery. What was taking place within the soil itself, in the substructure of the island? We ought to have asked the tubby Tamil; during the excavations perhaps he had seen some changes. Could a tropical island sitting on the equator carry endless weight of concrete and iron mounted up to the clouds? New York and Dubai managed. Something like thirty percent current-day Sin'pore had grown since the time of British settlement. Land reclamation was an unending project. At the present time off Changi Point acres and acres of land were being created on a daily basis more or less. Alarmist Climate Change predictions were decades away: the Republic was putting its faith in technological advance. There was no stopping the growing Little Red Dot. Technological know-how, together with the famous Can-do spirit had created this modern miracle in the Tropics. Why wouldn't you continue to go for broke in their shoes? Rain however was needed.
         Here the Angel was downcast amid the leaf-litter hoarsely whispering in the drifts of air. Along the water-line the very same brown tone of the leaves was reproduced. There could be no cheer in the brightly coloured wings of the young lads' planes. Only youth could cavort like that in the midst of this desolate, lugubrious scene. Woe, woe, woe. In recent times the suicides had fallen off at Bedok Reservoir; or else the reporting curtailed. Certainly the place looked more than a little benighted and doomed on this Wednesday afternoon. Not a place to even pull the plug quietly. 
         Wending our way through Chai Chee, Kembungan and Telok Kurau, at some point, mysteriously, for some reason that later neither man could recall, the curious subject of the accented tones of the current Deputy PM arose as a very particular bone of contention. A sharp, needle-point bone found on the road as it were. Here the relevant terrain was suburban, housing, crossings, overhead walkways; one or two front fences of schools were passed. Had schooling, the project of education and indeed civilization, at bottom civilization, been the point of departure for this particular argument? Somehow or other the dulcet tones of Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam arose as the focus of attention.
         Prior to the introduction to this oddly jumbled community on the equator long Indian names had only been noted in touring cricket teams. As anyone of a certain vintage will recall, the sub-continent was not represented down on the great Southern land until quite recently. In the case of the Indian, Pakistani and Sri Lankan cricketers long unwieldly names were often abbreviated for convenience of fans. Up until recently too these minor nations were side-show affairs compared to Ashes or West Indies series.
         However, even before seeing the Deputy PM's picture, the Honourable Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, one could guess more or less the chap's heritage. Tamils were over half the Indian contingent in Singapore, the Coromandel coast of India providing easiest pickings for cheap labour. Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka was another source, both then and now. Mr. Shanmugaratnam's heritage turned out from the Sicily of the Indian sub-continent.
         Only in the last few months had Little India begun to be explored. Previously the concentration had been upon the old Malays and Chinese in Geylang. Then the December riot erupted and all at once the position of the foreign construction workers one had seen carted around in the rear of lorries came to the fore of consciousness, the Indian foreign construction crews in particular. No doubt the Chinese foreign labour from the Mainland had troubles not dissimilar to the Indians; in the case of the latter perhaps the relative position was a rung or two lower.
         In the midst of all this trouble and strife, this concentration upon the contemporary under-class who had caused such unexpected turbulence in the usually calm Singaporean waters, arrived Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
         Readers unfamiliar with Indian compounds may need some assistance in rolling the syllables. Shan with a rising vowel, certainly not the flat Australian; rhyming with "barn". Mug—again not the classic Australese; the Moo cow... MugaRAT—rhyming with "nut". And nam finally. Over two years this particular name was glided over in the newspaper. It was a long, long tangle. How to unpack? And what was the point? Was there any point? Wasn’t there only one name in the political firmament in Singapore, known to all the world more or less? Obituaries had been sitting in the drawers of the region more than a decade. The support cast was window dressing. Lackeys. Such was the judgment of the most fierce bloggers familiar with the Republic. The political royal house here needed allies and supports to be sure; those were bit players elevated for convenience, drafted into the business of government. On the streets of Geylang this was the harsh view. (Just the other day one of the local pundits was quoting Singapore as having attained Number 5 rung on the global Crony Capitalist Index.)
         A fortnight or more past the Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam, had delivered the New Year's Budget to Parliament. In the run-up to the signal day, in the usual way, the Minister's photograph had been carried in the pages of the newspaper on numerous occasions: the tall figure descending a stair; crossing a foyer with the ticking-bomb briefcase in hand; in the midst of a scrum handling questions from eager reporters. Judging by the newspaper coverage and glimpses of other media, apart from the First family there appeared to be two key figures carrying the burden of government: the Law Minister, some month or more past giving a polished performance defending the need for the death penalty to maintain safety standards in the Republic; and this tall, bald, bespectacled, less than entirely prepossessing figure of Deputy PM and Fin. Min., Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam.
         Together with the name the features clearly spoke of an Indian descent. Light skin tone in this case. In the pictures one saw the type of brainy, dorky school-boy turned slightly diffident adult. There had not been any fashion consultant engaged to spruce up the presentation. Indeed, the lack of smoothness, the absence of polish and shine—the pate aside—in the present age was rather attractive. It was possible Mr. Shanmugaratnam dyed the fringe of hair bordering his ears and around the back of his collar. On the other hand the man may have been young enough to be not yet grey. Brains and capability beat a pretty face any day when it came to the crunch. 
         This was all prior to hearing the voice of the Deputy PM and Fin. Min. Reading the newspapers, scanning the photographs and attending to the Kopi-shop chat, gave one only part of the story in the present case. On entry to the Carpmael residence the television that came with the room had been immediately removed with the help of the former boxer/now landlord, who had been a little puzzled at the decision. In deference to the strange habits of the monkish fellow tenant, housemates had learned to turn the volume of the Common-room TV right down to the bottom of the dial while they ate their dinners on the dining-table. In short, there had been no audio of Mr. Tharman Shanmugaratnam until the day of delivery to the Parliament and the nation of the new Budget for the year of 2014.  In the case of Mr. Shanmuragaratnam one was flying blind and ignorant without having heard the gold-throated warbler.
         — God almighty Gabby! It is nothing less than absurd. What? Have you actually heard that Ascot timbre?!...
         The Angel would have none of it. An aficionado of celestial music and heavenly choirs, the winged creature in fact was rather a fan.
         — Gabby! I do most strenuously protest! Please....
         Gardeners turned their heads from condo entrances. Schoolchildren lugging monstrous sized bags cocked an ear stomping past, keeping their eyes downcast. The voices rose to a pitch and carried over this lesser traffic of the side streets.
         For some particular reason, ten days or so ago in the Cyber Cafe in Dunlop Street, Ari behind the counter had cranked up the volume on his PC out front. Listening to.... an aria  of some strange kind. Or was that recitative?.... Most strange. Ordinarily the Bee Gees might be heard from Ari's station, poppy love songs and C&W. Above all else the happy brother pair from Downunder more. There was no better according to Ari than Words and Maaass—A—Chu—setts. 
         Dunlop Street at the upper end near Jalan Besar, Big Road, late week or even a Saturday it may have been. (No surprise to have the pollies here working weekends and overtime, setting the example.) The usual activity over the way at the mosque. Fridays raised the numbers of course even more than weekends. Beneath the skull-caps dark faces under the verandas either side. Dunlop carried a couple of Backpacker joints that leaked a slightly bewildered, often hippy contingent onto this hard, earnest street. The long shifts and robes of Islamic dress was common, a mini Mecca most days of the week among motor-cycle outlets, massage places and various other jumbled oddities. In the booths of Cyber the clientele drawn from passersby. Ari and the boss were Hindu; in the minority in this corner of the locale. Behind the partitions the hourly price at the PC's rose 50% at Cyber. Secluded privacy, albeit tight and cramped, attracted a surcharge. Cheap thrills was the trade here by reports. The Indian working girls near-by charged twenty or thirty dollars—or their pimps did; surfing on the screen provided more basic release at a fraction of the cost. The night-shift was the main business at Cyber; still, afternoons and even mornings drew regular custom.
         An innocent toiler slaving at another kind of inspiration found the locale rather congenial. On this particular afternoon however the foreign note arrived like a completely unexpected meteor.
         — What is this then Ari? What in the name of God, man?
         There was no way to credit one's ears. Mid afternoon or past. It may indeed have been a Saturday—unless the speech was delivered the day previous and Ari was listening to a recording. The usual range of faces outside the window. At the cafe next door the Thai Trannies were assembled, laughing, smoking and amusing themselves as was their wont. The Arab with the good English and sharp political viewpoint had earlier been in for Hello. Black faces up and down and indoors too.
         The photographs may indeed lie: the Deputy PM and Fin. Min. may have been darker than appeared from unreliable newsprint. However that be, the dulcet tones here filling the cavernous interior of Cyber were pure liquid gold. It took some moments to focus properly on the melody. Indeed, there was no great alteration from the smoothness of the famous brother pair from Down-under that usually played here. So far as sugar and syrup was concerned there was little to separate the two. Shock and at the same time something less than complete discordance. Normally Ari kept the Gibbs boys toned down. —  Maaass—A—Chu—setts.
         Lord above!... Ari had been asked the question. But even before striding out to confront the man there could be no doubt; Ari merely confirmed the same. What the man was doing listening to the broadcast of the Budget of all things was beyond any hope of sensible reply.
         The voice of an exotic song-bird trilling within the dark, dingy confines of Cyber. (Cave more than Café.) Outside the Thais tittered. Shortly before a chap at the desk was chatting to Ari about football results in the usual brogue. Tamil and Malay vied for precedence in this quarter; Hokkien a distant third and English out of the picture. Throughout Singapore it was much the same. A kind of English reigned as the administrative, official language, encouraged from the top; famously foisted upon the various community groups some thirty years ago. In the linguistic by-ways of the island one darted through numerous back alleys and lanes in order to achieve communication. It was certainly an adventure. One needed to remain nimble.
         Here and there over past years one had caught snatches of the old master LKY on television. Clearly high order English proficiency. During the stay on the equator the most brief snippets of the son and heir in passing. In Dunlop Street the afternoon of the Budget delivery the extended peroration in those tones and rhythms threw an innocent listener into an ecstasy for which he was completely unprepared. True enough, one had heard the immaculate pronouncements of the Ascot lady on the MRT and newer buses—Please mind the platform gap. The Fin. Min. was a match made only in heaven. One assumed Eton followed by a double major at Cambridge or Oxford. The gorgeous green fields of England coloured this voice, polo, golf and cricket. The commentators of a couple of generations past for the latter game were recalled. An Anglophile’s heart could not but melt in the face of this repast.
         Had the Angel heard the man? Had he listened? Nothing preposterous in any of that Gabriel?...
         The good Angel had taken the remarks as ridicule of what happened to be a particular accent; a particularly fine example of the kind indeed. It was like ridiculing a man for the way he looked, or for a personal idiosyncrasy.
         No Gabriel. NoNoNo, lah.

Inquiry into the December 8 Riot

               

This must needs be brief.
         After eight or nine days of hearings of the Committee of Inquiry into the foreign worker riot of Dec. 8 focused on policing issues—questions why bolder actions of confrontation were not taken, shots fired, appropriateness of batons &etc.—yesterday attention turned to possible underlying grievances that might have been behind the mayhem involving 400 mainly young Indian construction workers.
         "No latent frustration or tension among foreign workers, COI told," the sub-heading in the newspaper report this morning. The Migrant Workers' Centre (MWC) Exec. Dir. made this clear. This chap drew attention to a 2011 survey by his organization and the Manpower Ministry involving more than 3,000 workers, which found 94% satisfied with work conditions.
         A second workers' representative confirmed the same: the Deputy Exec. Sec. of the Building Construction & Timber Industries Employees' Union (Batu). The woman concerned arrived at the conclusion from an interview following the riot involving forty workers from four work sites.
         Furthermore, two foreign workers came before the Committee to testify personally: an excavator operator of 15 years experience here gave "100 marks" to Singapore as a place of good opportunity for foreign workers such as himself. A second man, a construction worker, told the COI he was satisfied with his three-storey dormitory where fifteen men share a "spacious" room, "even if 50 of them have to jostle for a bath at any one time."
         Exploitative wages? Somewhat unsatisfactory, offered the construction worker. $24 basic daily salary ought be $30, the man suggested. No need resort to violence however.
         "No, sir."
         The two workers' representatives confessed most foreign workers were not unionized here. And there were rogue operators.
         "A stir" was caused during the hearing when the Committee was told of Employers retaining worker passports. Moreover, "a collective gasp was heard in the courtroom" when the Workers' Representative told of employers who set onerous conditions on the passport retention, setting $5,000 deposits before releasing the travel document.
         Despite it being mandatory for employers to issue physical payslips to workers, "this practice is not yet widespread," the Workers' Representative testified, adding the lack of a payslip and other employment documentation puts the workers at a disadvantage when it comes to wage disputes.

Lord Shiva in Singapore - published in Contemp Lit Rev India 2017 (annual)

Inside the front gates of the temple a Chinese tourist was given the word on footwear. Uncomprehending at first and immediately apologetic after. Barefoot within the perimeter was required.

After our circuit upstairs a group of police in high boots managed to stop themselves at the side entry before encroaching onto the red paving. Tall, thick-set chaps kitted out like stormtroopers. Rani thought it understandable after the riot in December.

Barefoot was a step above the more common bare-headed. (A panama, however, presented no problem, even inside the temple itself.)

On the upper level an older, fat-bellied attendant showed a younger man not once, but three times, how the bell was rung. 

The bell hung overhead almost within reach. You pulled firmly on the horizontal. Ding Ding Ding Ding. 

There did not seem to be precise numbering or phrasing; the pealing continuing a long time.

Back at ground Rani led the way around a pillar that in a number of niches housed various black gods. Mars. Venus. Satan—

That gave us pause. 

Satan, Rani?

Yes, Satan too was beneficent, if one had good karma. Psychic power for example could come through the agency of Satan, Rani explained.

It took a few minutes to tease out the matter. Rani's English was excellent. The problem was often pronunciation. The planetary gods and Indian astrology in question here.

After an half hour an unexpected question came from the Guide.

— How do you find it? asked Rani politely. Somewhat anxiously. The messiness, the lack of order was off-putting, possibly?

Oh Rani! No. That was the very thing. That was what made it above all.

The music of course was wonderful, pipes, drums and added recording. The orchestration was familiar from the evening passes of the Kalang temple, Sri Manmatha. Surprisingly contemporary, rousing and raucous for the purpose of worship.

In a side annex a group of players provided accompaniment for a vigorous carting of a Shiva lingam on a small litter, carried on two long poles. Four or five men either side rushed the god briskly across the floor in zigzag, to-and-fro. The forcefulness was startling. It was odd that there was no gathering to observe the spectacle, held in a secondary building. It had not been mounted for show.

The faithful fasted through Maha Shivarahti, the Great Shiva Night, so the tea, coffee and food on offer was preparatory fortification. People sat on steps, in nooks and across the paving tucking in, a good proportion older women in colourful saris, walking among whom gave something like the other side of the looking-glass.

Soon after the bells had begun we marked ourselves with ash, Rani on both forehead and throat. One had assumed sandalwood, or perhaps thulasi ash, if there was such a tree. 

No, not quite. Rani stated the matter plainly: this was cow dung. Thick, almost granular ash produced from the dung of a cow.

Following which came the holy water. 

Unlike the famous zamzam in Islam, from the everlasting spring beside the Kaaba, the great Hindu blessing was traditionally given by cow urine. Diluted no doubt.

Left palm beneath the right that collected the liquid, which was brought to the mouth and then onto the top of the head. In the Ayurvedic tradition the benefit of cow urine was well-known.

Another question arose from the red bindi, which Rani went without. The bindi signified a married woman. In addition, the point marshalled the focus on god. Traditionally, widows did not wear the bindi. 

The composition of this too was interesting. Turmeric was the base. Vivid yellow turmeric when lime juice was added and the dish placed in the sun turned deep carmine.

It was the bathing of the Shiva lingam that was the central part of the festival. In the days prior Ari at Dunlop Street had revealed that through the evening and night Lord Shiva would be bathed one thousand and eight times. We sat to the right of the altar, between the niche for Shiva's wife Sakti and the players behind. 

For the niche where the Shiva lingam stood we had only partial vision, not much more than the corner on the right where the priest officiated. Two large screens either side of the hall showed the action for those unsighted. 

A lucky elderly couple was seated on raised chairs directly before the niche, a privilege won by some substantial donation to the temple, Rani explained. 

Sri Sivan was the largest Hindu temple in Singapore, conveniently located a ten minute walk from Haig Road. In over two and one half years the turning at the sign on Sims Avenue had never been taken before.

The bathing of the black lingam had also been seen from the footpath of Sri Manmatha. For a newcomer almost totally ignorant of Hindu ritual, it was a remarkable sight. Milk, honey, sandal, turmeric, flame, flowers, diced fruits and ash among much else passed over the small raised black stone in numerous ablutions. Rani confirmed the 1,008 too. 

Leaves laid atop the stone a number of times were soon washed off by the liquid. The texture of honey and one or two other substances were clear from a distance. Like the turmeric, the honey left a thick cover over the lingam, a thorough coating. Toward the end of the first phase of bathing, when the heavier liquids were used, the young bare-chested priest stepped close to the lingam and like a child at the beach or playing in the snow, drew human eyes, nose and mouth on the surface. 

The god had come alive, explained Rani.

The human figuration was nearing the end of the ritual, of the first phase at least of the adoration of the god, during which there was been a upping of tempo by the players. 

There was no pause between the pouring of the various unguents. One bucket followed another, then leaves, more buckets, leaves again and wreathes and flame. A candelabra came near the end, bathing the stone in brilliant light. In the last phase of this first sequence a larger swelling again of the music created a stir among the congregants. 

As the finale approached a wave passed over the women alongside the central barrier, a movement in unison like that of a flock of birds winging to one side. Some of the women began to rise to their feet. More followed. Soon the whole body had risen and hands were being lifted toward the altar, turned and brought back to the women's faces. The women covered their faces in something like a bathing motion. One woman brought her hand to one eye and then the other separately. For a few moments hands covered the whole of faces. 

Rani explained the people were gathering to themselves the blessing from the god.

The countenances of the women particularly were captivating. Before the mass of older women in the attitudes they adopted by the altar left an outsider floundering somehow. 

Many of the women sitting along the central barrier appeared well-to-do, the gleam and lustre of their cloth strongly suggestive. Many were pilgrims from India, Rani believed. 

The faces they showed was difficult to describe. This was not quite adoration; there was nothing beatific. You never saw such expressions in a Western city, whether in a church or anywhere else. 

Quiet, steady hopefulness was perhaps evident. One or two women peered as if from underneath an obstacle somehow, bending their heads and turning up their eyes. One or two of the younger showed smiles of the sort one would have expected at a religious gathering; not any of the elders. 

There was no keenness or sharpness in the looks; no prayer evident. One or two of the older women moved their lips a little. The Mother-worship element was clear, but in the old mothers themselves here. Wrong way round it seemed, the old women enacting the worship of which they ought to be the object.

After Shiva there was a movement across to Sakti in her niche on our side. Shiva represented knowledge, mind, intelligence, according to Rani. Sakti power and energy. Again some inversion.

In the booth across the road later, after a vegetarian meal under one of the tents, some of the legends of Shiva were pictured in a series of posters, with commentary below. 

Rani was frank about the suggestiveness of the lingam. It took her a moment to find the English term.

Organ. The male organ. Phallic worship was inherent in the long, peaked black stone.

As we slowly made off along Second Avenue hundreds of pilgrims formed queues both for the temple entry and the food stall, foreign workers mainly after their labour. 

We were lucky to locate our footwear. With the workers the male presence now evened the gender balance. 

A yoga practitioner and teacher, Rani had reservation about so much noise and spectacle. Rani made an excellent guide.

In Sanskrit the god was Shiva. Tamil closed the vowel, said Rani. Sivan. Mantra and mantram was another example. 

The Dravidian South was pure Hindu India, according to Rani. Northerners lost something of the faith in their regions.

At the book stall opposite Rani recommended Vivekananda, a small little booklet of his Message, purchased by a donation to a children’s home. There was some spirit in the teacher's words from the opening paragraph. 

“My ideal indeed can be put into a few words and that is: to preach unto mankind their divinity, and how to make it manifest in every movement of life.”

And few pages on: "If you look, you will find that I have never quoted anything but the Upanishads. And of the Upanishads, it is only that One idea, strength. The quintessence of the Vedas and Vedanta and all lies in that one word.”

A memorable introduction to the Hindus.

NB. This piece, originally written in 2014, has been inaccessible since the print publication. Since re-drafted.

Publication: Architecture & Building

 An architectural magazine down in Melbourne, Australia has just published an old piece titled "Owner-builder" that has laid in the drawer a good while. Paper and online form: Post Magazine, focusing on post-occupancy perspectives in architecture. An interesting project arising from the RMIT Architecture Department.  
Some readers will be interested.