Saturday, March 29, 2014

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.


No comments:

Post a Comment