The Track

Sweet smelling BBQ sotong in the lane behind the hotel, a good dinner prospect should it last. On the corner around in front few Malays are in evidence; some mixed. The Chinatown quarter here is small and compact, two or three streets. Of course there are numerous eateries over the other side of the thoroughfare, the favourite opposite the marvelous bakery and biscuit factory at the edge of the Indian quarter. City Square the tallest in a thicket of towers here, nearer thirty than twenty storey. Racing guides spread at the adjacent tables getting close attention from a large group. Astonishing face and get-up sported by the Malay-Indian waiter. Chap has to be in his early seventies. — No! Mid surely. Weather-beaten and deeply lined face, stooped, with a billiard table green felt circular high-standing cap carrying something like a propeller it looked like first sight mounted in the centre. In fact it was a pom-pom. Eventually the same shock at this figure was recalled from over two years ago on the first visa run here when these presentiments from the distant past were more forceful still. Missed the waiting customer in the chair twenty minutes. Fairly crowded late afternoon.
         Poor fella from a couple of months ago at Sri Geylang, put up by his bizman brother in the hotel there, an incessant smoker with an Arab heritage, lost his mind here. Back in Geylang he either sat in one of the chairs along the wall of the hotel lobby, or else a marooned table on the outer edge of the cluster at Sri. Coming down the steps of i-Systems College opposite and once on the flat took a couple of knock-out swings at an imaginary antagonist. Carting himself up the street unshaven here, slipped a good deal.
         The first bell from the temple up on the rise arrived as a welcome saviour in the gathering of punters, tea-totallers and smokers stretching out the afternoon. Without having closely examined, the place turned out reasonable enough; there was no beer. The tables full of bottles nearer the hotel had been automatically passed over. Three years in a Muslim quarter had produced a definite wowser.
         Circling, underlining, notation, arrows—the notes over the Form Guides were extensive; the concentration through the afternoon had been immense. There was a good deal more than ringgit riding down here. 

Restoran Bintang Tawakal. The Hindu temple was partly visible through the palms of the comic garden walk of stagnant pools and coloured concrete parapets; beside the Hindu stood the Sikh. One or two of the chaps runs a book from the tables, following the races on a cheap Nokia that delivers results he calls out to the keen punters. A bagman is at hand for the payouts. A few minutes later an Indian tosses his booklet onto the ground in disgust. Couple of the lads had small collects.

         In fact there was more than one book, and further along back toward Meldrum numerous other tables and books too that had not been noticed going along; another Nokia in play. At the end Chinese checkers. Down at Bintang it was Indians predominating, smaller group of Chinese and only mixed Malay. The remainder of the stretch was all Chin.