Australian writer of Montenegrin descent en route to a polyglot European port at the head of the Adriatic mid-2011 shipwrecks instead on the SE Asian Equator. 12, 36, 48…80, 90++ months passage out awaited. Scribble all the while. By some process stranger than fiction, a role as an interpreter of Islam develops; Buddhism & even Hinduism. (Long story.)
Saturday, January 30, 2016
Saturday Morning
Woman had earlier sold tickets for the Delima bus to Malacca up at a stall at City Plaza. Thrown the job in after some bother with the boss she had reported a couple of weeks ago. This morning at Al Wadi again with her group of friends for a late breakfast, all scarved and bound, the tall looker with the high head-dress among the rest. They were not noticed when the author arrived for his morning teh and newspaper, en route to the drinks counter a voice from the crowd giving Hoy! Ah! Unexpected. These ladies were a new element here, encountered only once before when the Delima woman had brought them over for intro and short sit. Waves from a distance: the group were eating. Smiles, smiles. Half an hour later the woman come over to the table to offer farewell. Oh! Off already. Adieu. Where might you be bound now? Spot of shopping? Jalan jalan—tripping about?... Early-mid forties, mothers and grandmothers no doubt; thickened and softened. Was it the movies perhaps, Saturday matinee session with the girls?... The Gardens to admire the flowers and blooms? (After an extended campaign to achieve some kind of listing, finally Sing’ had a World Heritage site: the Botanical Gardens. The experiment with rubber trees by the British in S-E Asia had begun here more than one hundred years ago.) Group of four, one new woman among the others, the Delima dame informed. Oh, indeed. The tall head-dress fluttered her kohled eyes beside the addition. Might it be cup-cakes at a new patisserie out in McPherson?... No, wrong. It was off to class, Delima answered. Every Saturday and Sunday morning. Not at the Converts here; Lorong 12. That'd be at Jamiyah. Yes. Yes. Is there a good ustad up there? A good one, yes. The same as was here earlier. (Above the former Labu Labi—now the cafe turned into a cheap China apparel outlet—Jamiyah had conducted classes upstairs.) Good to hear, because you know good ustad are difficult to find. (Just in order to implant the thought; prompt some critical evaluation. All Islamic groups were carefully vetted here by the government; the day before Omar had used the example of the standard Friday sermon.) Zainuddin had often made the point about inadequate, indeed ignorant teachers of the Qur'an, men of little learning and incapable of serious study. Zainuddin had been reading the Qur’an all his life and Zainuddin could be trusted above all others here.
Wednesday, January 27, 2016
Expat Location
No, it was the Caltex, just beyond Telok Kurau Road. SmartMart attached and tyres the other side. Over four and one half years not driving a short snort of righteous disgust: cars, petrol, highways, speed. On the walk back to a bus-stop a couple of cars outside the Servo honked Indian workers on the roadway. Road had been narrowed, chaps hauling tubing given warning BEEP BEEP BEEP to stand clear. Grrrh!
A selling point of the room was the "Expat location", for a prospective expat tenant just the thing. There was no con: cafes, bars, bakeries and the rest, one every fifty metres, no-one could complain. A working day there were no expats visible on the street, or only a couple. Hipster Chin girls, maids, old aunties and uncles.
Redeeming feature was an old, weathered and discoloured block belying the fancy title it bore: East Grove Mansion. Yeah, right. In 1965 from the opium-addled coolie perspective, sure thing.
Behshad, or Kevin, was correctly guessed: Persian he said rather than Iranian. The slight French accent suggested a possible Algerian, but that was because of Behshad's French housemates possibly. Nice chap clearly from the outset, long-term tenant in the flat opposite doing a favour for the landlord across the way.
Crushingly neat interior: table setting, cutlery, napkins, dried flowers in the vase. Holy shit! The people here put on dark glasses for the crossing over the dirty discoloured paving outside their doors. Were there many such rundown places in East Coast? The whole stretch was reclaimed land, the fill from the leveling of the hills island-wide presumably. (Now under threat from climate change.) Beach, some kind of well-known promenade, bike-track, eateries and whatnot. Scruffy apartment blocks dotted between possibly.
Ten-fifty for a gap month between longer-term, contracted tenants, utilities add-on fifty or so. Behshad was happy to share his own wifi until good M1 was installed shortly. Two bathrooms for four rooms, one French guy and one American guitar player (only until 10pm Behshad assured). Nice chaps carefully screened from the outset, Behshad assured. Non-smoking but drinking was fine, laughed Behshad, assuming Australian habits.
Fifteen odd minutes’ walk to Geylang Serai, with better cut-throughs likely. A variety of buses outside. (In case the point has not been made, not enough of the positives here acknowledged: brilliant public transport. Buses, trains. Aeroplanes well-known.)
But the Caltex is the focus here. Walking up to the bus-stop. Empty, wide, clean drive-way, chap waiting at the bowser. Dark-faced pump-jockey under a red cap that matched his polo, black trousers. Long swinging strides for killing boredom, peak aimed between his legs.
But hang-on, here comes a customer.
Training was successfully drummed into this man: on the car's entrance immediately alert and welcoming, both arms raised and like on a tarmac waving the vehicle safely forward.
Yes sir. Come along here now. Waving, waving.
Had this guy seen Bollywood films where the male lead jets back from a business trip to Paris—shocking error: both wife and mistress, unknown to each other, waiting to greet. On the tarmac smart chap in uniform waving the big silver bird that had just descended from the clouds to the gate. One point seven thousand billion rupees in his hands. The Merc was likewise worth plenty.
If the boss reviews CCTV nights he will be assured the worker has the correct kind of attitude. If the yard is miked this chap would be offering fine courtesy and respect. Too right.
In the front page report of a recent parliamentary speech that underlined the need for the city-state to adapt and develop to suit the new global circumstances, where uncertainty abounded, three points were highlighted: continuing vigilance on the corruption front was one and meritocracy another. Meritocracy to the max. Nothing but meritocracy. The speaker used the examples of creatures in the jungle developing sharper beaks, claws, carapace in the struggle for survival. As before, meritocracy a key to the future. Benefits on show island-wide.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Darts
This dart champion with the dyed handle-bar and screw-top cap (doubtless shiny pate) got a positively unIslamic alarm unmanning thefellow. Fourth, fifth, if not sixth death now announced by the chap especially, leaning close to the table.
Young Filipina was she? from the block opposite where he lived. His was sixteen-something and the other seventeen. Hanging out the washing. Heavy doesn’t wanna let go. Fall down. Flips and drops his open palm.
From the tenth floor, doesn’t know her name. Monday just gone. Out at Tampines spitting distance from the mall. Again the flipping hand for the proximity this time.
Had the girl been in his block he might have known her name.
Once he showed his precision machined missiles in a box with felt lining, heavy workingman’s hands capable of launching the arrows unerringly at his target.
Traveled up the Peninsular for competitions, roomful of trophies at home. Even tonight the chaps were calling him from the club. Where was he?
Burden of the Filipina delivered, an interruption came from behind by one of the old aunties enquiring, Makanready?...
What?... Ah! the mention of chapatti his cue…
You remember the old Indian beard here front corner Labu Labi? The chapattis?... That one was Tuesday, back in Chennai...
Like one of the gatekeepers of the nether world, never missed a one.
For all of them fetching back as far as you wanted to go, the stout old Christians, the Romans, Vikings and all the rest, fear and trembling was dissuaded.
Friendly likeable sort struggling a wee bit.
One of his reports too had subsequently proved erroneous. Couple months past the Singing Cowboy had collapsed on the pavement here and carted off in an ambulance. Looking like Death’s door, in fact the old cowpoke's tunes were still a'coming nightly on that corner. The ghost had positively startled when he approached the table shortly after the return from Indonesia.
Friday, January 22, 2016
No Sweat
Thursday, January 21, 2016
Hulwana's Nephew
Astonishing when one oughtn’t be astonished. Mumbling to oneself lips aflutter and all unhinged. Strange, uncanny to be living others’ lives from the past and other cultures… Hulwana coming by with a young chap in stride, nephew of that size and aspect difficult to credit right off. Thin, darkly pretty, upright, always in her marvellous Arab gear—even when like this morning she declares she was not in her “fancy clothes.” Words with Hulwana, unsighted the last number of weeks, dad unwell and losing his appetite—when from the side the young fresh-faced body-building nephew in plain red tee that set-off his colouration shoots out a low hand at table-top level. Unexpected interruption, hardly recognisable in the first instance as an offering. Extended low and flat like a chapatti on a plate in fact for a reason. When the lad bent almost double to reach the hand he had been given with his forehead, astonishment, fright and delight all in confusion. A definite touch achieved with a slight nod at the end of the bow. Gee. Ah me...Ya, unmet previously, Hulwana confirms, as the lad hailed from Malacca. Her nephew. Smiling apologetically for his limited English. One would need to travel back at least sixty years for something roughly comparable in old Montenegro. (Hulwana's nephew was early twenties.) Online Piero di Cosimo pictures last night showing grassy knolls with livestock and birds of the air carried some hint of the same range of human feeling and respect. The omnipresence of birds and animals in the old artwork across the globe—Mughal India and Egypt before the most recent study—set one thinking on the temper of the human mind over the ages in the earlier living.
Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Pique
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
The World's Most Successful Society
After a forty-two year ban music will be allowed once more at Thaipusam in Singapore this year, restricted to three specific stages well away from residential areas. Rationale for the historic ban alleged outbreaks of fighting among competing musicians forty-two years ago. Wild street musos.
Certainly a famously tight-lid kept on the community here, described by one of the city-state's chief propagandists as the "world's most successful society" in the same edition of the Straits Times today carrying the Thaipusam item. Mr. Kishore Mahbubani touted by fans as one of the top fifty intellectuals on the planet; or else of the last century it may have been.
The long opinion piece of Mr. Mahbubani's returned to the question raised in recent days of the selection of the President. When the Republic of Singapore was still a pup presidents were appointed by parliament. Subsequently a rush of democratic spirit saw the last number delivered to that office by election. Mr. Mahbubani, like some other commentators recently, had become concerned that a democratic vote might not be the best option. Firstly the problem of a populist president capturing the position (Thaksin in Thailand); then the matter of an independent president at odds with the ruling party—ill-boding for the most successful society in the world. On a positive note, appointed presidents might open the door to representation from the minorities. (Canada & New Zealand.)
Context. In the last parliamentary election the long-ruling PAP in Singapore managed to win back a large part of the vote lost in the previous election, which had produced six opposition candidates. A Jubilee 50th year of celebration, the death of the former PM (father of the nation and also of the current incumbent) and some generous social programs aiding the cause. In the Presidential election in-between these two parliamentary, four years ago, the government preferred candidate, a former PAP Minister himself, surprised by scraping home by 0.35% margin. Dangerous prospect ahead identified by the celebrated scholar.
Straits Times, 18 Jan 2016
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
RE: Rupe Murd and Jerry Hall announce engagement
Title sent it to my Junk Filter. Don't worry, pulled you out and dusted you off.
Cheers
P
Monday, January 11, 2016
Awake!
Oyster-perpetual Day-Date 40 on display at The Hour Glass Ion Orchard #01- 02—two towers, or floors possibly—from January 11 - 24.
Rolex, with the king crown motif above that many of the global casinos have adopted in their branding.
No other place on the globe could carry such a full page advertisement in a national newspaper (p. 5).
No other place on the globe could compare for the corporate cachet capture on the scale of Sin'pore.
Outcomes on the streets, the buses and trains, in the malls, the traffic jams and around the condos something to behold.
Oh traduced humanity. Brothers and sisters! Awake!
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Eternally Hopeful
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Greek on the Equator (S-E Asia)
Names are hard in this republic. After independence the understandable decision to leave untouched the former colonial imprint. (Can of worms.) Therefore Somerset, Grange, Ascot, Victoria, Belgravia, Admiralty, Lavender, Regent, Rochester, Saint Andrews, Versailles, Petain & Clemenceau roads, MRT stations, condos, malls and schools. The Western inheritance and aspiration remains, nowhere more evident than in the remarkable project to institute and uphold English as the national language. Again, perhaps understandable in the nation-building project where various languages and cultures were forced to share a small island. Occasional faux pas (one example must suffice): a few years ago local entrepreneurs opening a bar thought the most fetching ring was provided by AUSHWITZ (sic.). Enterprising investor had heard something somewhere, schooldays maybe… Recent times some little controversy over the naming of a new Junior College. After exhaustive consultations with all stakeholders the unanimous decision fell on EUNOIA. Greek root denoting "beautiful thinking" and "goodwill toward others". Difficult to surpass for an educational institute for serious-minded students with anxious, ambitious parents. Some of the Windsor accents one heard here was completely bewitching: the MRT announcer possibly narrowly outdoes the Minister of Finance, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, a clear head in front of the Minister of Justice, Mr K. Shanmugam, with the PM Lee in the same leading pack possessing impeccable enunciation, phrasing and even some measure of creativity. The prospective students at Eunoia just entering the race would need a great deal of support and encouragement to carry through. At present some struggled with the colliding vowels and uncertain syllables of the newly named JC. From the relevant department stout defence against accusations of pretentiousness, top-down dictate and disregard for local character and culture. Linguists meanwhile stood at odds over pronunciation. In the case of the college itself, it had settled for "yoo-noh-iea"