Decisions, Decisions

  

Heading out the question was the Chin veg./vegan or else one of the Paki, Mehran or Pak Punjab. Time enough to decide on the walk and having left early a roundabout circuit was in order. Behind the Gurdwara lorries were still delivering produce for the morning market and the street stalls outside: cheap durian from the last bountiful harvest; some of the high-colour newly picked fruits’ names that still escaped; greens aplenty and crates of squawking chooks. Newly pruned kaffir lime leaves on short, thin stalks just like in front of the Studio down in Melbourne, scentless until they were crushed in hand. What might they cost here in their natural habitat? The stall holder was too busy to disturb. It was difficult to hook a gal on these streets and probably harder still after the caning up in Terranganu the day before. In the media one clear voice only had spoken out in fitting response to the matter, the youthful good-looker Khairy Jamaluddin—married to a former PM’s daughter—who was taking his time quitting the horribly discredited UMNO, thinking to fight the rot from within it seems. This brutality and high-handedness was not Islam, protested Khairy.... Still, despite prohibitions, one never knew one’s luck in a big city. There were little wiles, ways and means, those that had been unknown prior to arrival in the Tropics were soon taught by the local naughties. Delicious soft tofu, green beans and tiny rice portion at the corner Chinese the other night, exorbitant price of RM30 however. Ten bucks for crying out loud, in down-at-heel Chow Kit. The place had only been minimally re-decorated over the years, the ghosts of the old founders not entirely extinguished. Nepalese Buddhist manager in his Protect Our Planet; Against Animal Killing &etc. tee acted his part with genuine smiles. One certainly did not get that much among the Paki crowd, the Lohorean Punjabi in particular. White guy, neat clothes, eating out every night, doubtlessly knew people operating the drones, you had no grounds for complaint. A recent BBC doco had unfolded the familiar story of immigration from the homeland: ornate mansions built back in the village from hard earned savings housing the ancients left behind and the mosquitoes—periodic visits only managed by the immigrants; dislocation across the generations and loss of culture and language (Are you watching the cartoons? Tell me, the Granddad on the phone to the youngsters in Oslo); the lunatic race for status given full head. Everywhere the same.... Portions at the Chinese Veg. were too large, single diners within those walls being not the norm, at least in times past. (There were three of us on the Monday.) Chinese and Indian diners exclusively, with the riff-raff Malays looking in the window as they passed. The Paki fare you would also mark higher on the scorecard for all the oiliness—especially Pak Punjab nearer the river—sumptuous indeed, made you feel like a Pasha. The blight of the UMNO building lighting up at 7PM and hovering there over the latter was a negative; pavement table positive, and much earlier available at the Lahorean than the Karachi Mehran. (Both these groups were from the Punjab, but Karachi were Urdu speakers and Lahorean Punjabi.) Regular beggars at both Paki—old Malay men, street tattered Indian girls, a blind Malay led around by a scarved woman. One poor Chinese old girl with more than a single physical twitch was still getting around the streets, though seemingly not begging now. She was impossible to forget. In the last couple of years it appeared she might only be eating sporadically—painfully thin. Last sighting of this poor darling was down on the tiles outside a boarded shop from which yelps had been heard a few nights before, unsettling cries that made one hesitate walking on. It was doubtful anyone could strike this woman now; her time of beating had been in earlier years. As usual there were five or six blue single ringitt in the right pocket. That was the other thing, what you saved on yourself you could distribute roundabout here and still come out ahead. It was a small gesture. (There were usually not more than three or four beggars in an hour.) The woman at Mehran had surprised when she revealed she was third generation Malaysian, her grandfather coming out way back when. Of course the Brits were long used to the Pakis, nothing special about them there. An Oz-Montenegrin though had never met the like in all his born days, not before the first stay in Chow Kit. In the early phase of the Russian-Afghan War footage on TV had immediately suggested comparison with the Montenegrin hill people. Three beggars it would be at P. Punjab this night, the first the old Chinese-Malay who stooped to deliver his usual incomprehensible ask. To that man’s rheumy old eyes it was another Paki to whom he was appealing. For some reason not the most affecting beggar this, nothing bedraggled about him, holding up alright as far as one could tell from the outside. Someone was doing the man’s laundry. There was no whiff of alcohol; that wouldn’t do in that quarter. What was worse, that night the man held a food pack in a KFC plastic bag. Well my friend, if you can.... But that was half-formed mental bubble; in the end better charity prevailed. (The second job in early teens had been in a KFC kitchen on a busy highway back in the Great Southern Land—easy on the contempt Buster! What had been the little trick back-stage in those days, pulling a juicy piece from the breasts somehow and the customer never the wiser?...) Lahore Resto & Catering was directly across from P. Punjab and Al Karam further up the road on that side had sneakily stolen golden arches for their night illuminations. (In fact Pak P. was a chain it turned out, a sister store that was always empty sitting on one of the main junctions into town.) Such a glory for the people having their own quarter in the foreign land. By rights an outsider needed to pay his way passing through any community; there was a price of admittance. Doling out to the beggars was the least one could do. Two late-comers made it five altogether that night—the frazzled young Indian woman who wasn’t even really on the take just then and a second Blind.