Lesson Learned

This was very much a known, memorably well-known and unforgettable from the earliest months in the republic to the north. Perhaps now the example could be found throughout the globe, best biz practise in the competitive service sector. Possibly in fact it was connected to the introduced Christian purity in the region too. Was it a coincidence the place was manned by a Petrus, a Maria & Raphael? It was one of a chain, yes, young Maria answered. A dozen visits to date, this morning was the first witnessing of the cleaning of the broad leaves of the five pots squeezed into one corner of the entry. Maria carried a moist cloth in hand. In order to clean properly of course it was best two-handed, one underneath the individual leaf so that the surface was firmed & flattened, like on an ironing board. Couple minutes did it; perhaps the better part of four in total. It was the last part that struck most particularly. Took a sec to untangle. Yes, the photo was group WhatsApp for the manager (not supervisor), Maria explained. Cleaning. And, ya, China orang the topmost, owner of the chain. Frequent visitor to the northern republic, if not resident, this latter, you could bet sheep stations.

Keeping Order

Footing up for the cafe this morning perhaps 2 doz. mid-teen boys proceeding along in the opposite direction in a long line of pairs on the outer path, green long-sleeved tees & caps many of them. Toward the rear the elder, early 30s, blew a whistle and called a command, which halted the line. More commands followed before the boys set off again in slightly better order, swinging arms more rhythmically and keeping in-step. The narrow path had them bunched closely abreast. Dull, blank faces; some cloud cover was in their favour. Yes, sekola, the button-holed lady under the veranda agreed. Or in her pronunciation, skola. (Otherwise they might possibly have been delinquents from a reformatory.) Fifty metres on there was more charm in a group of early primary girls in their other kind of uniform, full-length tunics in white with orange trim, sitting on the inner path around the teacher on the bench. With the former general, former head of Special Forces, accused war criminal banned from entry into a number of countries, in the Presidential saddle now after numerous attempts and one large organised protest at the last failure (very much ala Trumpet), you had to worry.

Street Speak (Jogja)

In the last 24 hours in Jogja the street spoke something of its former self. 

As happens travelling in foreign parts, the particular day & hour had completely slipped. Suddenly arriving back in the middle of the gang with Suze and the Majalengka kids, the crowd of men appeared at the other end, scores of them in their bright attire filling the passage. More men entered as we progressed and when we began to pass pressed close, inevitably resulting in brushes against each other. At the losmen younger lads in some kind of white tunic top, perhaps from one of the hotels, had even come into the eating hall of Adhi's and lay bunched over the tiling, many propped against the wall fixed on their screens. Back in G Serai too it was always awkward walking against the tide Fridays as either the men were going across for the prayer, or leaving afterward. It was an unfortunate, but inevitable division. Head bowed, slowed pace and turning aside like a sail was the best that could be managed.

 

Mid-eve walking up to see the becak driver Agus an old man seated on the paving called one back for a closer look; called back and detained in order that he might be acknowledged somehow. The coin he used for his amusement seemed smaller than the one rupiah; shinier and smaller, perhaps viewed from standing height. The chap, in his mid and possibly late 70s, had perfected the spinning of the piece across the smooth surface squares. Standing the coin upright with his thumb, it may have been his middle finger giving the flick. How the glinting disk spun on its axis a foot or more, causing the chap to stretch reaching for it after each turn. Marvellous. When the man noticed the admiration he was equally chuffed, bowing modestly a moment, before raising his smiling face and extending a small, brown, leathery hand. Doubly marvellous.

 

And then the morning’s plastics scavenger he may have been. The action that unfolded there was so impressive, so compelling and overwhelming, that memory of the man’s occupation could not be recalled. Possibly it was drinks he was hawking, or indeed collection of plastics. The man may have walked barefoot, though in the city usually only the odd ancient remained unshod. The becak driver he approached was sitting in his conveyance with others parked in the gutter. That man was well into his 70s, if not pitched beyond. The younger came up to the edge of the path and lent in to the driver, reaching his shoulder and around to his back, patting and caressing. Ten or a dozen touches were made by the brown hand over the blue tee, not including between times the alternating rubbing & squeezing. The words added were inaudible over the distance and would have been mostly unintelligible in any case. Plastics must have been the passerby’s focus, otherwise he would have presented the driver an offering.  Very likely the dirty white poly bag over his shoulder had immediately dropped from memory.

 

NB. It was the eve of the ancestral Saints Day back in the village, St Petka; Paraskeve for the Greeks.

Kerchief

 

We always had little embroidered handkerchiefs like that at home. It may have been only the women who kept them tucked in their left sleeve, where they made a little lump at the wrist. Real handkerchiefs did not appear for us children until around high school, and even then they weren’t the full adult size. Along the Mustafa passage here lunchtimes there might be five or six workers from the department store, all in their sky blue shirts and blouses, getting some shut-eye after their meal. Beyond Verdun corner there were more over the benches and within the alcoves. In the first section some of the regulars could be identified  by the backs of their heads and their rounded shoulders. One broad-backed younger chap was clearly struggling with the regime; there was never a pass without him down for the count in the middle section, head resting on his forearm. The lady with the little blue & white kerchief brought from home, little older than the lad, managed the heat no better. There were likely early rises and crossings over the Causeway from Malaysia here for much of this workforce. Naturally the department store was airconned; that provision was one of the great pluses for the commercial sector. Nevertheless, many of the Mustafa staff were zonked by lunch; like legions of others, they would snooze on the buses & trains homebound. After her meal each day the lady here lays her colourful cloth neatly over her forearm for some softer cushioning; overnight she might wash it with a fragrant detergent. It seems to be the only one in her wardrobe at home, or at least reserved for the purpose. In former time in some countries women would happily celebrate certain occasions twirling such apparel over their heads. Few in Singapore seemed to use handkerchiefs; the elderly hawked tissue packs on the street, 3 @ $2. Viet and Mainland Chinese groups flew in couple of years ago for intense four week peddling.

Serbian Legends

  

 

 

Getting off the bus from Belgrade—two and a half hours express—the chap manning the luggage counter immediately guessed from the description.

Deda Slavisa, Grandad Slavisa.

Most of the gypsies around the place knew him too and had a smile and a crack for Slavo when we went round the piazza later.

Seventy seemed inapplicable for a man like Slavo. Much of the vehemence and restlessness was retained. The local notoriety was first gotten for his football skills back in the early 60's, when Slavo was a star in one of Nis’s big teams. Played with heart, the old guys reported. Knew how to roll it.

The local Komren team had evidently done their region proud, providing a number of players to the national league.

Both Slavo and his side-kick Uros got to the land of Oz through their football talent. Cika Danilo the Serb butcher in Acland St brought the pair out.

Cika Danilo had been one of the chief sponsors of Footscray JUST. The club President back then was the Dalmatian Cika Ante, who ran The Vineyard steakhouse behind Luna Park.

Slavisa's mate Uros, a fellow primary schooler, was half gypsy. Truth be told, many in the region of Nis had something of the gypsy quality. The gypsy population in those parts was among the highest in Europe. Macedonia further to the south was even larger. (Isabel Fonseca in her book, Bury Me Standing, uses a verse from one of their songs for her epigraph: the gypsies call for vertical burial because they have been on their knees all their lives.)

Uros lasted in Australia about a dozen years. Unlike Slavo, he couldn’t hold down a job. Through the early ‘80's you could have seen Uros nights in the tram stop on the corner of Brunswick & Gertrude Streets, drinking with the blackfellas.

On the park Uros was known as The Assassin, not for his football skills, but because when he got mowed down on his runs he would memorably curse his opponent and threatening various forms of imminent death. Laughable for a scarecrow like U.

A bit player on the field, Uros’s talent was as a musician, mostly self-taught piano-accordionist.

Uros played and sang his heart out on the second night in Nis. In Melbourne he had played weddings, christenings and the Yugo bars—the Rob Roy had been a regular venue, restaurants Macedonia and Yugoslavia down the road.

That warm June night Uros quickly took up his instrument, with partner Ziza adding her voice when she knew the words. Occasionally Slavo entered third harmony.

Ziza was a little restrained in the circumstances. A couple of times she asked for lowered volume. Some years before, after his return from Australia, Uros had enticed Ziza away from her first husband over the back fence. An hour into the playing this neighbour began to return fire from his side with other old folk songs on his cassette recorder. The clacketing tape ran off the reel at one point and Uros had no difficulty out-gunning the wheezy old machine.

From the side of the case Uros’s long thin fingers danced over the buttons. Getting muddled once or twice, he peered around the front of the instrument to straighten himself out. Despite the early June heat, before starting Uros had asked Ziza to fetch a vest from indoors to lighten the load on his shoulders. Uros’s lashes were long like his fingers; lips & nose same. In certain aspects, in particular movements, there was something of the assassin in Uros, something of the blade.

When he took a smoke and there was no room for pause, Uros placed the cigarette in the crook of his thumb and forefinger, playing on.

Uros could not have weighed more than 45 kg. Giving Ziza the lead and encouraging her, Uros threw out the accordion in her direction and brought it back from the rise. His own voice was thin and tuneless, but when Ziza retreated or didn’t know the words, Uros filled the breach, relying on the lyrics for effect.

Through the little concert on the patio outside Uros’s door a screeching came up from the dark on the other side of the house that was put down to kokoske, chooks. A couple of days later Uros showed his vineyard behind the house and an orchard beyond. On one side of the house there was a vegetable garden and on the other a sty and large chicken coop.

In the light of day the fowl was revealed as ducks, turkeys, chickens and pesky pheasants that were said to be deadly for snakes and rats. It was the pheasants that had let up those tearing cries through the concert.

The locals seemed acclimatised to the odour of the chicken poo. A large cage of turkey chicks hung a couple of metres from our table, the light within the cage throwing shadows on the house wall when the chicks stirred. Regular unruliness in the cage needed Ziza’s intervention.

Underfoot a pair of dogs, one of whom died the day after, had nuzzled our legs and a number of kittens made movement precarious. Uros played on from the store of songs in his repertoire, the old themes returning again and again: love and heartbreak, sons and mothers, fate and nevermore, the café and drink.

A mother reported the unfaithfulness of her beautiful daughter-in-law to her son, who let it pass, so besotted was he by the beauty. Startling turnarounds came one after the other. The recourse to the café and bottle, grief and its term, the domain granted love and beauty, all found uncommon reconciliations one after another. The verses stabbed and stabbed again, far too rapidly to be retained.

Uros, Ziza and Slavo sang the well-known songs together, in a discordant, moving unison. There was time only for a brief gloss and clarification, before Uros moved on, his long, thin fingers reaching further.

Uros kept fit and nimble. Younger, cleaner-living, non-drinking friends had peeled off. Slavo and Uros often joked about their drinking. After a heavy night they mock-berated one another.

We’re not going to drink any more.

Nor any less.

One day near the end of the stay there were three separate deaths to mark. In the morning the first anniversary of Slavo’s brother Petar’s passing needed marking. Slavo wasn’t going to the wake at his nephew’s after the visit to the grave, as he had unaccountably been left off the list of mourners on the notice.

We followed the neighbours and relatives slowly in the car while they trudged up to the graveyard. Everyone brought an offering to share, the men a bottle of rakija and the women food. After the priest rattled through his verses each man and woman came around, taking care not to miss anyone in the circle.

During the course Uros sidled over with perfect deadpan.

Majku mu jebem, Mother be fucked. Why was I born 30 years too soon.

Earlier, prior to departure for the cemetery, the news had come that another pal had passed on. On the eve Vlasta Peceni, Baked Vlasta—not to be confused with Vlasta Gumeni, Vlasta Rubberman—died in his bed.

Slavo had mentioned this Vlasta in the days prior. A telecommunication company was attempting to erect a transmission tower adjacent to Slavo’s land, in the midst of dense housing. This had roused a neighbourhood protest, with Baked Vlasta the most effective and formidable in resistance.

Like a number of other relatives, neighbours and acquaintances, Baked Vlasta had served time. Mostly it was theft and larceny, sometimes serious violence. In protesting the tower Baked Vlasta had threatened council officers and police too, reminding them of his form. All their addresses could be easily discovered, he warned.

Early in his prison term years before Baked Vlasta had managed a remarkable escape. That day the judge at his trial was paid a surprise visit. The trembling fellow was taken in hand and shown a long knife. No need alarm; the judge wouldn’t be harmed. Vlasta simply made the man swear the next time he sat in judgement he would give the accused a fair chance to explain himself and tell his side of the story. Baked Vlasta had seemed perfectly well the day before.

Slavo and Uros took the bottle of rakija to the widow for condolences, only to learn of another death that same day. This acquaintance fetched back to the footballing days.

In the evening we drove to Upper Komren to pay our respects. As the lads were soaked by then, a driver was needed. Being further out from town, there were barns, orchards, green cornfields and browning haystacks en route. At the house the deceased was laid on a table in what must have been the living room, body covered by a blanket, with added towels on top, because of the odour, Slavo said. The days were hot, though nights cooled quickly. An air-cooler rattled at the head of the casket, to which the bereaved son regularly added water. Old women in widow’s weeds made up the circle. After a decent interval we went to stand under a large fig where a number of men were gathered.

Among the group here was the star of the old team. Slavo, always considered and honest in judgement, acknowledged this Johnny as champion. Johnny had been a play-maker, highly skilled dribbler, tough and hard. The men in the group continued to hold their former star in highest regard.

It seemed Johnny reigned in Upper Komren for other than sporting talent too. The man quietly, unabashed, received the tributes from his former teammates. The deceased had been an occasional player in the team. Johnny recalled a game when the deceased’s father had come looking for his son for help with the work back home. Before the father could sight him the lad had run from the field and hid in the corn.

Uros asked the precise age of their friend. It turned out he was two years younger than Uros—born in Slavo’s year. Uros had been drinking the whole day. He wanted company into the night, which led to words with Slavo. The pair had no reserve when they cussed each other. Even the most offensive fucking of mothers was not out of bounds. There was I fuck you in the mouth, your sister/father/brain/elbow/all. A deft comic duet.

Two other outings at Nis included historical monuments. A short drive out of town was the place of the last stand of the great Stevan Sindjelic. Sindjelic led the local uprising against the Ottomans early in the nineteenth century that finally, after five hundred years (six hundred for Greece), liberated the Balkans. 2009 was the bicentenary of that battle. King Alexander had built a modest monument to commemorate Cega, where Stevan Sindjelic, surrounded and greatly out-numbered (betrayed by the Russian Tzar with a separate peace), fired into his gun-powder to take with the remnant of his own men a large number of besieging Turks.

An old pal of the boys was the monument’s custodian, a man named Miroselac (Village-Peace-Maker), who liked a drop and gave the history more smoothly when lubricated. The monument was in the form of a simple tower, from whose height the lie of the battlefield could be seen. The area remained unsettled; with the help of some maps the folds of the land gave some hint of the old battle.

A couple days later we went out along the road to Sofia to see Cele Kula—the House of Skulls. After the battle at Cega the enraged Turks had severed the heads of the Serbs and mounted them on a crude stand. Originally there were some 900 heads in the honeycomb cube of lime and mortar about four metres square, the guide informed.

It was a simple structure initially. Again it had been Alexander who had sanctified the fallen, covering the original monstrosity with a Victorian-style crypt.

Slavo recollected a visit in his youth when he maintained the skulls had stood at that time naked and bare, outside any covering. The guide replied many made the same remark on returns in adulthood, only the skulls sitting in the rows being retained in memory. At our visit there were a dozen or so skulls remaining, including what was reputed to be Sindjelic’s own, now encased in glass. Relatives had taken heads away for burial; others too mementoes.

 

NB. First drafted 2009 after a visit to Niš, Southern Serbia.

In a Fix (the Pakistani quarter, KL) dating 2013 / Oct24 unposted prev possibly

 

Shots of a street beating administered by an angry group of what looked like Indian women—the older chap on the receiving end appeared almost Chinese. As well as collecting the blows, the man had his shirt and part of his trousers shredded. The danger of being literally stripped naked in a public place saw him clutching at the torn remnants, even at the cost of dropping his guard and leaving himself more vulnerable.

From all sides the slaps rained down, onto his cheeks, his forehead, neck and back, when a hand missed its mark. There was very little the fellow could do to protect himself or avoid the barrage. Blinking and clutching at his rags, he stumbled along.

One woman seemed to have taken pity on him, trying to steer him away from the melee. In-between strikes the assailants were berating him. The camera had only caught the incident once the physical assault was in full swing. Prior to that there had been accusations and condemnation no doubt.

There came no protest or argument of any kind from the man. Guilty as charged, he seemed to concede; whatever the charge may have been.

Highly unlikely this particular man could have been one of the gang rapists in the current case where the victim died a short while ago in a Singapore hospital, after being transferred from Delhi. This chap on screen had tipped sixty. A case of outrage of a woman's modesty, perhaps—to use the current statute in this region dating from colonial times. Something of that kind, rather than picking of a pocket.

After dinner TV feature, following the daily bulletin. Familiar kind of program. Only the content in this Pakistani version of the format was rather different.

The outdoor screen at Restoran Mehran that carried the segment raised not the slightest interest from the men at the tables. Their concentration was directed entirely at the flat-screen indoors. There may have been some technical hitch getting the sports channel on the other screen. On the news channel there were switches to the cricket match—wickets, runs and near misses; but mixed with political and social stories, and then tooth-paste, hair-care and refrigerators.

Hardly satisfactory for a Championship match, especially one against the traditional foe. Fifty, or seventy, pairs of eyes here were turned and raised indoors, the portion from the pavement having to endure the passersby interrupting the vision.

A few nights earlier in the week there had been an even larger crowd and all screens showing the game. Tall presenter in elegant dress and shawl walked along a studio platform in front of screens that carried the features. The public assault of the old man that did a number of cycles behind her had perhaps been dug from the archives as a local example that showed the Indian case in a poor light. Certainly in the towns and villages where these men at Mehran hailed from such rough and ready justice was nothing remarkable. Not worth a single look. The English tag described the footage as Breaking News; wonderfully delicate Urdu along the bottom.

Stonings and beheadings might have even failed to draw interest on Jalan Ipoh here.

On this night the sports' lovers were almost totally silent. Rather against expectation, it turned out the Pakistanis were clearly in the ascendant. This however needed to be consolidated and further proved; therefore patience in the audience. A fine four hit. A two and three. Not a twitch; complete blank across the entire sea of faces.

It went on in the same way, more than uncanny. Little spurts of runs from nice glances and drives; a fine glide through backward square-leg. Nothing whatever. Describing the scene as funereal would have given the matter that wrong kind of sharpness.

The men seemed to be watching, but without seeing. No kind of known Western group could compare, certainly not of the sporting kind. A cowed audience in its seats at a staff meeting enduring a harangue might approach the case.

All eyes were fixed on the screen; directed very precisely. One hundred eyes. Without the merest flicker.

If this was not mass psychosis, it was close.

Silence, with the governing emotion apprehension; perhaps dread. Perhaps masked contempt.

It went on in the same way, until the men finally got what they were after.

It was only a wicket, an appeal for a wicket, a near chance, that could rouse this crowd suddenly from their astonishing fixity. All else was sufferance.

It was India that was batting.

 

                   Chow Kit, Kuala Lumpur

Arab Cousins (Dec24)

  

Conveying again the appreciation of her cousin yesterday Hul was suitably chuffed, only thing being for her his abandonment of Islam. Naturally. The old felon had really let fly. Pray? To who was I gonna pray? The creator who had programmed this world? The robotics that dictated life? ( Not meaning the robotics that the government here was promoting at every opportunity.) Make money. Buy condo. Go holiday. Rocketing salvos like that had never before been launched from the Sarah tables. Hul’s innocent appreciation of her cousin’s muscles had caused her to enquire whether his observances too had been kept up. Some of the pair’s relos, siblings included in Kamal’s case, were living the scenes shown on TV, the tripping from limousines to yachts & jets was all real in their lives. The man’s eyes stared out whenever he was onto something. Eyes like missiles on the launch pad, those pointy-headed ones we boys drew back in primary and saw now in the media garlanded by ambitious politicians. Who’s gone? Kamal abruptly asked his cousin a number of times. Who’s dead? The man was serious; seriously wanting to know. After returning to the question once or twice in the face of his cousin’s limited responses, he explained his embarrassment happening upon relatives. Oh, how’s so-and-so, then? Somebody’s mother, sister. Ah! She died two years ago. On her side Hul had trouble dealing with the bluntness, and it was true too she was a bit outta the loop after her own terms of absence from the community. After 24 or 27 months Kamal had just emerged from inside, the most recent of his stretches. The last time Hul had seen him he must have looked quite different. Well, so much time on his hands. A hundred, hundred & fifty push-ups, squats, &etc. Under his tee there was a six-pack. For a moment Kamal considered a display, before returning to his laksa. (A horrible dish, it turned out, more than half left over. Try it, he challenged what seemed to him a doubting cousin Hul.) On his ankle there was an electronic tag. For a second this too the man had thought to show. Everything was on the level, without hedging or shame; brutal truth. Naked openness that allowed any & all questions, whether from family member or perfect stranger. He had married once, yeah. When he got out from one of his stints he succumbed to family pressure, it sounded like. The one lady who was prepared to overlook his history became wife. A brief episode without children. He was a member of NA. That was Narcotics Anonymous, he explained. Yes, I’m an addict, he confessed to no one in particular more than once during the course without being asked, at which cousin Hulwana always blanched slightly and turned aside. The drug they had him on now, the one prescribed by the rehab people was marvellous, better than heroin. Magic; tons better. There was no need to return to the H. Privately later Hul expressed her concerns : How could they be prescribing him drugs. Shouldn’t he be on sleeping pills?  Beautifully innocent Hul, whose knowledge of substances was confined to M, as she called it. How did he first get on? The question, like all others, was immediately answered. Teen years a friend suggeste a try (replica of the description the authorities here issued in warning of the slide). Initially it was a bad trip. After a week he phoned the friend, or cousin it may have been. Bro. That shit made me sick, Bro. The remainder got diverted. The eyes didn’t poke out from the sockets, but grew bulbous and bright, bullish you would have said. The one death cousin Hul related brought them out again. Oh. She’s dead. It wasn’t just the last 24 or 27 months Kamal was catching up on, much more had passed him by. One of his and Hul’s relos was soon to marry to a Tan Sri in Malaysia. This didn’t bring bulbous eyes; they were more playful now, with smiles and some lolling of head. Oh gee! Tan Sri, really? Hul was cool about it, merely confirming. Ah. Ah. The connections. It may have been these connections that led to the TV reality riff. It was a Jamiyah rehab where he was placed, but not the one up at Lorong 26; the one at Clementi. And it wasn’t 6:30 return; it was 9:30. Kamal produced a document to prove it, passed initially to his cousin. After the horrid laksa there would be ample time for the $36 or $38 steak filling the dinner plate he had set his sights on in Arab Street. It wasn’t clear whether his cousin would accompany him, she was tired from the day before. (With something we can’t go into here, accommodating devout Muslim that Hul remained.) In the latter part, seeking root causes and understanding, Hul asked about childhood and upbringing. There was something there, Kamal granted. The Arab father had married a Malay mother, when between the pair there was not a word in common. Like duck and crow, Kamal might have said. There was clearly some weight in the circumstance, which in the tumble failed to emerge properly. Clearly the cousins had never delved this deep before. Beatings might have been mentioned, possibly alcohol in the house too. The two elder sisters had prospered, but would not have a bar of the reprobate brother. There may have been another who stayed on course. On the matter of the programming of life the man had been told that was a matter of particular place and time; Singapore very specifically. Had he been in the Arabian desert the form of life he would find would be far different. Well, in fact he had visited the desert, travelled from Riyadh to somewhere else in 40 minutes driving, when back in the day traversing that distance would have needed 8-10 hours or more. Along the way, on the drive, Kamal saw the people lived like…in the Stone Age, he wanted to say, when he knew that didn’t really fit. At something  Hul said about the future cousin Kamal countered with the short span that remained him; yet shortly after he mentioned a term of twenty years from his present point in his late 60s. The miracle drug he named couldn’t be found online—ammo or emmo; the alternative lilica the same. Naltrexone it must have been, though the euphoric high reported didn’t fit.