Lids

 

The  members of the Chairman’s round-table in front of the servery beneath the fan at Wadi had altered over the months. Earlier in the year two previous stalwart couples had peeled off, likely in concert. More than likely financial disagreements had been involved concerning the Chairman's tours; it couldn’t have been anything else. (The two pairs had been met independently in passing around the traps, discretion forbidding questioning.)

The faithful stalwart was the cleaner/ex-con and his wife. They were a more recent couple from memory, though the lady had waited for the chap during the last term inside at least, from memory. Couple decades all up the guy had served, substances his undoing. A long stretch he had been clean; outta the woods now, hopefully. No doubt the lady had a lot to do with the success, Chairman Aziz helping too, likely. On the evenings Aziz & his wife were absent these two also failed to appear.

You could tell the guy liked that chair opposite the Chairman. Rarely did he say much himself, but when the Chair held forth the focus was always fixed. Man knew them all, Syed, Beefy, Man the ciggie guy & his sidekick. Nice fellow. The legal fags did for him now, 2 - 3 over the evening under the trees. Always neat, dyed, fine warm smile. Prayers were not joined in his case when Aziz and one or two of the others set off. (It would be enquired; like many of the men, ex-inmates in particular, direct questioning was usually answered directly.)

Aziz kept to the prayer schedule; the strictness was indispensable to the man. In some period prior to Ramadan – it may have been the Prophet’s birthday stretch – Aziz had led prayers at the table with a mic turned up. The man had no sense of his jarring voice and took cheeky comment as playfulness.

The Chair’s table accommodated 7 - 8 sitting close and sometimes the overflow needed a couple tables joined, which didn’t always make for smooth exchange. Sometimes the witticisms fired left & right, to-and-fro through the course, would leave the Chairman second best, acknowledged by the man with smiles & bowing of head.

            In recent weeks a particular fellow had become a regular at Aziz’s table, an ordinary Joe who was privately aware of his ordinariness. Usually the man sat on Aziz’s left, either adjacent or facing. Little tubby guy in the common street wear, who in this case had awarded himself an outstanding crown, the like of which had never been seen in the neighbourhood. It was possible even friends,  certainly acquaintances, would fail to recognise the man without.

            When Aziz was questioned the Chairman seemed to think the curiosity misdirected.

            I have one too, he informed. 52 inches tall.

            Ordinarily, Aziz wore a clean, white, regular songkok. The colour signified a man who had completed the hajj. In Aziz’s line, that performance had been undertaken times without number.

            The initial size for his songkok turned out an error. It had been centimetres. The confusion had arisen after the other’s songkok had been estimated from two tables away at a full 11- 12 inches.

It was difficult to take one’s eyes off this particular songkok. Over the foot it may possibly have been too. Placed on the guy’s actual foot, a kind of flipper would have resulted.

            Jet black, still stiff & shapely. A recent purchase after a Toto win, perhaps. This too would be enquired, when an opportunity presented.

            Sitting so low to the table-top the Tubby, adding the tower meant he could mix it with any takers. Black, but lustrous; fabric as new, perfectly smooth. Oddly, no one seemed to pay this songkok any regard. There was never a look in its direction; hardly ever any kind of look cast on that side. On the rare occasion this man spoke, in some brief exchange with Aziz, none of the others seemed to give ear.

            After advising of his own possession of a much taller article still, Aziz swiped through his photos. It was there somewhere. A travel agent had many, many pics on his phone. Aziz had never sorted them into albums. Finally, Aziz at a table at the Pasar, balancing a towering felt cone rather nervously on his head.

It could not be worn for prayers. It would fall off, Aziz explained.

It was Aziz who informed during the course here that the forehead needed to be uncovered in the prostrations; the bare forehead touching the carpet. Head-cover otherwise was not obligatory, but you would bet Aziz and the tubby kept to the local custom. (A reminder: like for women in Orthodox churches & synagogues, women in the mussolahs were required cover.)

Certainly Aziz’s party songkok could not have served in the mosque, and it seemed the same with the Tubby’s more handsome, shorter item. When the latter returned the other night from the maghrib, the handsome songkok had been swapped; exchanged for another article that was almost equally splendid.

No disrespect, but this tubby did remind of the guys in the old Laurel & Hardy B&W silents, who would get numerous kicks up the back-side. Casually administered kicks, in passing for these extras, for no apparent reason. At the cattle yards, on street corners, at any opportunity, someone gave the boot; it may not have been the leads. It seemed simply because of the figure the hapless fellows presented; to keep no-goods like that on their toes, make sure they didn’t get themselves any ideas.

That stock figure appeared in those skits for added laughs, and sometimes possibly more than one chap was involved. Low life average Joes, getting something to go on with. Back in the day kids of a similar sort were immediately identified at school; quiet, shy types who knew to keep outta the path of the big guys, the jocks & sharps. Look out, shut-up and maybe you wouldn’t get a swift boot up the kyber.  

Well, times had changed. The sans culottes had bettered themselves appreciably. It could only have been the lottery in this man’s case at Wadi. There was still no minimum wage in Sing. Over the last decade the government had addressed the huge disparities in income with giveaways 2 - 3 times a year. Aziz estimated the 11- 12 incher might have cost Tubby $50 - 60. Still, at the lower end, this was dough. The older penny-pinchers would often draw attention to 20 - 30c differences in the prices of tehs.

In the exchanges with Aziz care had needed to be taken. To begin, Aziz had been asked whether perchance the handsome Songkok might have been a mufti or imam.

Az enjoyed fielding enquiries. Any matter, any time. Anything on religion he could enlighten. Nice man. Forty-five year wedding anniversary recently, was it? Six or more adult kids and big number next gen.

After the maghrib the other night when Aziz and shortly after the Songkok returned, the latter reappeared minus the signature lid. Now it was that other colourful item that one sometimes saw in the newspapers, or in wedding parties. Lustrous again, but rich, dazzling lime green here. Originally the article was a wrap that needed to be carefully and tightly folded around the top of the scone, an intricate operation which could only be properly performed by retainers. In his explanations following, Aziz mentioned Malaysian & Indo royalty.

Like the other, never seen before in the G. Serai quarter. Once or twice the karaoke crew who would return to Wadi after their day out had a lady adorned with something like a tanjut. In the street parades in Yogyakarta, young, heavily-made up girls marched in formation down the middle of Malioboro with something of the kind.

This little guy had brought it out at Wadi the other night. TANJUT. Again, Aziz claimed back some of the thunder with his own similar in the wardrobe. Again, photographic corroboration. One of Az’s promos for the Korban, eventually found on the phone, featured a tanjut that somehow sat less elegantly on an admittedly more handsome head.

The hapless fall guy in the Laurel & H. seemed like he hadn’t had a wash in many a day. Drab, unkempt & grubby. Rather like the Tubby recently admitted to Aziz’s table.

Darts man Jamaal would know of any recent wins in the community. The following morning he had rocked up to Mr. T. T. with another triumph. The ticket was drawn out from Jam’s wallet. Unusually, both Saturday & Sunday Jam had used the same numbers, winners both times.

At a guess, Tubby might have scored a grand or more.

 

 

 

 

               Geylang Serai, Singapore 2011-26

 

 

Success

 

This new, improved poison was doing the trick. On Crane Road coming out for supper a bird with slightly ruffled feathers was not resting or pecking at crumbs. On the next corner at the former Joo Chiat Hotel, another, this time on its back. A Saturday evening between shifts perhaps responsible here. It was unlikely the enviro guys were not going 24/7 with this more concerted campaign. How could the hotel cope like that, or the shopkeepers on Crane. At the kopi shop opposite on Crane there were numerous diners at the tables. Both the hotel and the kopi had re-vamped and renovated over the last few years, in the case of the hotel, extensively. Rates at the latter might be $200 plus now, richer than Tristar around on Onan. Reception would need to send their cleaners out before too long. Oddly, some kind of upscale meat products, deeply veined, hung in the second window of A Hotel now. Two days ago Darts Man Jamaal had pointed out the dead bird in the gutter of Mr T. T.’s front veranda. (Always first with death notices in the community – on one notable occasion erroneously – Jamaal could not let even a birdie pass him by.) Despite sitting directly beneath the dead pigeon mornings over the teh & newspaper, it had completely passed notice. This morning was now four days unattended. Without someone’s report it might stay there many more days still. Drawing attention to it, Jam had also commented on the old Malay who cycled over daily and illegally fed the birds. No good talking to suchlike, Jam suggested.

Heads Up

Gerald sent a pre-dawn Flinders Street pic, autumnal cityscape of leaves, dotted colour, bright lights & geometric forms. Generic postcard product that had momentarily captured the man. Oddly, it brought back the old street-performer on the last night on Malioboro. No license was required there, of course, for such as himself. One laughed at the Sing comparison, but Melbourne’s vetting & licensing regime of the street artists was not much different. Coming back from the ITO supper on the other side of the street, the young sandwich-board no smoking guys were encountered. We laughed at the irony up & down the length of the thoroughfare. The old ancient, a serious bantam, fully fledged fly- or flea-weight, who would have fitted into your overcoat pocket, had not slipped from the previous visit 18 months back. On that occasion the show had been thereabouts too, a quiet, pure performance, without any drawing of attention to itself. Only the sudden spell of the routine, if in passing one happened to look in that direction. It was fundamentally a corso evenings on Malio, lazy shoppers, internal tourists, boys with their gals; trinkets, novelties & sweets. The old guy presented modest artistry that he had perfected over the years. There was no container for offerings, just as there was little direct beggary in Indo generally. A casual observer might have thought the man was merely entertaining himself, though of course he was too old for anything of the sort. The drab, worn apparel was the same as a good proportion on the street. (The shoppers were another class, though very much kampung folk themselves.) Eighteen months ago the man had sat the other side of the path, nearer the road, where his little show had involved a coin. Indo coins were almost weightless, thin and quickly scuffed; one knew the denominations by size. Yet this old man, in his late 70s and possibly pitched beyond, had the Rp500 anchored upright on its rim. With a careful flick of his finger it was sent spinning one & one half / two feet and sometimes more across the pavement tiles. Possibly the man had cleaned the surface, or carefully chosen his place. (The whole of Malio & Mangkubumi on the other side of the line was neatly paved now, with lottsa plantings.) Magic. Beautiful. Even a worn, alloy piece incapable of glinting struck an observer turning on itself like that and capering along the street. A few days ago again, mid-eve on Malio, the same man, this time by one of the columns that divided the veranda from the open passage. There was no coin now; possibly none was in the pocket. Instead, here the chap was found among the throng, amidst the dense crowd opposite the large masjid, amidst all the passing feet, standing on his head. Immediately recognised. No mistake. Even down at ground level like that. The little cap had cushioned his scone; with only that aid he could manage to keep himself upright 30 - 40 clear seconds. Free-standing; perfectly vertical. Only here the classical pose failed as the man needed to bend his knees, which had his feet awkwardly splayed outward. Short feet, not so ungainly. Perhaps he was still perfecting his routine, tired or outta practise. Between times he retreated to rest his back against the pillar. The hard, unyielding surfaced had pained. The cap needed to be removed and a few rub, rub, rubs of his thatch made it better; blinking a little. It must have put strain on the neck too. Shortly, one of the pijut further along would restore him, gratis. Those guys & gals could score decent rupiah for a proper kneading. A child-sized artist; an example of the large number of stunted in Indo. Loner too by the looks, like many artists. Modest, persistent, uncomplaining; managing in his own way. This man’s absence, the lack of his kind in the award-winning most liveable city of the world did make it a poorer place, to say nothing of the Sing scene along its premier shopping strip. (The juggler was absent on the last visit to Orchard, when Donald Barthelme’s Sixty Stories was picked up at Kinokuniya ✅✅✅. The vetted buskers were found in place, different now, but same, same. For some reason the guitar-strumming gospel guy on the corner was absent.)

 

 

 

                                     

                                                                                                                          Yogyakarta, Indonesia

 

 

 

 

Foto Op. (The Roaches) April26

 

 

Odd how it had not been more explicit, more clearly and simply understood. All this long while, right across the decade and more, you were tirelessly observing the family unit, the intact, functioning social group that had upheld human and animal kind more broadly these untold millenia. Retained. Coherent still. Excellent forms every which way you turned. Magnificent in short. The hidden, undisclosed had little consequence against all the abundant evidence.

Fascinating display. All the elements of ‘50s TV apple pie family drama was given a much more thorough, stronger form here.

            With Eid the narrow streets were thronged; the wider Malioboro and the mall too. Ten years ago foot traffic at the mall had always been sparse. Eid must have been a large part, but likely the economy had significantly improved too. (Since , dipped again on many measures.) Nuclear families perhaps predominating; extended well represented, though not such a lot of the earlier generation. Gramps & grandma had been left behind in the kampung to care for the chooks & fish.

            The costume hirers were doing a roaring trade up toward Pajeksan, opposite the handsome old former Dutch admin buildings; high colour sarongs, scarves & headdress, with the play kris stuck behind in the men’s waistbands. The raised parasols were largely for effect, though of course even the morning sun was murder. Comic opera form; perfectly understandable. Everyone did it everywhere. Only it was odd here paying photographers. How else to get everyone in the shot it must have been, for those who could afford.

            The orang with tidy dosh filled the Hamza Batik resto on the top storey of the building. One tall, self-assured dentist most likely the other day hosting his wife & 4 - 5 kids, for what looked a routine treat. Between the plates colourful fruit juices crowded the tables. After the repast, shortly before the paterfamilias wordlessly rose for departure, his eldest girl brought out a pack of floss picks and handed them round.

            Mas Adhi had reserved the usual room. There were precious few guests at the losmen on Gang 2, or any of the adjacent. All the foot & becak traffic came from the top of Sosro and the other streets, where the prices were more affordable.

            Ten or eleven days passed without a single request for a photograph with the bule,  the white guy in the panama (more than slightly soiled after 18 months daily wear). Then the day after Eid, three cannoned on in one morning.

The first was a lad with his wife and another gal. A shot of himself with the fancy man was quite enough for that galant. The other examples were extended family groups, where young children featured with their elders & parents. In both cases the smiles exchanged with the kids had been noticed; it was that which prompted and encouraged the oldies to try for it, the shy mites ushered forward. Go on, go on.

Beautiful, glorious children. Fabulous adornments to any life. Saviours. Startled of course by the uncanny warmth shown little ones like themselves.

            The people were honoured to have their progeny greeted in such fashion. Greatly honoured. Exceedingly grateful. A young 6 - 7 year old girl with two long pigtails radiated healthy beauty. She and others were clasped for the pics, accepted hands on the shoulder, the top of their heads. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Sama, sama, sama.

            The foreigner speaking the language! How remarkable. The shots would be included in the family albums, a tale to tell.

            It suggested how far they had travelled for their precious holidays. Their kampungs were hours away, drivers needing to be hired for the trek. (Regular transport was still limited and difficult in Indo.) They would get the main news items out where they were, for those interested, though very likely not all the ins-and-outs of many of the horrors. The Epstein world was far side of the moon where these people had settled and were raising children by the fields, with the ducks & chicken. 

            From within Adhi’s room at Pinang Merah the calls from the masjid 15m across were heard only on rare occasions. It had been the same on previous visits. The amplification was never lacking and one or two of the younger muezzin were eager to highlight their range; yet there had not been a single wake from the calls. It was odd. One did feel entirely at ease in Adhi’s homestay. Overnight the snib on the door was left hanging.

            More oddness again. Inevitably, it was going to sound fanciful invention.

            As the days had gone on the relationship with the roaches in the adjacent bathroom developed. To call the space an ensuite would give the wrong idea. It measured 1.3 x 1.7m, maybe. Pan, shower-head mounted on the wall and bucket below the small spigot. No basin, shelf, towel hook or rack. In one corner a tiny plastic waste bin; citronella one side and a deodoriser sachet the other on the floor.

            A pair of roaches, presumably M & F. There was an overflow hole in the side wall where in the early days the critters would exit when the door was opened. As the days progressed and the threat receded, one or in some cases both roaches confidently remained in place. It was unclear which gender was the more dauntless. One often chose the top of the waste bin for roosting and held firm there. One morning the posture of one had altered; it had been relaxing on its side somehow. 

The last day or two there was almost no scampering out of sight; fright at the entry no more; the flicking of the light and most recently even the bucketing of the toilet was often taken in stride by the pair. It had been a minor point of honour for the whole of the term that there had not been a single cistern flushing of the toilet. All of it turned out could be managed from catchment—from teeth-brushing, hand-washing, during bathing angling the shower-head hard against the wall and re-positioning the bucket. How many guests were going to go to that trouble? Gold star.

Unfortunately, the enviro credentials had been spoilt the other day when the A/C had been left on 2 hours for the ITO supper, around in Mataram. (The wife Tri might have noticed on the return when she passed the open door.) Through the nights it had been impossible without, same as afternoon recuperation. 24C.

It was Mutalib in Sing who had told of the special care that was needed inside with roaches. Injure, or god forbid squash, a cell mate’s roach, you were in for it big time. The story had emerged in novels too over the years, possibly Genet.

 

 

 

 

   Yogyakarta, Indonesia

                                                                                                             Eid / Lebaran 2026

 

 

 

 

 

Unaccountable

 

Gone half 4 @ Tanamera. Light lunch was taken @ Beringharjo, after one of those delightful rounds of the old women at both the baju & fruit/veg. The usual human element numerously. Perhaps a week, or even a fortnight was needed down in the great southern land in order to tally anything of the same number… Well, that has to be a gross underestimation, don’t it? No question. Where would something of the kind be gathered out and about in those parts? Let’s try to enumerate: the fine young Viet at Brunetti’s with the bass OZ strine calling the numbers. One or two minor cases at Scarlett in Foots. The Viet bakery around the corner in Hopkins Street from the girls serving behind the counter, even when they were harried. Possibly a fellow cyclist walking his bike. One of the foreign students at the market library—not Flinders Lane any more. It was wearisome attempting to stretch it further.

 

Publication news: Salute! (Tekka Market), published by Modern Literature

 Hello all

Here is another old piece, dating from the third year on the Equator, recently published. The Indian Quarter of Singapore again, appropriately placed up in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, from where a large part of the diaspora hails. A few years ago an earlier, longer piece was published by the same people at Modern Literature.

This one runs a little under 1.2k words and is centered on the wonderful Tekka Market on Serangoon Road, a greater attraction than any of the promoted big-ticket places. Free to read on the site,—

https://modernliterature.org/salute-tekka-market-by-pavle-radonic/

Svako dobro, all best

Pavle

Splash (Jogja)

  

Hooded against the heat, the kampung lad brought a bucket of water over to the horse & cart. A drink first for the beast, then each of the shod hoofs was splashed, following which the tail that rested in a sling stretching from its hind quarters to the front of the carriage. Reddy-brown, thick, long & handsome tail, taking a curve in order to fit there. The coat of the horse was a couple shades lighter, with less of red. In the light of the late morning sun the colours glimmered. A little puddle remained in the sling afterward, where a portion of the tail rested. Banyak, many times this was done for the beast through the course of a day, the lad answered the question. Standing & trotting in the hot sun throughout, understandable. Early evening last night, not long after maghrib when setting out for the meet with Mahshushah, another horse on Malioboro had become unruly and climbed into the potted plants along the gutter. Couple dozen spectators with cameras had gathered to watch the men settling the animal, one in front at the horse’s head as it swung and bared its teeth; another behind was turning the sling that had been twisted round. In front the horseman in his fancy attire may have gotten a little nip on the hand in the process, as far as the bit in the mouth would allow. Unflustered, the man continued, calmly and patiently. Again, skittishness under the hot sun all day perfectly understandable. How people coped so equably themselves without ever any kind of temper or annoyance recalled in how many visits to Java was the question. Not a single eruption, nor anything like, a year and more altogether. Čeljade trpi što magare nebi, Bab used to say surveying the human scene. A person endured what was beyond a donkey.

 

 

NB. It took couple days to get to the bottom of the sling. It was not to confine the tail, stop it getting into the spokes of the wheels; the tails were not that long. A carriage delivering passengers to Ramai Mall solved the mystery. The horse’s poop was valuable; catching it also kept the streets clean.