Holiday (Muharram)

A late teh by Masjid India on the way back to the hotel. The gathering at Kader had been unappealing and resulted in a short sit after lunch after the last of the newspaper. It was still taking some time coming to terms with the different political snares, the ructions among the newly formed government, more murders still that appeared to have been linked to the financial scandals, concoctions from the former PM and his hot-shot lawyer finangling matters. Tedious a good deal of it, but once you were on the scent it did need to be pursued. The random drops of rain on this occasion were read correctly, the fall holding off couple of hours. Another Tamil place on the lane leading to the mosque a hundred metres off. Their halia was far from the mark there, but the long bench facing the lane compensated and they had bananas on the tables to top-up after the light lunch, as well as boiled eggs and some kind of fried savouries. An old granddad who came to take a seat opposite was only a few degrees off the Soeharto mould, not unusual here of course, where the murderous kleptocrat was often reflected on the streets. Had the old setan needed to hide out somewhere in the region like Karadjic in Serbia, it would not have been difficult. The day was a designated holiday here in the true sense of the word, etymologically speaking: it was the first day of the Islamic New Year, the first day of Muharram. A few days before a report in the newspaper had mentioned the expectation during Muharram: from memory one was supposed to steer clear of any dispute or argument during the month, practise humility and devote oneself to prayer and deeper contemplation of the hereafter, it may have been. After Ramadan Muharram was the second most holy month in Islam. Possibly this was the reason for the lack of festive colour on the streets. The streets were largely vacant and quiet; it had been only the closure of the banks that confirmed it was indeed the designated public holiday that had been reported. One striking sign of festivity had been found within the newly re-modeled grounds of old Masjid Jamek behind the former parliament and the padang. A few days earlier in the middle of Chinatown a large Hindu temple had finally been passed. Over the weeks on this visit the thought had occurred where were they hiding the Hindu worship in the centre there. A dozen tourists were gathered at a kind of cloakroom beside the entry where wraps were being distributed before entrance was permitted. On the river side at Jamek the grounds had been incorporated into the beautification of the banks; further up-river by ABC Resto the works were at a more rudimentary stage. Here by Jamek the setting was complete. New tiles and paving had been married with the stone of the mosque and stretched right down to the water’s edge, where a dozen spouts gushed jets into the middle of the river. Across that area a group of young women attired in layers of blood red paced like dancers over the steps and down onto the lower level toward the water for friends with cameras. They no doubt took turns taking each other’s poses. Here too smaller iterations of the “supertrees” had been introduced by the designers, such as featured in Singapore’s wondrous Gardens by the Bay. (These shapely concrete sculptures had first appeared in Japan and Korea; now they were proliferating in the region just as the last of the jungle and forest was being logged and converted to palm.) Over one of the lunches with Mahshushah on this trip she had mentioned that she had still not prayed at Masjid Jamek, the provision there being inadequate it seemed for women. (Reports had some mosques in the region continuing to shoo away women.) The girls on the steps and across the paving might easily have been part of a dance ensemble; they had shopped together for their garments and seen filmic and song sequences online. Likely advertising and TV used this newly re-modeled stage; the churches, shrines, temples and now mosques were going the same way. Along the walk up from Chow Kit one heard religious music in various forms issuing from the shops, none of which could compare with the reach of the muezzin at the Pakistani Mosque by the market. Some mornings one slept through this man’s fajr and then awaited the next occasion. The calls later in the day were given by others.

Prostration (Ratko Djordjov Savic)

Another death in the family; the extended family. Another near contemporary. Brat od Ujaka, Brother from maternal Uncle. Ratko carried our grandfather Rade’s name—Ratko informally, like Mladic the Bosnian Serb General imprisoned at the Hague. As the eldest son of the male line of old Rade, Ratko was the most cherished by granddad. Cousin Vajo—Vasilije; from the second eldest daughter—told of the disappointment in childhood after he was supplanted in granddad’s affections by the new born; abruptly cast aside. 

Twelve thousand kilometres distant, the mourning has had little shape or form in Kuala Lumpur. This afternoon the memory of the usual practise of keeping the television off until after a funeral at least, when last night at the Cyber the football highlights from the final in Melbourne had been watched. 

Many months now the Muslim prostration for prayer had revolved in the mind. As an expression of helpless submission to the higher power, to fate and the life course, the other acknowledgements paled by comparison. The Christian prayer and its form certainly—charismatics and evangelicals included; the Buddhist and others. (In Singapore Hindu males inside the walls of their temples had been seen stretched out flat like horizontal divers, arms full-length before them and forehead to the ground.)

Regular contemporary forms of prayer and supplication at least, outwardly at least, suggest another kind of conception of the human and a lesser acknowledgement. In earlier times in these faiths there had likely been a good deal more fervour. Our grandmother Ruza, Rose, the old patriarch Rade’s wife, when she went on the pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Vasilije at Ostrog in the Montenegrin interior had walked the sixty miles, some part at least barefoot. 

There had been a great deal of family history recovered over the years that might have been shared with Ratko. In encounters with other relatives it was always wonderful delivering stories that took the listeners completely by surprise. Mother, Jelena Radova before she married, had been the patriarch’s first child. Strangely enough, in her case too she had been immediately supplanted in her father’s love when the son George was born. Without in her case resentment or sense of grievance. 

There would be few mourners for Ratko, his poor mother above all; though being somewhere in her mid-eighties now, Aunt Saveta’s tears may have dried. 

Difficult to guess how far the younger brother Momo might be roused. The brothers continued to live on their hill sharing a party wall, but the sister-in-law had created a divide. 

Ratko was twice married: with Serb Milka there were two daughters from memory; a second marriage to a refugee from the Yugoslav Wars of Succession, as they were termed, produced a son. 

On the last visit nearly ten years ago the word was Ratko saw very little of either wives or children. Some drinkers and heavy smokers lived well beyond their early sixties. 

Ratko’s was a quiet, gentle manner. We did not really have Montenegrin blustering in our family, not even Vajo and his younger brother Leka, who in younger years perhaps came closest. 

During the conflict in Former YU Ratko like many others got himself out of the territory. As a son of Uncle George, descendant of a good communist, a Yugoslav like most of us, the thought of warring against our fellow Slavs was no doubt completely abhorrent. 

Grandfather Rade had been dragooned into Emperor Franz Joseph’s army to fight his fellow hill people, always shooting above their heads, he would later maintain. 

We had three or four hours together in Ratko’s kitchen drinking sljivovica and smoking cigarettes ten years ago in the side of the house that had remained the same over the last thirty years. (Momo had built on and decorated.) On departure Ratko had shown his large vegetable garden and seemed dubious hearing the enthusiasm for it. That we had maintained similar with similar plantings in Melbourne he seemed to disbelieve. 

Momo worked as a physiotherapist at the health resort at Igalo, where he had found a job for his brother as gardener and groundsman. Perhaps the early brotherliness had limited later difficulties and Momo would grieve his brother. 

2AM Ratko had passed away, Leka’s widow Vida had said in the mail. Either Ratko was in poor health and there had been a vigil, or else his mother had found him in the middle of the night. 

Kuku joj u dom; Keening in her house, we say. 

And after the burial, Laku mu crna zemlja; Light the black earth (on him.)

                                                                                                           Kuala Lumpur, 8 Sept 2018

 

Massification and Diffusion

Call out a fool if you must, but it is true one often prepares smiles on the streets here at doorway entries and along the walkways for expected greetings from cardboard cut-outs. The shop-assistants in these parts are required to keep on their feet and engage passers-by; a hesitant customer can be hooked by a warm smile and polite greeting, they think. Of course the drones are often dead on their feet and instead sit bowed on stools flicking phones or snatching some shut-eye. The kind shop-keepers like, the reliably alert and prompt ones, must be worth their weight in gold. Being a tall, strolling White in a fine hat, one certainly does not want to appear arrogant or contemptuous in the face of that generous fanfare from this people. The error however does trip up even the most astute and sharp flaneur swinging through the arcades collecting some breath of aircon from the better establishments. And necessary to add, it is not simply pretty girls one wants to oblige and meet half way, not by any means. Often the boys call out one thing and another, just for the heck of it, the natural pleasure of a Howdedoody? (Some will wonder reading—these are country folk remember please, with spirits out-flowing to the world around them and those that pass by.)

         In both cases footing up for lunch today fine young life-size lads with inviting smiles all in glossy colourful cardboard reaching out.

         As noted previously, the author has recently had his “Billboard” piece published up in the cold of Calgary, Canada, a sequence of flash which delivers a brief survey of the t-shirt fashions on the streets of Singapore. Here in Malaysia on the other hand we are spared the higher form almost entirely—certainly in the quarters preferred by this Scribe—and find instead what in the industry is termed massification and diffusion product. Drab, lower grade items in inferior fabric from the middle-range sought-after labels like Converse, CK, Hilfiger, Fred Perry, the NY whatnot &etc. Good these threads for the juicy markets of India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, up-country China and the rest of those battling in the global scramble. There was no danger of these articles diluting the brands, the shiny and bright from the High Streets of the fashion capitals would never lay eye on suchlike on dirty, broken pavements like these.

Publication News: Anti-Languorous (Canada) - "Billboard"

Hallo all

A Canadian literary magazine with a project to “antithesize languorous language” — to which I can wholeheartedly subscribe — has recently published a short of mine from Singapore, titled Billboard. (Various and further segments posted on the blog over the years.)

The magazine will be paper published in March, meanwhile here is the e-version taster.

Have a squizz, free access —

http://antilang.ca

Cheers

Pavle 

KL, Malaysia

antilang. no. 2 | Almond | Taste - Scribd

www.scribd.com/document/387909622/antilang-no-2

Pavle Radonic. Billboard 1. ART IS NOT ENOUGH. Unarguable. And a touch over-stated in this repub- lic. No danger of getting that wrong here. The guess, like

Decisions, Decisions (Dec25)

 

 

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 circuit was OK. 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 & 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 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 locals. 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 housing the ancients left behind and the mosquitoes—periodic visits only managed; dislocation across the generations and loss of language & culture. (Are you watching the cartoons? Tell me, the Granddad on the phone to the youngsters in Oslo.) Lunatic race for status given full head. Everywhere… 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 & 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, making you feel like a Pasha. The blight of the UMNO building lighting up at 7PM and hovering there was a negative; pavement table positive, and much earlier available at the Lohorean than the Karachi Mehran. (Both these groups were from the Punjab, but Karachi were Urdu speakers and Lahoreans Punjabi.) Regular beggars at both—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 years it appeared she might only be eating sporadically—painfully thin. Last sighting she 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 beatings had been in earlier years. As usual, there were 5 - 6 blue single ringitt in the right pocket. That was the other thing, what you saved on yourself you could distribute roundabout 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. 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 association 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, 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 prevailed. (The second job in early teens had been in a KFC kitchen on a busy highway, back in the Great Southern Land. 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 & Al Karam further up the road on that side that had sneakily stolen golden arches for their advertising. (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 for admittance. Doling out to the beggars the least one could do. Two latecomers 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.

 

 

 

Voices From the Well

Perhaps the Islamic Museum had gotten in some more of the tees featuring the old Arabic script that was such a big hit on the streets of these parts. Seeing it for the first time a few years ago Beefy Mohammed had drawn his head back, pointed his chin and proclaimed, — That powerful, just like the Indian chief he sometimes appeared. (Oddly, one of the Malay UMNO chieftains here recently playing the race card again referred to the terrible position of Amerindians in North America who had been overwhelmed by foreigners; in the process of which the man reminding the folk that it was this cultural group to which the Malays were in fact genetically closest.)

         Wouldn’t you know it, just after the turn toward the other side of the river from Masjid Jamek the clouds split. (“Split” in the old schoolboy sense of the word: departed.) Some sporadic drops only.

         The short-cut from the main road through the grounds of the National Mosque looked as if it may have re-opened. If so it would save the roundabout trip.

         No dice. Stiff shit. (More schoolday jabber the latter.) Roundabout we slogged.

         During the stay at the KL International Hotel—3 ½ Stars—gazing out the tenth floor window both from the bed and the desk that on each visit was moved hard against the window, for some reason there had been a good deal of returns to early schooldays.

         A day or two before an early antagonist, one of the freckle-faced boys secure in that neighbourhood close to the school — Johnsey; Paul Johns — had been spied in adult form roaring in delight at the much delayed Footscray Football Club premiership in some of the crowd footage. The floppy-haired chap in the stands looked a good deal like what Johnsey might now look this half century and more later.

         Ordinarily, Johnsey had been of small account: little guy, mediocre sportsman (though he may have owned his own leather football that only his chosen could kick, and possibly a cricket bat); something of a dunderhead in class, but unable to gain admittance into the chief rat-pack. The lad however knew how to give cheek and could not be muscled too hard for it because of his allies in senior years from those nearby streets a stone’s throw from the school. Cousins, neighbourhood pals, church pals too—plentiful allies for Johnsey to call upon.

         Johnsey lived in the street behind the church. Likely he had been a member of the tennis club too: the courts stood behind tall cyclone fencing beside the Sunday School, screened from proper view by a gauze netting. Girls in Whites there sometimes thwacked balls over the net in envious games of mixed doubles.

         When Johnsey told you suddenly one day in the yard, completely unexpectedly with a barb that had never been previously heard, that you were “full of shit,” there really could be no denying. Johnsey as well as yourself knew the truth of the matter. Of course he himself was full of the same, but getting in first it was totally lame and ineffectual telling him so as a follow-up.

         How to respond to the taunt? You had no come back; the words were lacking. Johnsey had the lingo over you every time, the rough and tumble schoolyard derision.

         Johnsey took care not to call you a “wog,” that much was conceded. Should he cross that line the little fellow could not be sure of the consequences. A lashing out might do for him then and there in that event. Another boy, a frenemy of the same class, got a bloody nose when he risked that worst of put-downs. Grease-ball and wog. Dago. Unendurable.

         “Stiff shit” was another common expression of the era that seemed at first hearing both spectacular and also puzzling. Not a taunt in this case; no boy was called such a thing. Rather it was a form of commiseration: missing a shot on goal, hitting the post say, that was stiff shit, offered by a teammate expressing sympathy. (Five years later “stiff”was sufficient; no need the other junior grade.) If someone won your tomboller in marbles however and offered you the same there was bite in that. Lost out Pea-brain, stiff shit; too bad. Bested fair and square, no challenge was possible.

         What was the genesis of stiff shit? Did Johnsey and the kids with the advantage know, kids with fathers, uncles and grandfathers? Doubtful. The terms were pure Australianisms, from sheep and cattle herders up-country during hard times perhaps.

         An older kid in Primary from the same street told the first joke that can be recalled, the very first from earliest days. We ourselves were not a joke telling family; even in our own language we had little to laugh about in early years. Irony and mockery certainly, but not formulated jokes as such for us. The genre was from a different class; the leisured perhaps, issuing from bars, dinner tables, the old open air stages. Montenegrins, even in the homeland, conversed and entertained themselves by other means.

         The memory of one’s raucous laughter comes back clearly. Be careful, “you’ll cack yourself” was from the same period. Wet yourself polite form and the more unsavoury "shit" was not used. One shitted oneself only out of fear; packed one’s pants. “You're packing yourself” had rung through our schoolyards daily.

         The key actor here in the short tale had a girlfriend by the name of Fuckerarder. Delivered by an accomplished raconteur such as the older boy of the street, even one of only twelve or thirteen — you yourself were ten or eleven — the construction of the compound was sufficiently buried. The poor girl’s name was a little funny in itself, but no time to dwell on that as the story was raced onward.

         This lucky nameless lad had his girl just where he wanted her, going for his life. (The two year gap was crucial at that juncture: the twelve/thirteen year old understood something about fucking by then, and in this case the ten/eleven year old would lag a good number of years in such matters. This though would not limit the wonderful, uncanny power of the joke as it was received by the naïf here.)

         Lad fucking and fucking blithely, blissfully. In a world of his own, one understood that much. Whereupon in classic untimely fashion, the girl’s mother begins to seek her daughter.

         — Fuckerarder! Fuckerarder! from the back porch.

         Can’t raise the girl.

         — Fuckerarder! Fuckerarder!

         Nope. Nothing. Mum wants her back pronto.

         F- F- F.... In this older boy’s delivery even this much was bordering on hilarity. Ha ha ha ha. What a pretty pass. But more was coming too.

         At the continued interference the young Chaucerian rustic in the hay-shed had had enough. Not to be borne more the nuisance mother.

         — Orrh, shud up you old bag! returns the fellow turning his head to the side one imagined; returns in our very own lingo too. (Old bag.) I’m doing the best I can.

         Heehaw. Heehaw. Heehaw. Heehaw.

         In mature years the joke had rebounded more than once, sad to say.

Mixed Messages (Dec25)

Three or even four times an enquiry after this chap’s health in his own language here while he was taking his lunch, all completely unsuccessful. When the seat was chosen the man had not been recognised as one of the waiters. Must have been a busy holiday afternoon—Merdeka; Independence for Malaysia. And to be doubly celebrated this year after the recent election turfed out the horrendous kleptocrats. No time for the crew to pause before 3PM. Man bent at his plate straightened to bend an ear, in order to receive the offering properly. Nope, nada. Zero each time, could not catch it. Cupping his ear, shook his head hopelessly on the last try and explained. Chennai. Chennai was all the language he knew, sorry. Shaky with his other. (Many a White in Malaysia might mistake an Indian Indian for a local of course.) Under a minute later, after the last failure had defeated us both together, within the last quarter of the minute’s pause, the fellow turned again and with some little elation, in a boyish kind of tone, now repeated what he had just been served. Eperi irke! By which there was an implicit concession what a fool he had just been too...  Ah! Like a win in the lottery. A breaking of long drought and light after darkness. The fellow had it in the end, the jackpot. Ya! Ya!...Halal are you then, ah?... Man agreed. Halal irke... Fine and dandy in everybody’s language. Not wishing to be boastful, but really and truly the enunciation here was quite faultless and authentic; perfectly honed this particular Tamil phrase at least after how many years and how many performances. Rather the problem lay elsewhere. Where the problem lay here was with the handsome authentic panama nodding at the man; the problem lay in the olive skin which in the eyes of this chap appeared purest virgin snow. The pen & paper sign of the professions too had been well recalled from the half dozen earlier visits. (When the man’s younger colleague came over to confirm the order, guessing teh tarik, the other corrected, —teh halia was more like it.) An understandable confusion of sensory impressions received by a fellow unused to suchlike engagement. Not the most salubrious decor or locale there beside all the rubble, the old footbridge over the dirty, rubbish-strewn river, never a girl within cooee to be seen. Yet for a drop of that fine ginger tea, for fine young men of character & warmth, one could not better than ABC resto. (After enduring middling poor halia for so long in the capital, a shopkeeper up by Kader had been enquired the week before.)

NB. The informal, truncated form here of எப்படி இருக்கிறீர்கள். Howdy partner?