SINGAPORE   2004,2008.....AND..10 years later...!

I say it, see it through his eyes..Rama, first visit abroad, in Singapore..his heavy vast luggage  left at his feet, looking amased at the small city of Blocks and Blocks unfolding to his view...marvelling, pleased, happy!..

Then, the serangoon  Little India Komala vilas, market place..The joy and wonder of paruppu sadam and ghee.. the thrill of buying  vendaikai and the wonder of exchanging views on how to select vendaikais, with a chinese..  

Again another chinese  stopping to smile and speak to Rama.."Thambi" Thambi" isnt it ?! very proud that he  KNOWS!  AND FINALLY,  that last day , the typical Rama rush to airport to catch the cab ..pushing pulling his big bag..and  a chinese openly guffawing  good naturedly...

Where are they now? aye. Where?!  Looking at Bagu the little child clinging to my hip and eliciting his attention..  Bagu pouting beautifully, eyes beginning to stream and wail starting as his mother scolds him and leaves...the chinese  stopping to call out  "Baby" "Baby"  !  That neighbour lady  who presented him with Dollars  as he wore his red garb and chanted ..majula singapura   ...!   And that young lady upstairs meeting us on the lift going down, marvellingly  looking at Bagu..then  5?6?  ..and say  "Oh He has  grown!

But then..even those  surprised , pleasantly surprised, recognition filled looks exchanged when Indian sightes Indian..

Singapore Revisited...repeatedly visited....Gradually ..all this has faded, faded slowly... Stiff  curt just polite chinese, strangers always they will be.. Even your own countrymen and women..some lurking suspicion..PR? Citizen?...  

Keep oneself to oneself. The saddest day was wehen  the towncouncil chap came and  swept off the little bench Mythu s house put abutting their apartment, while they left alone the bushy, soil  laden  tubs of intrusive pottage of the chinese neighbours... Far and few  friendly nods...

So much so..when in a restraunt in Penang  a  waitress  asked:  Ooraa?  and obliged  some small request,

When Bagu went a pleading with the watchman to be allowed to just rush and retrieve  his  boxes from the locked up classroom, the watchman recommended his plea to his chief with a : Thamzh payyan"  and got the permission with that sibboleth !

But  ....not MY  singapore...strange to hear it isnt it?! The Lee Kwan yee singapore..the singapore that grew out of the comraderie  and trust that flowered and flourished  in the days when he built it brick by brick with the stolid support of these overseas men trusted and trusting...!

Nations grow. The pains of growing and re adjusting, the reverbs...it is felt.

Little India. Musthafa.  I swelled with pride. One of World Marvels. A Tamil built this empire!! sprawling cross so many areas..Farrar park and  perumal temple..I forget now..Entries entries every turn. The big plaza abuzz with tamil  workers...crowding counters  to...SEND HOME REMITTANCES !  Some waiting  for  friends who would lend them their phones to talk to their homes. Some wait for acquaintance who has promised  some probable  job..Discretely they would be allowed to laydown for the night , some of them, by the Tamil or Indian shopkeepers.

We brought our uneatable dhal and bread, and left the bundle as if forgetting, atop a wheel barrow..and when after a while , surreptitiously looked, it was gone. A mild ache. A small satisfaction !

Other mols have come.  A huge chines mall  infringing on what  was exclusively Little INDIA...An India MArt also come...But Musthafa...hats off to you.  IT stood up to many challenges. close downs, and always bounced back with  more space and fecilities.  The  jilabi  counter outside , facing the plaza churns out hot jilabis  with bevies of tourists standing watching the jilabi show, waiting to recieve their  ORDER, and munching the while the heaped jilabi bits cast away by the chef  while scooping them out.

Men sit and wait at the Ganga? restaurant eting their way through breakfast till lunch casting resigned looks at the portals of Muysthafa  which had long ago swallowed their spouses and their visiting families!

Then to Perumal temple..Home...