Little India


.

Little India is located to the north of Selegie Road, next to Bukit Timah Road. It is difficult to determine the precise extents, but I can say that it stretches from Farrer Park Fields, behind Race Course Road to the west, Jalan Besar to the east, and Lavender Street to the north, with the famous Serangoon Road running through the middle. Possibly due to traffic direction and our tendency to move clockwise, I always begin my morning walk at Race Course Road or Serangoon Road on the left; sometimes I walk on the main road, sometimes I walk through the passageways, and sometimes I walk through HDB flats.
Along this less than a kilometer stretches of Serangoon Road, you can find three huge Hindu temples: the Sri Vadapathira Kaliamman Temple, the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple, and the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple; I find it amazing and concerning that these Temples and numerous commercial shophouses are so close to the neighborhood flats. Residents and migrant workers may clash over space, especially on weekends when there are more people around. I wonder have the pre-pandemic congestion returned, I'm not sure, because we usually avoid crowded places on weekends; Covid-19, after all, is still evolving.
We routinely end the morning walk and eat breakfast at Kitchener Road, which is close to the Mustafa Centre, one of the two big shopping centers in Little India that have become iconic in Singapore. Then, before heading back home, we would do grocery shopping at the Seng Siong Supermarket, and for tea break at the Jalan Berseh Food Centre.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The back alley

Image
While walking through Little India in search of breakfast, I find myself passing many back alleys. Some are only accessible by foot, while others are also accessible by car. We try to stay away from back alleys because they are often unpleasant due to junk build-up, unless when photographing old buildings in Little India; many of the buildings date back to the early 20th century and are regarded as island monuments. You can also see engravings of sacred animals, auspicious symbols, and verses on several of the double-storey houses that were once owned by the Peranakan. Recently, we noticed that Desker Road is right in front of the Indian cuisine café where we had our breakfast, an alley which, along with Geylang is infamous for being part of Singapore's red-light districts, and where customer solicitation once stretched throughout the entire back alleyways; I wonder if such acts still take place, considering that streetwalkers are rarely seen out and about these days. Years ago, I ...
Read more

Albert Street

Image
My house is right next to La Salle College of Arts, one street away. If you turn left and walk down Albert Street, you can reach the busy and lively Bugis. I have moved here for more than ten years. I sold my flat in the east and moved to my current house to shorten my commute to school. Now, I no longer teach at the college. However, I can still remember all the things I used to do in class. Sometimes, when I pass by the campus, I still see familiar faces, former colleagues, students and so on. After exchanging pleasantries for a while, we go on with our own lives.
Read more

The Rochor River

Image
When we were young, a trip to visit my grandma with my mother would excite us a lot. We'd say we were heading to Rochor or downtown. My grandma's house was along Beach Road, and to the east of it was the business district, while to the west, across the street, was the Rochor River, which crosses the Merdeka Bridge before merging with the Kallang and Singapore rivers and flowing into the sea. I have fond recollections of this stretch of the river near the Merdeka Bridge because my father's workplace was close to my grandma's house, he occasionally took us downstairs to the coffee shop for soft drinks and then to the river to play. Like the small fishing villages in neighboring countries are now, the Rochor river was a dusty and chaotic place fifty years ago; a chaotic yet relaxed place where many laborers gathered to make a living from the sea. The most startling aspect was how close the “primitive” toilets were to the river; urine and stools would drop from above and ru...
Read more