<img style="float: left;" title="Mayank Shekhar" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2024/aug/Mayank-op_e.jpg" alt="Mayank Shekhar" width="150" height="84" />As per legend, Sang Nila Utama, the Sanskrit-speaking prince of Srivijayan empire, was sailing past a relatively <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/silent-separation-of-salim-javed-23377871" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">barren island</a> in the mid-1200s. &nbsp; He thought he spotted a lion, and therefore named these flatlands, Singh-Pur, or Lion City. That&rsquo;s how we now know Singapore.&nbsp;
No, there are no elephants in Denmark&mdash;there are no lions in Singapore, either. Let alone half-lion, half-fish, mythical Merlion. Which is the <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/who-the-hell-is-dinesh-pandit-23375261" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Asian &lsquo;tiger&rsquo;</a> economy&rsquo;s official symbol!
&ldquo;[Such scars from an ancient hallucination] is why drug-ban is so strongly enforced in Singapore,&rdquo; my friend Jacob jokes, as we dig into super-authentic Mallu lunch at Swaadhisht restaurant, in Little India neighbourhood!&nbsp;
For all political censorship, surely, you&rsquo;re allowed to joke about drugs?&nbsp;
<img title="Signage of public toilet in Hindi" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/images/2024/aug/myanka-ind-op-b_e.jpg" alt="Signage of public toilet in Hindi" width="1280" height="720" />Signage of public toilet in Hindi
Or maybe not&mdash;for a city-state that hangs you until death, I&rsquo;m told, if found with even eight grams of cocaine! Lesser quantities of marijuana send you straight to prison. Genesis of this paranoia lies in <a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/sex-lies-the-desi-woman-client-23369945" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">Singapore&rsquo;s history</a> of substance-abuse.&nbsp;
Right from the early 1900s, when the British were the region&rsquo;s drug-dealers&mdash;peddling opium to China; growing it in Bengal; processing it in Singapore. Latter became opium den, with drug-problem of its own.
No such clampdown on alcohol, though. Unless, you&rsquo;re in Little India! It&rsquo;s the &ldquo;<a href="https://www.mid-day.com/news/opinion/article/series-of-reveals-that-never-end-23367224" target="_blank" rel="none noopener">liquor control zone</a>&rdquo;&mdash; you can&rsquo;t drink, in public, between 10.30 pm and 7 am, Monday-Friday; 7 am to 7 pm, Saturday-Monday; 7 am to 7 am, before/after public holidays&hellip;
Oh. Why? Because drunk desis caused a riot, around Race Course Road, on December 8, 2013. Fellow construction worker, one Sakthivel Kumarvaelu, 33, from Tamil Nadu, literally got thrown under a bus&mdash;the same one he&rsquo;d been thrown out of, for being intoxicated.&nbsp;
He died instantly that rainy night. What ensued is known as the Little India Riots. First such, in four decades, for Singapore, whose residents, foremost, take pride in the &ldquo;safety&rdquo; the city-state promises, and provides&mdash;take any poll.&nbsp;
And rightly so. Even when you barely see cops on streets. They&rsquo;re known to suddenly emerge, before you sense something shady. CCTVs ensure this. &nbsp; Little India Riots, Singapore&rsquo;s deepest, recent scar, lasted hardly a couple of hours. Investigations followed. Offenders fixed. Communal angles of any sort consciously avoided.&nbsp;
Riots starred desi labourers, with work permits, on a rampage. They&rsquo;re called migrants. As against (rich) expats&mdash;whom they subsidise, apart from wealthy citizens. Ayahs/domestic-helps are still relatively affordable in Singapore. This is rarest for a First World megapolis.&nbsp;
I watch this lower-deck desi population collectively descend on Little India, on their Sunday off. Many of them, I&rsquo;m told, are adorably out on dates&mdash;shopping, eating jalebis, jaywalking, jostling on packed streets&hellip;.&nbsp;
Making Serangoon Road look quite distinct from the rest of Singapore&mdash;that could pass for a smooth-sailing, sanitised Lego-land, instead.&nbsp;
Yes, I can see a mandir, not far from a masjid. Quite typical of big Indian neighbourhoods. Mustafa Centre is, however, the main temple.&nbsp;
As in a four-level, 24x7, desi, budget shopping centre that, I&rsquo;m told, began as make-shift carts, also selling food items, including ice-cream.&nbsp;
Because the owners, originally from India, had to pay for electricity/refrigeration, for dairy/bread/ice creams, throughout the night, anyway&mdash;they decided to keep the shop open as well!
The current supermarket, on Syed Alvi Road, swiftly expanded sideways, taking over all other shops. It&rsquo;s essentially Delhi&rsquo;s Sarojini/Lajpat Nagar; only AC/indoors.&nbsp;
Well, there&rsquo;s a Little India in practically every megapolis in the world. Only the one in Singapore is explicitly named so. Like a Chinatown.
It began with desi cattle farmers/traders, working with Europeans. Area stopped being conducive for this business. Europeans left. Indians stayed on.&nbsp;
What separates this Little India from similarly crowded, colourful, West London&rsquo;s Southall, or Jackson Heights in Queens, NYC?&nbsp;
Firstly, that it&rsquo;s not an Indian neighbourhood!&nbsp;
About 80 per cent of Singapore lives in government-subsidised skyscrapers. Each home is allotted in proportion to ethnic population.&nbsp;
Hence, 75 per cent of Little India is Chinese-origin. Many of whom, I&rsquo;m told, having grown up in Little India, have taken to Indian classical music/dance, gold jewellery, the works.
This is apart from &lsquo;Chindians&rsquo;, of mixed parentage, in Singapore. Such as the Singapore-Chinese hero of the comedy show, Asian Billionaires (shitty version of Schitt&rsquo;s Creek) that I just slept-watched. This popular star&rsquo;s name is Gurmit Singh!
This is as per Singapore&rsquo;s modernist founder Lee Kuan Yew&rsquo;s desire to build an inclusive, multi-culti city-state, investing wholly on human resources&mdash;whether local or imported.&nbsp;
Indians comprise 9 per cent of Singapore. As in citizens, with the world&rsquo;s strongest passport, who can enter both China and the US, without a visa!&nbsp;
Many first came over to service the imperial Brits. Some opened lucrative businesses, such as the Tamil Chettiars, back in early 1800s.&nbsp;
India&rsquo;s engagement, apparently, even dates to Chola Dynasty&rsquo;s reign in Singapore&mdash;once they defeated the Sanskrit-speaking Srivijayan empire, circa 1025. Dodgy-sounding details of this syllabus seems somewhat limited to WhatsApp University, though.&nbsp;
More recent Indians are expats/migrants, of course. English, as a central language, enforced by the state, unites all.&nbsp;
Which is why I find it strange to spot a public restroom sign in Little India&mdash;with Purush/Mahilayein in Hindi/Devnagri, written besides Male/Female in English, including their stick-figures, at the door!&nbsp;
What? Okay, that&rsquo;s for Indian tourists! And no, you don&rsquo;t take chances with the Indian tourist.&nbsp;
Anywhere. Ever.&nbsp;
Mayank Shekhar attempts to make sense of mass culture. He tweets @mayankw14
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The views expressed in this column are the individual&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;t represent those of the paper
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Hung out in the ‘Matunga’ of Singapore to figure out how the desis here are different from desis everywhere

There’s a li’l India everywhere, no?

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Home / News / Opinion / Article / There’s a li’l India everywhere, no?

There’s a li’l India everywhere, no?

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