"Single Thread in the Tapestry": Travelogue and Reflection in Spaces of Dis-Familiarity

Made central in this less-than-rosy picture is the threat of Islam to the global sociopolitical fabrics and, right at the heart of home, the prevailing perceptions of a Malay cultural deficit in Singapore, no doubt in a way counter-fuelled by the movement towards Malay political hegemony just across the Causeway. Singaporean-Malays stand in a state of acute consciousness: aware (or made to be aware) of their identity and their state of apartness from the larger Singaporean society. Yet, for all of that, there has never been a greater sense of awareness than when I was in Madurai.

“When in Rome, do as the Romans do”, and, already aware of my gendered body and wary of the intrusive penetrations of the male gaze, took care to drape my dupatta over my chest. I accepted to don the kumkuma, a powder made out of either turmeric or saffron, and the bindi upon my forehead, for I was always mindful to treat the culture and religion of another with the same respect and curiosity that I hope others would treat mine. Eating with my hand came naturally, although, for all of the Malay cuisine spiciness my tongue and stomach could boast of enduring, they were outmatched by the cuisine of the region.

During my stay in the Fortune Hotel Pandiyan, I was never short of courtesy calls and friendly visits by my friend and her family, as well as their extended family members. However, out in the streets, there were never any intrusive stares. Eyes were cast my way only in passing, before they were returned to the more pressing realities of life: trying to make a living selling jasmine flowers to visitors of the city’s Meenakshi Amman Temple, manoeuvring the charmingly chaotic roads, or going back to observing the goings-on from behind shop fronts raining in packets of snacks and toys. Between the non-stop honking from a traffic that flowed smoothly without traffic lights or pedestrian crossings, the free-roaming cows grazing on bits of grass growing beside piles of rubble and uncleared rubbish, and not seeing a single face of kin, the thought came to mind that I, to quote Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (1939), “was not in Kansas anymore”.

A Part

Madurai and its neighbouring cities of Tiruchirappalli and Tanjavur are places of intriguing dualities: old-fashioned shop windows juxtapose with new-fangled ones; villages of homes made of dried palm leaves and earth exist within sight of bungalows; income gaps set the rich on plinths of superiority while keeping the poor desperately so. The ennui of vast stretches of undeveloped land would be occasionally broken by towering palaces of universities and colleges. The city streets are never without a distinct scent—of jasmine and incense, sometimes the sweet tang of tea, and the less than pleasant smells of rubbish piles, dust, and on occasion, human waste and sewage. Temple complexes dating as far back to the early part of the 11th century tower over the sprawling city space. Unlike the heritage sites of Singapore, which are subjected to so many refurbishments and repurposing, they are so little changed.

Religion coalesces closely with the social lives of the people who, as my guides described, are “deeply religious”, which then goes hand-in-hand with how many are also “illiterate”. However, looking at the toy cradles in the shrine of the snake deity and a woman begging for food from the temple priests, I wondered if there is anywhere else they could turn to for hope and a sense of worth? What is heartwrenching are the ways in which bodies of authority seek to gain from the religiosity of the people: from notching up food prices sold within the temple complex to utilising religion in political discourses. It is easy for the few to dictate the actions of the many when many take an ideology as the only epistemological framework they know.

And as we strive for the betterment of the community, it is also easy for people to fall into and to fall back on the anonymity of statistics, news flashes, community leader discussions and battles over top-down perception surveys—putting more numbers here, placing more bodies there. Noble and kind as these approaches are, we sometimes forget we are dealing with people. Ideally, there needs to be a balance of the human touch and critical-minded problem solving. Away from the couched discourses of having to be on par with another, we must look towards empowering those who need a little more help getting into the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields, without balking at difference, (or ‘différance’), and learn to see, as a communal and national body, the value in every member, from the lyricist to the engineer.

The way forward for the community may well lie in moving away from setting ourselves, or letting others set us up as other to the Singaporean society. Rather, it is to recognise in ourselves the fundaments of the human condition — everything from erudition to ambition, duplicity to honesty, and vulnerability to resilience in the face of dire situations — that the complexities we so easily see in others are neither non-existent nor denied to us by virtue of our race and ethnicities. Outside looking at our social developments of the past half century, the community’s intellectual growth needs also to be fostered in remembrance: far from merely being the gawking 150 or so fishermen realised out of oblivion by colonial memory and later even postcolonial memory, we were seasoned travellers once. The history of the Malay Kingdom is etched into the records of the ancient Brihadeeswarar Temple of Tanjavur, hinting at a historical existence far beyond the demarcations of national history. The past fifty years past was preceded by few hundreds more, and perhaps it is time we do not forget this, even as we propel, with a golden torch in our fists, into the next few hundred and fifty years more.