We paid a visit to the neighbourhood of Brickfields a couple of days back to buy bangles for Heche. It is officially the 'Little India' of my city, although another area known as Sentul could have easily captured that accolade. The government has been busy tidying up the place, and now at the entrance sits a giant fountain with statuesque colourful peacocks. Brickfields is predominantly Indian because the main railway station was nearby, and the locality hosted many of the railway workers' quarters, a large part of whom were Indians. A hint of its history is the headquarters of the Railwaymen's Union of Malaya (old name for Malaysia, before entry of Sabah and Sarawak in 1963) which is still situated here, amidst the many, many Indian dresses, accessories shops and food outlets.
After meandering through the busy evening crowd, we settled at a big eatery, where I ordered ghee thosai, a thin pancake made of lightly fermented rice flour drowning in ghee which is a clarified semi-fluid butter. The thosai appeared disappointingly dry, but then I noticed the moist golden centre, literally floating in a pool of ghee. It tasted as wonderful as it was unhealthy. The resident beggar approached us for pennies, the donation of which he used to purchase a cigarette from the cashier. He took a seat not far from us and took a drag of smoke and nicotine, with his eyes closed and his hands clasped together as if in blissful prayer and gratitude. The Indian restaurant also served Chinese vegetarian food, with emphasis that it did not contain any onion or garlic. I am informed later that both are a no-no because they are an aphrodisiac.
While waiting for the thosai, Heche was leafing through this fortnightly edition of The Malaysian Soul Trader (our country's top second-hand soul resale magazine) when she came across an advertisement. She showed me...
I mused and said to her, "Hmm... I think you ought to look for a better bargain. This soul looks like it needs a helluva lot of work to get it road worthy."
Have a beautiful and soulful day, sunshine.
wa min Allah at-taufiq
Hate has no place in Islam
Love will show the Way
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