Bollywood and Curry

---

Little India

Sir Stamford Raffles is considered father of the modern-day Singapore. Under the Raffles Plan for Singapore, the city was divided into different sections for people of different religions and ethnicities. Some say this was done as part of an English plan to divide and conquer, others maintain it was done to prevent fighting among people of different languages and culture. What ever the original reason, those ethnic neighborhoods still exist today.

Little India was once home to a race track for the European settlers, along Race Course Road, and livestock pens along Buffalo and Kerbau Roads. (Kerbau is Malay for buffalo.) The city’s main maternity hospital is also in Little India, named with an odd sense of humor, Kandang Kerbau, or Buffalo Pen.

Today Little India is home to sari-clad women, Bollywood cafés, spice shops, and some very wonderful restaurants. Oddly, it also has a disproportionate number of auto parts stores and motorcycle repair shops. Most of these places you don’t actually enter - way too small and way too crowded. Instead, you stand out on the sidewalk, in the five foot way, and tell the proprietor what you want.

Little India is designated as a National Heritage neighborhood, which means that the building facades look much as they did a hundred years ago. And, just as you could a hundred years ago you can buy a Tamil language newspaper, get a henna tattoo, buy a jasmine garland, or visit a Hindu temple.

And if you are ever in the vicinty of Perak and Dunlop streets in Little India, do yourself a favor and eat at Bismillah Biryani. The owner is a friendly guy who studied at the University of Southern California, and if he's not busy he'll stop and chat. Otherwise, there are Bollywood music videos playing on the big-screen TV on the wall.

For more on Little India, here is the link to Wikipedia: Little India

Singapore, March 2009

---

Photos

Serangoon Road
In Tamil and English

Abdul Gaffoor Mosque detail
This mosque was across from my hotel, and I woke every morning to the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

Temple detail
the carvings depict stories from Hindu legend