going on a road to singapore walk after a long time. as usual discovered many things.…
Browsing Tag
colonialism
once, the sea used to come right up to katong, and wealthy merchants and traders had their mansions along the coast. there are several big houses here still, but the sea has been pushed back, by almost a mile i think. i first came to katong – a suburb in the east – with a colleague, to buy cheap perfumes at katong shopping centre. everything changes in singapore, all the time, but happily, the shopping centre with its deep blue…
it’s not possible to think of history while thinking of chops. especially mutton chops. and yet, i tried. one may not think that’s an achievement… and this would only be because one hadn’t had a mutton chop, the way bengalis make it. chop, to a bengali, is not a cut of meat. it’s a beatific smile inducing joyful experience that involves getting lost in another world while recalling exactly how mother or grandmother or boro ma or younger kakima, or…
Guest writer Lalita Arya examines a name and what really might be in it. There is a café called Bagel T where I used to stop to have a cup of cappuccino when I managed to get an hour off to go for a walk. On the east coast of the USA near Princeton, the weather is much more pleasant than the mid west where I lived for many years. Even in winter I consider the weather mild. But for…
why is hyderabad road called hyderabad road? i couldn’t crack the puzzle. once upon a time, long long ago, that insanely rich man called the nizam of hyderabad may have owned property here… or he may not have. there is some mention of this in a newspaper – the hindu, published in india – from many years ago (net digs can bring up all sorts of things). anyway, i am not at all sure as to why the name of…
there have been students around here for a long time, but they weren’t always from the nanyang technological university. i realised this only now as i started to look for the history of this massive campus on the south western side of singapore, beyond jurong west. the skies were particularly blue and the sun was high on our heads, hot and unkind, the day aj and i went for a walk at ntu, as it’s called. i was intrigued by…
bermuda road, canada road, ottawa road, lagos circle, kenya crescent, pakistan road… at some point it strikes you, the empire was right here. the commonwealth, the colonies… never is all that too far away, is it. sometimes, i wonder how it all would have been if colonization was not a part of our history. well, i guess then i would not be writing in this language, nor perhaps living in this city, or going on this walk through the sloping…