Singapore’s Little India

A couple of days ago I spent the morning in Singapore’s Chinatown. This morning it was the city’s Little India’s turn.

Compared to Chinatown, I found Little India somewhat grungier and grittier, but more visually interesting. I recognize that I might have found it more visually interesting because it’s slightly grungier and grittier. Grunge and grit add character, don’t ya know.

Most streets in Little India are lined with two-storey buildings painted with a wide pallet of subtle colours.

The buildings all had fine-grained shops with seemingly independent vendors selling produce and other foods, jewelry, clothes, electronics, souvenirs, and more. Of course, there were also several small restaurants. Two blocks of one side of the main street were almost exclusively devoted to jewellers, including gold, diamond and silver jewelry. A few of them sold their gold jewelry by the gram. Design seemingly didn’t matter. The gold content did.

I guess the idea is that if you’re going to hold gold primarily as an investment, you might as well get some adornment use out of it while you have it. I imagine thieves appreciate that. It’s probably a lot easier to steal gold jewelry out of a home, or mug a wearer for it, than to break into, say, a bank safe to steal gold bars.

The main drag through Little India was festooned with Indian-themed decorations suspended from cables stung between street lamp poles on the opposing sides of the street.

One block of the streets, not the main one, was closed to vehicles. Pedestrians flowed over the street and patronized the shops on it. The pedestrianization might be only because it was Sunday. Or maybe they do it for the whole weekend. I don’t know. But the barriers blocking off the street looked very temporary.

It all made for an animated atmosphere rich with character. Then again, if you don’t enjoy places with character, maybe it’s not for you. However, I’m glad I went.

And I didn’t just walk the streets. There are sights to see and do. Below, I’ll describe the ones I visited this morning. What else do I have to do with my time than write this journal?

Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple

The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple sports a tower out front similar to the one at the incongruously located Sri Merriamman Temple that I visited in Chinatown a couple of days ago. However, the colours of the figures on the towe of the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple aren’t quite as vibrant.

When I was there, the smallish Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple was crowded with both worshippers and tourists, mostly the former, I think.

The temple has considerable colourful Hindu statues and reliefs throughout. If it wasn’t as crowded as it was, I would have probably enjoyed it more.

(Just as an aside, the only way I could have had any chance of “typing” the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple’s name correctly was to go to the temple’s website, copy the name from there and paste it as needed here.)

Indian Heritage Centre In Little India

The Indian Heritage Centre is, appropriately, in Singapore’s Little India. It’s a smallish museum with permanent exhibits on two of its floors, the third and fourth. The entrance, ticket desk, and what looked like an area for children occupied the first floor. The second floor was unaccounted for. I think it holds temporary exhibits, but there wasn’t one on today.

The museum presents the history and culture of Indians in Singapore.

It started with a widescreen video telling the story. A lot was going on on the screen, but the narration was in another language, I assume Hindi or one of the other languages spoken in India. There were English subtitles, but when I focused on the subtitles, I missed a lot of what was happening elsewhere on the screen. And when I expanded my focus to take in the fullscreen experience, I missed the subtitles.

Consequently, I didn’t get as much out of the video as I would have if I understood whatever language was being spoken. That said, it was the Indian Cultural Centre, not the Joel Cultural Centre. So I should be happy that they at least accommodated my language with subtitles. There are plenty of unilingual speakers of other languages who would have gotten nothing out of it.

The museum had several artifacts. Their focus was primarily cultural, not historical. I saw a stone statue that, in the unlikely event memory serves, dated from the fifth century, but most of the artifacts dated from the 19th and 20th centuries. They included sculptures, art, religious items, and a bunch of other stuff that I completely forgot.

I should learn to jot down a few contemporaneous notes at every sight I visit rather than just one out of every 97 or 98 or so places. This journal would be more complete and possibly even halfway accurate if I did.

Sri Srinivasa Peruma Temple

The Sri Srinvasa Peruma Temple dates from 1855, which from what I’ve read of other places I’ve visited here seems to be kind of old for Singapore. It too has one of those colourful, roughly pyramid-shaped towers out front. The tower is much younger, dating from 1966. I’m incredibly ignorant about the Hindu religion, but I take it from my experience here in Singapore that those towers, my guidebook says the word for such towers is gopuram, must be a standard feature of Hindu temples.

Most of the Sri Srinivasa Peruma Temple is open-air, but there are some covered prayer areas. More Hindu religious statuary and friezes decorate the inside of the temple.

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple

Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple is quite small. Now that I think of it, it doesn’t have one of those towers, so maybe they’re not standard. Then again, now that I’ve said something completely stupid, I realize that it’s a Buddhist temple, not a Hindu temple, which might explain the lack of the tower. This does not make the temple out of place in Little India, as Buddhism is strong in India too.

Being small, you can view the whole of the temple’s one publicly accessible room while standing on the threshold. That’s what I did. I got tired of removing my shoes, as you have to do if you go into any of the temples I visited this morning.

The Sakya Muni Buddha Gaya Temple’s claim to fame is a giant, staid Buddha that occupies almost the entire front of the temple. Or is that the back? If you’re standing outside, the front of the temple is the entrance you’re facing. But once you’re inside, the front is the opposite wall, i.e. the one facing the exit, which is the entrance for people outside. Sometimes the simple things in life confuse me. The point is, the giant Buddha is against the wall that faces the entrance/exit.

Whatever. It was quite impressive.

Lunch

With Little India being the theme for this morning, I figured an Indian restaurant in Little India made sense for lunch. That’s what I did. I had some very tasty, nicely spiced chicken masala and garlic naan bread. It made for a very enjoyable and topical close for the morning.