i lived and grew up in Little India

I lived and grown up in Little India when I was a child till when I was about 17 years old. When I was younger, I don't find the place special because first I do not have a choice and secondly, I have not seen much of the rest of Singapore and thirdly, I do not know much at that age. Everything that I need, anything that I do, they are all within the vicinity. I just walk, run or cycle around. I walk to school everyday, I walk to the Indian barber shop for haircut, I walk to Chung hwa free clinic when I am sick to consult the Chinese sin seh. I walk to Farrer park to swim, pasar malam to eat or jalan jalan, Cuff road off Serangoon Road for curry powder spice grinder shop and for freshly grind coconut, New World amusement park for games and movies, Tekka market for grocery and marketing with mother. I cycle to the post office at Owen Road to drop off mails and to buy postage stamps. Everything is so conveniently located and within reach. I hardly go outside little India at that young age. My father worked everyday, 7 days a week and he worked long irregular hours. So any outing or excursion is a godsend or a special occasion. Life was quite a routine. It was like, go to school, eat, study, do homework, do household chores, eat, sleep, go to school. Sometimes, there may be excitement like the chasing of a rat, a stray cat, laying the mouse trap, running away from cockroaches, especially those flying ones, lizards were aplenty, catching houseflies, watching our next door neighbors, watching cars drove past the road. There was a Soon Heng curry fish head restaurant at the right end of road, and so sometimes we have the traffic. Watching people parked their cars and people who walked passed our house. Some walked on the road, some walked on the five foot ways just in front of our house. At times funny. Sometimes silly just watching the world go round. Sometimes, it gets bored. So it is back to watching our neighbors. We have Malay, Chinese neighbors on our right and Indian neighbors on our left. Our Indian neighbour is quite interesting. The Indian uncle next door was a  thin hairy man with curly hair and his wife a huge mama. The uncle has the occasional bouts of fits where he dropped "dead" on the floor with crenching fists and the shaking and the salivating. In the beginning, it was a little frightening with all the wayangs that goes with the rescues. But soon it became a norm as it wasn't life endangering after all. He was a tough man who drinks quite a fair bit and then shake his head and bums when he walks. Theirs was a typical traditional Indian family who are high on coconuts. They applied coconut oil to their hair, their body, they cooked with it, they skin it for the oil and they dried coconut husk on their five foot way. We can smell coconuts day in day out. So I am quite immune to the smell. I still don't understand where they get the sources of all these coco? Deepavali is festival time where we hear Indian music coming from next door and lights and food! It has been the yearly tradition where our neighbours will served us the Indian sweets and delicacies. Their main entrance will have all the Rangoli lines and designs drawn and candle lights the whole nite long. It was quite a spectacular sight at that time in my young mind. No wonder it's called the Festival of Lights. As for the Malay family on our right, it was nothing special. Quite a chaotic and extended family. Not very exciting. But there was a time where there was some subletting and some pretty boys (aqua) lived next to us. I remembered well there was one incident where there was a intruder into our house late one night. Big brother has the honor to display his rigor and the big sized aqua was stranglehold and subdued. That's the highlight! As for the Chinese family to the right, they are a Teochew family. They sell noodles at Rangoon Road. Many brothers and one sister. This girl, We all called her Ah Choo. She was a cheerful girl with small squint eyes but was very helpful. She would helped out with some of our household chores and helped babysit Jacinta at that time. Ah Choo was very sweet and my childhood good friend. I enjoyed chatting with her while standing at the pintu pagar. This is a small swing door right at the main door way. It gave the occupants some privacy without the need to close the main door and it also helps ventilate the house. Sadly, we do not have a chance to fall in love. The last time we met was in the mid 80s. She was already married. The feeling was like 相逢恨晚 "meet regret too late" Further right, we have a Chinese family that sells fruits and we addressed the house maiden as "papaya lady". Her husband is a quiet man and skillful with the fruit knife. I always seen him shearing the fruit skins. And at the extreme right is a iron workshop. Quite a low profile thing. There used to be a Burmese temple with a reclining Buddha at Kinta Road but it has shifted out a long time ago. Today, it is a huge temple located right next to Sun Yat Sen villa and memorial hall in Balestier. Of good mention is the Toh Clan general association at 31 Kinta Road which is located diagonally across our house. Noticed that all units opposite our old house are all odd numbers.  As far as I know, the TOH clan are either Hokkien or Teochew but people of the surname 卓 can also come from other dialect group. This Chinese clan association is still standing today just like the good old days. Looking at it helps me relive many of my childhood memories. So these are all our closest neighbors. Today, if you are to walk along Kinta Road, the whole road has a new facelift. But nevertheless, you can find traces of old.