Tuesday, November 6, 2018

Deepa Thoughts


Every autumn Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs celebrate Deepavali, sometimes spelled Dewali or Dipavali.  Deepavali is one of Singapore’s 11 public holidays. 

It is known as the Festival of Lights (from the Sanskrit “Dipa” which means “lantern” or “light”).  Its origins date back over a thousand years and celebrates harvest, much as Thanksgiving does in the US.  It is also a time for families to gather.  And like Thanksgiving’s Black Friday/Cyber Monday, it is also a big shopping time in India.  Two of India’s largest merchants have big sales:  Flipkart’s Big Billion Days sale and Amazon India’s Great Indian Festival.

We were able to learn more about the holiday by being part of an American Women’s Association (AWA) tour of Singapore’s Little India.  We had some friends in town from Portland so they joined us too.


About 16 of us met up with our favorite Singapore tour guide, Diana Chua.  Julie has been on several tours with her through the AWA.  We also had arranged for her to take us on a private tour when we had 8 friends here from the US for Asiapalooza 2018.  What we like about Diana is that she gives color commentary that goes beyond what you’re seeing—she’s both proud of her Singaporean heritage and knowledgeable about it.

Tekka Wet Market was our first stop.  Wet markets are pretty common in Singapore and a lot cheaper than Cold Storage or other supermarkets.  “Tekka” means “bamboo clumps” and dates back to times when Rochor Road and the canal was the Rochor River, lined with bamboo clumps under which people sat in the shade and sold vegetables. Today this market is known for its fresh seafood downstairs and Indian clothing upstairs.



The Shree Lakshminarayan Temple was our next stop.  This is a very non-descript temple established to serve the Northern India community.  Diana (not surprisingly) had done a dry run the evening before and had us there in time for a ceremony that, among other things, had bells ringing and ringing and ringing—the din was on the verge of being painful.  Like so many temples in Asia, we were welcomed with open arms.

After we left (and our ears quit ringing) we wandered through the streets of Little India learning about its history from Diana.  A couple of my favorites are how the street named “Racecourse” used to be part of Singapore’s horse racing track.  One of the nearby alleyways even had murals of horses.  The other was Singapore’s Curry Murder.  How does the murder (and cooking) of a church caretaker off Orchard Road tie to Little India?  Turns out that the victim was part of a family of caretakers and his brother was the caretaker of a Methodist church in Little India.




We arrived at the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple at the perfect time, just as they were preparing to hoist one of the deities onto two long beams to be carried by ~20 men around the temple.  At the same time there was background music and drumming. The sight of this obviously heavy statue being carried by slowly rocking men was something to see.  Perhaps my favorite part was the man who carried a parasol at the end of a long pole to shade the statue (even though this was at night). [VIDEO]

The other thing that stood out at this temple was the rather graphic displays of a woman, Periyachi Amman who is the protector of children.  Near a rear corner of the temple is an image of her with a fetus held high above her.  Legend is if this fetus had touched the earth t would bring on the end of the earth.  The woman lays across her lap, and the evil king father is trampled under her feet.  The umbilical cord is in her mouth, being severed by her teeth.  Graphic and memorable.

The last stop of the night was an Indian buffet dinner at Madras Woodland Ganga .  This is a vegetarian restaurant with a wide variety of Indian foods to sample (and get seconds for the ones that you really like).  It wasn’t fancy or expensive, but it was darn good.

Our walk from the restaurant to the nearest MRT was through a street market filled with Deepavali goods for sale—painted decals for the floors, flowers, garlands, and all sorts of hanging stuff too low for me to comfortably walk through.



Next Deepavali we will head back to Little India again.

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