Tag Archives: urban sketching

Cafe Hopping Wednesdays

Hardware Cafe on Tyrwhitt Road, Jalan Besar – convivial fuss free ambience and some seriously good coffee

For the past couple of weeks I, in the company of some talented artist friends have been cafe hopping. Yes, it’s a thing here that you can now engage in without seeming flippant. And why not? Singapore’s F&B greenhouse has been spawning some big blooming cafes for the past couple of years.

Curious Palette cafe (on the right) & Dumpling Dinner at Tim Ho Wan (on the left)

(L) Dumpling Dinner at Tim Ho Wan ; (R) Cappuccino at the spunky and hip Curious Palette cafe on Princep Street – try their waffles!

Boutique outlets serving artisanal coffee and sundry (which is more than a sidebar in this context) ranging from handcrafted ice creams, creatively conjured waffle dishes, Instagram worthy pastries, cakes, fusion burgers with clever fillings to an exhaustive range of breakfast, lunch and dining options, have been springing up all over the island.

The wonderfully colourful AEIOU cafe in Jalan Besar as you can see here is a treasure trove of cleverly upcycled tchochokes. They whip up some hearty yet classy meals too.

Be it hipster enclaves, sprawling heartlands or the culturally rich districts , you’re never too far from these all pervasive cafes that offer not just coffee and food but far interesting ambience compared to the cookie cutter spaces we are used to.

Pralet Cafe in Tiong Bahru, which is also a Cooking school

Caffe Pralet in Tiong Bahru, which is also a Cooking school dished out one of the best Aglio Olio I ever had

In a bid to distinguish themselves from their competitors, because truth be told everyone sells the same schtick, the cafes’ mommies and daddies dress them up in costumes they think would garner the most candies..umm..customers. Each space is a reflection of personal taste and temperament, therefore unabashedly original.

The Bravery Cafe in Jalan Besar has Lavender Coffee!

Some are loud, cluttered, whacky, nonsensical and over the top, reminiscent of say a theme party in an antique dealer’s home or a crafts fair even, while others are unexpectedly austere, minimalistic and pedestrian like a Zen monk’s cave with spartan interiors, exposed brick lining, monochrome wall paint and a sombre looking money plant guarding the entrance.

Troop to the Park Bench Deli on Telok Ayer Street to gourmandize upon sandwiches and subs with melt in the mouth fillings. The cafe’s cerulean doors always remind me of Santorini!

Whatever the design may be, from an artist’s perspective they’re almost always interesting because we like to observe and until the novelty lasts there’s a lot take in, be excited about and record in our sketchbooks. There’s air-conditioning also, which helps and sometimes a deal breaker, but you can’t judge us for that, not in Singapore.

Grain Traders (on the left) & Tiong Bahru Food Court (on the right)

(L) Grain Traders Cafe has sublime Summer Berries Crumble ; (R) Sketched this at Tiong Bahru Food Court over a chilled lime juice

Therefore every Wednesday afternoon ( Q: Why Wednesdays? A: one of us is free only on that day) we descend on a cafe, grab a table with the most flattering view and comfy seating (easily available because every corporate bigwig and their army of underlings is safely chained to their workstation at such ungodly hour) and once the waitress scoots off with our hurried orders, out comes the art-illery – sketchbooks, paints, brushes, water bottles and what not. We get to work, almost immediately.

The Daily Press Cafe (on the left) & Shophouses on Purvis street (on the right)

(L) The Daily Press Cafe ; (R) Shophouses on Purvis street

There is no small talk, no pressure of asking how astounding or meh the other’s coffee is or what he/she has been planning for the weekend. No foreplay whatsoever. We hunch over our sketchbooks and simply get on with our businesses until it gets done which brings about either a fleeting sense of smugness or lands us in a deep cesspool of self pity depending on our performance, adjudged by the harshest critic around i.e the person who’s work it is. Then we talk about sketchbooks, paper quality, drool over colours and new drawing tools, trying to sound as important and geeky as the next guy on the other table talking about commodity trading.

Creamier Cafe (on the right) & Kopitiam Dinner (on the left)

(L) Korean Dinner of Kimchi fried rice at a Kopitiam in BrasBasah (R) Creamier Cafe in Toa Payoh

Occasionally a patron on her way to the cash counter would hover, make eye contact and say nice things about our sketches. Or the cafe owner confessing his ineptitude at drawing a straight line would become maudlin after watching his precious enclave ( often injected with his entire life savings) being etched in permanent ink and would want to take a picture of our work as a keepsake, which in modern context means for instagramming purposes. Not long after basking in our brief moments in the spotlight we decide on the upcoming venue and adjourn for dinner. Until next week!

AEIOU cafe in Jalan Besar

A month’s worth of hosting

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Two grinning faces, actually three, including the portly Malay helper who was pushing my dad’s wheelchair ( probably happy from sighting relief beyond the arrivals gate) waved at us from the luggage carousel. I wrapped my scarf tightly around my shoulders; it wasn’t just the air-conditioning giving me chills.

Ever since we moved to Singapore, we’d been wooing our parents to visit us. Five years later and about a month ago, I and my husband set off one early morning to pick my parents up from the airport.

Baba sitting on the window sil and playing Scrabble first thing in the morning

Baba sitting on the window sill and playing Scrabble first thing in the morning accompanied by a cup of tea and two Jacob’s cream crackers.

Even though we keep in touch i.e virtually ‘nudge’ each other everyday when a scrabble move is due, it was thrilling to see my parents in person and most importantly find them emerge out of the immigration gates unscathed and unflustered.

Most first time visitors i’ve met wax lyrical about Singapore’s airport, it being one of the world’s best or at least rave/ rant about inflight food and entertainment, which make the usual post flight conversation, but my parents, and I should’ve known, drove straight to the point. “I can’t download Whattsapp on my tab, how soon can you fix it?” asked my dad as I bent down to embrace him and my mom said she had to pee, urgently.

Mom playing scrabble too, only when every other member in the house is playing that game

Mom fiddling with her phone or perhaps playing Scrabble but only as a last resort

Back home, unpacking and settling down went unexpectedly smooth. Making a tiny couple’s apartment habitable for 4, that too for a month wasn’t easy but after an extensive and exhaustive bout of spring cleaning (I am backslapping myself as I write this) I had miraculously created space inside wardrobes, bathrooms, bookcase (since my dad travels with at least 6 books) and on the study table. Not only did I arrange for extra mattresses and linen, I also found clever nooks in the house to store these bulky items neatly without making our pad look any smaller.

Icing of the cake – my husband got a leaking pipe replaced the day before our guests arrived, so we were even mould-free. Only if the wooden door to our electrical closet – hoarding space for all displaced items in the house – would hold up for a month without crashing under pressure, we’d pass off as perfectly conscientious hosts.

Baba's Samsung Tab encased in a bright orange cover became a permanent fixture on this table because he would hog this charging point day and night.

Baba’s Samsung Tab encased in a bright orange cover became a permanent fixture on our TV table because he hogged this charging point for the entire duration of his stay.

The door did hold up for a month but circumstances didn’t. The thick pall of haze over Singapore (from forest fires in Indonesia) rendering the air quality ‘unhealthy’ compromised imminent sightseeing plans. A family emergency on my husband’s side needed him to fly out for 2 weeks the next evening, leaving two overeager elderly raging to make the most of their first visit abroad at the hands of their hapless daughter scrambling for plan B.

I didn’t have plan B. What I had instead was this incipient fear. Retired folks like my parents being creatures of habit become petulant once their rhythm is upset. How long until the fascination and wide eyed wonder of the new place started to wear off? Surely the novelty of clean and safe roads, manicured parks, disciplined traffic, cars that didn’t honk and gave way to pedestrians and the miraculous ability to ‘drink water straight from the tap’ couldn’t keep them dazzled for a month? I had to give them a routine and get them to repeat it everyday till it became second nature.

And so I did.

Baba would often relate these simple yet pithy sayings that he read/heard somewhere. I thought of writing them down one day.

Baba would often relate these simple yet pithy sayings that he had read/heard somewhere. I thought of writing some down one day while he was so eagerly delivering them.

Mornings would be dedicated to tea and Jacob’s cream crackers. My trusty canary yellow teapot which sadly met its end in the line of duty, entertained my guests with countless cups of champagne coloured beverage from Japanese Green Tea, Chamomile to lemongrass, lavender and Chilli Roiboos infusions. While I let the tea steep, my dad, always in white pyjamas and vest when indoors, would sit on the wide window sill and watch the constant retinue of cars, schoolchildren, infants in prams and fancy dogs being walked by their owners, all the while clutching his Samsung Tablet encased in a lurid orange cover.

If he made a word of considerable points in Scrabble, my level headed father, a man of few words and fewer displays of emotion would pump his fists into the air and let out a victorious cry – ‘yes, yes, yes’. He’d also bite into his biscuits and dribble the crumbs on the floor. I started skipping all the double and triple words just to watch him get animated every morning, and then clean the floor inconspicuously with a brush and a dust picker.

We would always watch a movie post dinner. Here’s my dad reading the book ‘Chanakya’s Chant’ and watching a hindi comedy flick on Youtube

My mom would sit on the sofa, propped against two cushions, sip her tea and either continue to read a particular travel article on Antarctica she’s been following or fiddle with her phone like the rest of us. Meanwhile I’d check the hourly psi readings and declare if it would be safe to venture out of the house. If all was fine, we’d quickly pick a place to visit and I’d try to convince dad to come with us and eventually get into an argument because he wouldn’t want to exhaust me by pushing his wheelchair and I wouldn’t want to leave him behind. Some days he let me win and some days I let him win, especially when I and mom wanted to go shopping.

Baba's precise infallible routine contains an hour of meditation twice a day. I've caught him nodding off couple of times while at it but he denies the accusation fervently.

Baba’s infallible routine contained an hour of meditation two times a day. I’ve caught him nodding off couple of times while at it but he fervently denies the accusation.

There were days when our mornings would stretch longer and take on a didactic tone with my dad drifting into a discourse about religion, spirituality and life in general and how to live it, occasionally concluding in pithy sentences drawn from the Gita, Vedas or his life’s experiences. My mom, having heard these before would contribute background score to his soliloquy in the form of soft snoring sounds.

On the days we stayed in, I’d cook an elaborate lunch, usually cuisines my parents were new to, from Greek Lemon Chicken, to Indonesian Red curry, Vietnamese Rice paper rolls to SriLankan Prawns. They’d always fuss over the dish when I laid it down on the table, saying how beautiful it looked and how good it smelled and then surreptitiously grab some ketchup for added flavour until I started sweetening my dishes more than my taste buds would allow. We were getting along perfectly well.

Evenings would mean a walk (minus the wheelchair) to the park and then on to our neighbourhood Starbucks, where he'd first read his books and then play scrabble.

Evenings would mean a walk (minus the wheelchair) to the park and then on to our neighbourhood Starbucks, where my dad would read his books and update his scrabble moves. He’s very competitive and somewhat of a sore loser!

Around 3 in the afternoon, come rain or shine, my dad would hobble to a quiet corner in the house, spread a mat on the floor, set the timer for an hour and sit down to meditate. Though on several occasions I’ve found him in a state – shoulders slumped, back relaxed, head tilted forward, taking deep slow breaths – that could only indicate post-lunch dip, when confronted he would fervently deny the accusation and counter it each time with some iteration of ‘I could not have dozed off. I was alert the whole time’. I sketched him in the said posture one afternoon to tease him and also to prove my point but then didn’t have the heart to show it to him.

Nearly 10 years ago, a severe cerebral haemorrhage had permanently incapacitated my dad, rendering him unfit not just for his day job as a mechanical engineer at a Steel Plant but for performing simple tasks like buttoning his shirt or wearing a shoe. Then again, I haven’t met a more positive person who’s picked himself up from deathbed and constructed a life without regrets. Years of care, support and physiotherapy may have improved his situation by a minuscule percentage, the rest was his own doing, with sheer will power and conviction. I couldn’t trample on that, not even in good humour!

This is the trusty wheelchair that saved the trip - I had to draw it before returning, although the moment wasn't quite agreeable.

We had hired a wheelchair for a month to take dad around for sightseeing with ease. I had to draw it before returning it the next day.

Unless the haze was terrible, on most evenings I would take my parents to the neighbourhood park, where they’d spend a little time on a wooden bench watching people go about their businesses, and then walk another 150 meters to the mall to lounge at a cafe, listen to jazz, drink lattes, read books and most importantly, at least for my dad – play scrabble until dinner. Back home, we’d huddle on the sofa, put on a Satyajit Ray flick on Youtube and end the day in the throes of monochromatic Kolkata.

After my husband was back we did manage to take them around Singapore, and though it was precious to watch my parents get excited at every sight just as we did when we moved in here, it is the rhythm of our days together – the little tasks that cumulatively formed our routine – that I’ve come to miss the most after they left. Goodbyes are hard and this one was too, but then again, ‘distance’ – however menacing it is in the beginning, is restorative eventually. With each passing day our memory fades out the disagreeable and holds in light only the best of times. Like when I taught my dad the phrase ‘ni hao‘ (‘How are you?’ in Mandarin) one day and he went crazy with it by testing it out on every unsuspecting cab driver, shop assistant, waiter and school kid that crossed his path till the end of their trip. It was incredibly funny!

Almost gutted

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I was heading home after a long day when this charming old lady on Blair Road with teal coloured facade embellished with classical motifs and louvered windows fringed by waxy Frangipani leaves jumped out at me.

Giving credibility to my artist friends’ claims about my inclination towards a certain kind of sketch subject , that range from lighthearted banter – ‘show her shophouses and she’s all perked up’, ‘Shophouses..well, that’s her middle name‘ to exaggerated assertions like – ‘suppose she was bound, gagged and comatose, I bet she could still land a decent shophouse in her sketchbook‘ , I lingered and toyed with the idea of, well, sketching this shophouse.

A Blair Road terrace house with Frangipani in its courtyard

This Blair Road terrace house sketch came back from the dead

By the time I put pen to paper, sunlight was licking the last bar of the grilled gate. Construction workers from the renovation site next door had stopped hammering, hung their helmets and boots and were heading back in a group that moved like one composite unit of droopy shoulders and dragging feet. Except a house cat chasing a squirrel, I was alone on the street and the meditative silence brought out some satisfactory linework.

I went home and painted it.

And then I loathed it, with all my heart. Harder I looked, more limp and lifeless the painting became. Feeding it to the paper shredder seemed like the right thing to do, but I put it away and tried to pretend it never happened. But mistakes happen, more often than you like, in different shapes and forms and turns out you can’t quit the game and press ‘restart’ every time you make a boo boo. You need to step on them to climb to the next level. So I dug this one out after months in exile and retouched it today and guess what – I can finally live with it and move on!

I had never sketched SAM

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with 400 people before.

Singapore Art Museum (SAM)

And though you don’t see them in my sketch (except three), I sense their proximity, energy and camaraderie even as I write this. Sketching this building was the last event on the last day of Urban Sketchers Symposium held in the last week of July. The late afternoon’s humidity was tinged with the bittersweet feeling of relief and impending gloom.

After 3-days of intensive sketching, art workshops and activities we were going to have our lives back. But the little bubble inside which we hung out with artists from around the world, sketched and played with paints from dawn till dusk, drew our food till it went cold, had nerdy discussions about art supplies and perspectives without anybody leaving the table, went giddy with excitement when shaking hands with our favourite artists and most of all got inspired and set lofty goals for ourselves a million times in a day would burst and the withdrawal symptoms would kick in.

But before all that happened, I was sketching SAM with 400 artists. We were like a full blown symphony orchestra sitting on low stools or plonked on hard concrete, each playing our own instrument, deftly, looking from time to time at the conductor in front of us for cues and making art together. That in itself was a pretty incredible feeling!

“Which part of India are you from?”

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I’ve been asked this question countless times during my 5 years of stay in Singapore. In most cases it’s preceded by, “where are you from?” or just “you’re from India, right?” served with varying degrees of certainty reflected on the interviewer’s face. It ranges from completely clueless to somewhat sure to ‘so sure I that can bet my life on this’.

For some, my one word answer seems sufficient. Whether they’re in the know or probably don’t care much, the conversation drifts to other things.

On the other hand, anybody who’s been to a yoga retreat in Himachal, read Shantaram or was gifted a miniature Taj Mahal would go a little further and ask which part of the country I’m from. ‘Kolkata’ or Calcutta, however I say it, would draw blank stares. It’s mostly downhill from there. I watch them plunge into the deep recesses of their minds, trying to find something that remotely looks, smells, sounds or feels like the word I had just uttered. The pressure of offering a quick rejoinder seems like trying to diffuse a bomb only seconds away from exploding.

This yellow building on Selegie Road houses Mr. Bean’s cafe which is open 24 hours for 365 days.

You’ve got to act now and hope for the best. The first answer the mind contrives becomes their opening salvo. “Last year, my friends took a train from Delhi to Varanasi. Is it near any of those places?” No ; “Near Nagpur, maybe? I heard a lot about Nagpur’s oranges!” Nope, (also the orange part was irrelevant); “Goa, then? Goa’s in the west, dude; “How about …Kerela?” South.

It doesn’t bother me when people don’t know about the place I come from. I like them for trying to connect with me on some common ground, making suggestions, sometimes with pleading eyes because if I can give them one approving nod, they can finally attribute some definitive qualities (albeit oversimplified) to my being. They can identify, label and file me away in their memories.

But till they do, I enjoy this anonymity because in that short window of time you can be what you are without being overshadowed with what you should be. It doesn’t last long though, not in this day and age. Just the other day, standing under the shade of this huge tree (see the sketch above), somebody asked the question, and got really chirpy upon hearing my answer. “Man, you guys love your fish, don’t you? So is it the season for Hilsa yet?

See what I mean?

Whimsical Vowels

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Sunday evenings are rife with the sweet pain of separation. The sought after ‘weekend’ buoyant and alive in your arms a moment ago grows listless and impatient as the day proceeds. You already feel the tug and in utter despair try finding ways to stretch whatever time you have with one another.

In our case, it leads to a frantic internet search for cafes, preferably somewhere we’ve never been to and can spend the evening there, reading, lounging, chatting, eating and drinking, and of course sketching till the staff puts away their aprons and chef hats and the ‘open’ sign on the front door has been flipped. In short, a place where we could save ourselves from moping till bedtime.

AEIOU Cafe sketch closeup

The success rate of finding such a place maybe abysmal – if the ambience works, the coffee disappoints; if coffee’s good, the chairs are stiff; if the chairs are comfy, the staff maybe unfriendly – but we do get lucky sometimes. Last week’s search yielded the names of few interesting places in the Jalan Besar area, out of which we picked ‘AEIOU’ because it’s been popping on my newsfeed a lot lately.

AEIOU Cafe sketch: Of all the items that were on my table and around me, I picked out some at random and designed an illustration that expresses the wonder I felt sitting among such outlandish and whimsical decor

If this cafe was a person, I’d imagine him wearing mismatched socks with self doodled converse shoes paired with black suit, pinstripe shirt and his grandfather’s beret. He’d also have a ponytail, dyed purple and a satchel fashioned out of discarded denims or burlap sacks slapped across his shoulder. He’ll stand out in a crowd but is oh-so-sure of himself. And in the midst of gawking at this interesting bloke and trying to make sense of his persona, if you simply extend your hand, he’ll take it warmly and make you feel comfortable. That is how we felt for the rest of the evening.

AEIOU Cafe sketch close up

“Look at our table – it’s made out of a grilled window!”, whispered my husband. The glass in which his drink appeared was a chopped off portion of Grey Goose Vodka bottle. About us were mismatched old fashioned chairs, battered drum working as a flower vase, robots made out of tin cans that used to hold salad oil, hanging lamps made of kettles and toolboxes, pipes and window frames, suspended hot air balloons that doubled as decorative plant holder, jaded 70s furniture with funky paint on them and so much more that even before we ordered, I started sketching this whimsical mess and became extremely unsociable until the ‘root vegetable fries’ arrived. My husband picked out the potatoes for himself and piled the yams and sweet potatoes on my side. This sneaky underhand tactic worked only because I loved the taste of my side of tubers.

AEIOU Cafe sketch closeup

In another two hours I finished sketching over several cups of green tea. Reluctant to leave just yet, we ordered dinner with enough apprehension. If the food was meh I would’ve let it slide because you can’t tick all the boxes plus we were already having a good time. My chicken burger with a light salad atop a dino shaped wooden platter was gourmet standard. So it scored a last minute place in the sketch before the calls of ‘last order’ came and with it all the signs and signals of closure.

Monday was inevitable and looming large. We were ready.

Seeing anew

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Three years ago, Pico Iyer, whose travel writings and essays I’m immensely fond of shared one of his travel habits at the Singapore Writer’s Festival. He said that he carries a pocket notebook with him at all times, in which he jots down everything he sees, smells, hears or feels in the destination he arrives at.

The Symposium name tag now decorates my bookshelf

This makes sense because, first impressions are the freshest opinion of our new surroundings, our immediate reaction, and they as I have found out on my travels, are stark, honest feelings with frighteningly short shelf lives. If not recorded in some way, the initial shock, joy, disgust, intrigue, wonder, distaste, humility upon arriving at new shores gets diluted with each passing day to their watered down versions. The longer we stay, the initial discord with our surroundings which birthed such emotions in the first place gets ironed out, persistently, until one day we numb them and call ourselves acclimatised or acculturated.

View of Purvis Street from Killiney Kopitiam

I’ve sketched Purvis Street a million times, but never this inside out view from Killiney Kopitiam – which by the way is my favourite haunt for lime juice and french toast with a ‘view’. I like how trying to see the same place differently forces you to think outside the box! This view of Purvis street framed by the arch of the five foot way is now one of favourite sketches.

I have a copy of the 50th anniversary edition of MFK Fisher’s Art of Eating, that has a quote by Ruth Reichl, a former restaurant critic of the New York Times. She wrote to someone who was about to familiarise himself with the legendary author’s writing, “I can’t tell you how much I envy you the joy of reading Mary Frances for the first time”.

Whether good or bad, joyous or gut-wrenching, there is always this innate sense of ‘feeling alive’ found in first impressions. And a sense of loss, lament and envy when it passes us as swiftly as it came and moves to the next person fresh off the boast, whose eyes you can see are glinting, vision focussed, ears pricked and spine upright. Only a few days ago, Singapore was inundated with people of this kind, who’d flown in from 36 different countries with their clean slates (minds and sketchbooks, both) to participate in the annual Urban Sketchers Symposium.

This beautiful building on Waterloo Street was cordoned off and workers were restoring it. Though nobody I asked could say what it was used for, I was happy that instead of getting bulldozed it’ll be repurposed.

As you can see from the picture of my symposium name tag, I was part of this interesting motley, but more than witnessing their supreme artistic talents which I already knew about, I was interested in knowing their first impressions of Singapore. ‘How do you find it?’ is what I repeatedly asked everybody I met, yearning to see what these people saw, hear what they heard and try to feel what they felt, even a little bit to dust off the ennui that comes from living in a place for long.

‘You live in a paradise and don’t even know it’; ‘It’s so futuristic’; ‘..no political tension, clean, safe, peaceful, what else does one need’; ‘the heat and humidity is killing me’, ‘when it rains, it really pours’, ‘what comes through is the generosity of its people’, ‘for a country so young, I didn’t expect to witness such rich cultural heritage’ and so on is what I heard.

Bussorah Street, in Kampong Glam probably gets one of the highest footfalls in Singapore. Most photos and drawings of this street are of the front on view of the Sultan mosque. Here I tried to tell the story from a different angle by seeing differently. Sure there’s a hat tip to the mosque on the right, but the focus is on the sketchers in the foreground who form a part of the scene itself. This was drawn from the Kampong Glam Cafe.

What I saw was hundreds of interpretations (there were about 400 participants) of the very sights we pass by on our way to work, schools, cafes or foodcourts and each one of them – from drawings of clothes drying on bamboo sticks sticking out of HDB buildings, elderly uncles eating noodles, religious motifs of the Hindu temples to the ‘New Moon’ branded red and yellow umbrellas on Waterloo street – jabbed at my metaphorical blinkers.

The final blow came from watching a symposium participant crouched on the floor of the Bras Basah building, making an extraordinary drawing of an ordinary stationary shop I never spared a thought for only because I had depleted my well of wonder.

The Sultan Mosque in Kampong Glam. Every visitor in Singapore probably has this view locked in their camera or recorded in their sketchbooks. I have one too but didn’t stop me from sneaking in another one!

The three days of the symposium, packed with workshops, lectures, demos, activities and mass sketchwalks with international artists should’ve left me motivated and inspired, which it did, amply, but that’s not it. My little stint as faux tourist in the place I live has armed me with the ability to see things anew or at least believe in its possibility! The sketches I’ve posted here are of sights I had blatantly ignored before but starting to notice like the building on Waterloo Street or those I’ve seen, visited and drawn aplenty, only now I try to see them differently and draw them from different angles like the ones on Purvis Street and Bussorah Street.

Truth be told, I’d never have a second ‘first impression’ of Singapore, but I’m glad I figured ways to reinstate some of that curiosity and wonder I felt when I first arrived at her shores.

Bhumi’s ‘messy’ Kitchen

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When I pulled out my sketchbook and pen from my satchel, Bhumi was standing with her back towards me. She was wiping sweat off her brow with one hand and stirring a pan of creamy green palak paneer with the other. Then almost instantly, hunching over a mushy brown curry simmering on the other burner, she inhales deeply, nods to herself and, mutters softly, ‘You like aubergines, don’t you?”.

I do but I’m not sure if she expects an answer. I say ‘yes’ anyway and settle down on the dining room chair, trying to clear a little space for me on the table, which by the way seems to be the apartment’s principal depository. Everything from a pack of purple grapes, house keys, scissors a basket of mung bean sprouts, a bottle of aloe vera, torn packet of bay leaves to pickle jars jostle for space on the yellowed table cloth with leaf patterns. At the far end, a purple curtain tries to conceal shoes boxes, milk cartons, laundry and discarded furniture.

Bhumi's 'cluttered' Kitchen in a 2-room HDB in Kelantan

Bhumi’s ‘messy’ Kitchen in a 2-room HDB flat in Kelantan

I’ve known Bhumi for four years, when she and her husband had moved to Singapore in search of work. “Someday when I have a nice place to myself, my own kitchen..and refrigerator.. I’d invite you to lunch,” she’d said to me countless times, until last week, she actually did invite me to lunch. “What would you like to eat?”..no wait..don’t tell me..I’ll surprise you!”. I came bearing a tub of mango icecream which she immediately snatched from my hand and put in the freezer.

Her husband who works at a bar, waiting tables was home, peeling almonds and chopping bananas for the fruit custard. “Guess what, I don’t have appointments today!” announced Bhumi, while letting me in. She works at a beauty parlour for a paltry sum, a chunk of which goes into educating her only daughter at a boarding school in India. When I offer to help with the cooking she directs me to a chair. “Just sit, relax! We don’t have air conditioning, but…!!”. She disappears inside and I hear something heavy being dragged out of the rooms. The two other tenants with whom the couple share their apartment aren’t in, so I have not one but two table fans directed at me.

‘Seriously, how can I help”, I offer again, but she changes the subject. ‘Let’s go for a walk after lunch. I’ll change into something nice’ she says looking disparagingly at her attire for a second. I see two spindly legs covered in blue varicose veins – from standing long hours at work – sticking out from a pair of pink shorts. Her hair is tied up in a messy bun. She picks up a spoonful of heaped coriander powder from her spice box and throws it into one of the pans. The light breeze from the window, catches the smell and perfumes the kitchen. Unable to assist, I settle down to sketch and halfway through I find Bhumi cleaning the table and clearing the clutter. “You shouldn’t..it’s messy, it’s really messy”, she says frowning. ‘But I want to sketch the mess’, I say, alarmed at my subjects disappearing one by one.

As any sketcher will tell you, there is immense satisfaction gained from drawing the clutter, the chaos, the disorder but in doing so, as it turns out the owner of that clutter may often be chagrined. Probably Bhumi knew I meant well. “After you finish, just label it as ‘messy’ kitchen’, okay”, she said, and turned her back once again to finish cooking our lunch.

Trip to Bali Lane

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Stamford Raffles’s rationale for dividing Singapore into ethnic subdivisions while town planning in 1822 may have been geared towards achieving orderliness, but it is the 21st century traveler who’s thanking him today though for a slightly different reason. With modernisation changing the look of cities across the world and making them increasingly homogenous, it is such little pockets that offer character and variety to a landscape of highrises and shopping malls.

The buzz around the alfresco fruit and vegetable stalls crowded with saree clad women bedecked in gold bangles and flowers in hair, stooping over mangoes or tomatoes to check their ripeness is what defines Little India for me; the vibrant Chinese lanterns, souvenir stalls, Chilli crab outlets, calligraphy shops, temples, mahjong playing elderly uncles and the constant ebb and flow of backpackers jump out at me when I set foot in Chinatown and finally when I enter Kampong Glam, I’m steered by the palm fringed gold dome of the Sultan mosque, shops selling carpets, perfumes, silk, batik and laces, Middle Eastern eateries embellished with lamps, chandeliers and other moorish trinkets and the smell of biryani and shawarma filling the warren of narrow streets around mealtimes.

Blu Jaz and Muzium Cafe on Bali Lane, Kampong Glam

What’s common to all these precincts however is the ubiquitous shophouse – a timeless beauty, which is a delight to sketch, photograph or just be in the company of. On my last week’s trip to Kampong Glam, I sat under a huge shady tree and sketched this pleasant corner of Blue Jaz Cafe and Muzium Cafe both housed in quaint shophouses on Bali Lane with plenty of potted plants in between them. For the two hours I spent on my line drawing, I watched the cafe staff sweep leaves off the floor, dust, mop, wipe and arrange furniture, and finally grow antsy and glance uncomfortably at our direction. The footsteps of the lunch crowd descending from the nearby offices was unmistakable. We did put them at ease by wrapping up our easels and clearing off in seconds!

The second last page

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Lately I’ve been sketching on loose sheets a lot, which is why my precious Moleskine was neglected for a while. However after our little catch up, I’m on the brink of completion. We’re about to part ways. I filled out the second last page of my sketchbook and it feels special, more special than the last page ever will, because I still get to carry it one more time, flip through and reminisce about our journey!

Clarke Quay. The building beyond the bridge with the red roof top is the Parliament House

This stretch above was sketched at Clarke Quay – the go to destination for active night life on this island. Strobe lights, thumping music and throngs of evening revellers drinking, eating, dancing, bar hopping is the picture after sun down. In the early mornings however, the place hosts the sketchers and the caretakers – sweepers, cleaners, gardeners and so on. Irrespective of the time of the day I choose to visit, Singapore River’s monumental transformation from a gritty trading post lined with godowns and warehouses till late 20th century into this dazzling entertainment precinct never ceases to amaze me. Seriously, spare a thought when you visit next!