Little India, Singapore

The Sari Singapore of Little India


MRT Passengers
A Singaporean family of Hindu origin is aboard the MRT on its way to Sentosa.
Amigas
Jithra Charleston, a Singaporean Indo hugs Kassandra Lee, a Singaporean friend, on Singapore's Orchard Road.
Singapore by night
Cars leave light marks on a typical and colorful street in Little India.
Ceremony
Hindu priests conduct a ceremony in a Singapore temple
esplanade cinema
Spectators at an open-air cinema session in Little India.
finger tomato
Singaporeans of Indian origin buy vegetables at a street stall in Little India.
last minute shopping
Indians judiciously pick tomatoes from a Little India vegetable stand.
Anything
Passerby laughs at the message of a mupi promoting Anything soda.
jithra charleston
Jithra Charleston, an Indo-Singapore proud of her Indian genetic origin, at ease in a street chair on Orchard Road.
Singaporean Indian Origin
Singaporean inhabitant displays his Hindu ethnicity with a confident and proud smile.
Saris seller
Salesman at the entrance of a Litte India saris shop.
Saris mannequins
A clothes and fabric store employee watches the action on the adjoining street.
hindu ceremony
Hindu ceremony at one of Singapore's Hindu temples
Saris
Women in gaudy saris talk on a bank of Clarke Quay.
Singapore high rises
Robertson, an Indian visitor to Singapore is photographed in front of Singapore's skyscrapers
There are thousands of inhabitants instead of the 1.3 billion of the mother country, but Little India, a neighborhood in tiny Singapore, does not lack soul. No soul, no smell of Bollywood curry and music.

Like almost everyone, the traffic light on Bukit Timah Rd allows pedestrians to earn the right to the green light.

In strong acceleration, several cars compete for the straight. Its speed does not frighten a few dozen Singaporeans of Indian origin who, instead of pressing the button, rush onto the asphalt and force drivers to skid.

We are in Singapore's Little India. Singapore's notion of fines, orderly and uncompromising falls to the ground here in this neighborhood. Even more on Sundays, when the local market takes place.

Just below, on Orchard Rd, and in this country city, in general, tolerance is different.

No Indian, Chinese, Malay or Singaporean of any other origin dares to break the law.

The punishment for unruly crossings, or jaywalking – as they are called in English and its English – amounts to thousands of Singapore dollars, a currency worth roughly half the Euro.

Sari's Singapore of Little India

When it comes to Little India, authorities surrender to the evidence. They close their eyes, as if the offenders are just children.

In the image of Mumbai, Calcutta or New Delhi, from mid-afternoon onwards, thousands of Indians fill the streets of Little India. It's mostly just men.

They arrive from all over, in truck boxes adapted for their transport. And they form human currents that flow in opposite directions.

Vegetables, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Indians judiciously pick tomatoes from a Little India vegetable stand.

They traverse, narrowly, the arcades of centuries-old buildings. They stop at spaces, buying vegetables and other basic goods, in shop stalls that smell of all the spices of Asia.

Or in front of warehouses of DVD's and VCD's, fascinated by the Bollywood hits that are shown on big TV screens.

Saris Seller, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Salesman at the entrance of a Litte India saris shop.

Litte India: From Prison to Today's Great Tamil Quarter

Little India's origins were unglamorous. According to historical records, the neighborhood was formed from a prison for ethnic Tamil prisoners, during the time when the founder and governor Stamford Raffles it developed Singapore in the service of the British crown.

Singapore from Sari, Singapore

Robertson, an Indian visitor to Singapore is photographed in front of Singapore's skyscrapers

Once its penal function had expired, the location close to the Serangoon River initially established several new cattle raisers.

As Raffles' ethnic segregation policy overcrowded the Chulia Kampong area, more and more Tamil workers found space available for their activities.

At the beginning of the XNUMXth century, they had already formed the basis of the current neighborhood.

Singapore's Political Multiethnicity

Beginning in 1959, Raffles' teachings inspired the mainstream People's Action Party (led by Sino-Singapores) to develop a policy of racial harmony that continued to compartmentalize the country.

At the time of the creation of this text, the PAP still governed. The Indian population did not have to submit, as before, to pre-defined housing and working areas.

Saris, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Women in gaudy saris talk on a bank of Clarke Quay.

As a matter of cultural heritage, however, their businesses remain where they have always been. They are supported by a vast and loyal clientele of Tamils, Indians of other ethnicities, Sino-Singapores and Western expatriates.

In addition to these, Little India also benefits from the exemplary marketing of tourism in Singapore. Thousands of curious foreigners visit it who take the opportunity to add an Indian taste to your trip

At the same time, in Little India, they manage to neutralize the feelings of sterility and superficiality too often transmitted by the city-state.

Little India: The Singapore-Adjusted Subcontinent Frenzy

Serangoon Road is the main commercial artery of the neighborhood. It houses the Tekka Centre, The Verge Mall and the Little India arcades.

Light trails, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Cars leave light marks on a typical and colorful street in Little India.

The former are emblematic places of multi-ethnicity in Singapore

especially the Tekka Center which hosts a food and food market where many Chinese vendors speak Tamil and other dialects of the India, and some Indians express themselves in Mandarin or Cantonese.

Arcades are a different case. There, Indian establishments predominate, still, in great majority, of Tamil origin. They are classic grocery stores stocked with all the products that the Indian community consumes.

Anything, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Passerby laughs at the message of a mupi promoting Anything soda.

And in which packaging from the mother country with already historic designs stand out visually.

Fabric and ready-to-wear stores also abound, almost always marked by models that are too white for the target clientele. And florist stalls selling wreaths and petals of all kinds, indispensable for the rituals of the surrounding Hindu temples.

The temples are detectable by their exuberant architecture and the eccentric imposition of their gopurams, towers filled with divine or semi-divine figures that mark the entrances.

Hindu Ceremony, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Hindu priests conduct a ceremony in a Singapore temple

Singapore. A Shared Nation. Not Always in Harmony

But, in a tiny territory like Singapore, shared by four different ethnic groups and beliefs, neither religion nor politics have managed, to date, to guarantee an immaculate coexistence.

Later, while talking with the director of Chinese origin of the Scarlet Hotel – located in the middle of Chinatown – in a provocative way, we bring Little India and the jaywalking to the fore. The reaction is immediate: “Well … those Indians … we are getting a bit fed up with their chaos …”.

Girlfriends, Little India, Singapore from Sari, Singapore

Jithra Charleston, a Singaporean Indo hugs Kassandra Lee, a Singaporean friend, on Singapore's Orchard Road.

Back in Little India, we tried to explore the issue further. We talked to Ranveer Singh, a Sikhs charismatic who justifies himself with due haughtiness: “We have our culture, the “Chinese” have theirs.

They have the Prime Minister, we have the President… We are all part of this country. It is true that they are the majority and that they have long been the rulers. But it is time they realized that they cannot demand from all Singaporeans the same asphyxiating rigor they live in…”

As if to support his claim, on a terrace next door, an audience as spontaneous as relaxed drinks weary and beer and roars with laughter after laughter, ecstatic at scenes from a comic musical set in Mumbai.

The floor is dirty. The chairs and tables are arranged without any aesthetic or geometric concern.

Outdoor Theater, Little India, Sari Singapore, Singapore

Spectators at an open-air cinema session in Little India.

We are in Little India. The neighborhood and Indians may even have little influence on the nation's destinies.

Here, Singapore smells of spice and wears sari.

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Singapore

The Asian Food Capital

There were 4 ethnic groups in Singapore, each with its own culinary tradition. Added to this was the influence of thousands of immigrants and expatriates on an island with half the area of ​​London. It was the nation with the greatest gastronomic diversity in the Orient.
Markets

A Market Economy

The law of supply and demand dictates their proliferation. Generic or specific, covered or open air, these spaces dedicated to buying, selling and exchanging are expressions of life and financial health.
Singapore

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Accustomed to planning and winning, Singapore seduces and recruits ambitious people from all over the world. At the same time, it seems to bore to death some of its most creative inhabitants.
Sentosa, Singapore

Singapore's Fun Island

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Esteros del Iberá, Pantanal Argentina, Alligator
Safari
Iberá Wetlands, Argentina

The Pantanal of the Pampas

On the world map, south of the famous brazilian wetland, a little-known flooded region appears, but almost as vast and rich in biodiversity. the Guarani expression Y bera defines it as “shining waters”. The adjective fits more than its strong luminance.
Faithful light candles, Milarepa Grotto temple, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 9th Manang to Milarepa Cave, Nepal

A Walk between Acclimatization and Pilgrimage

In full Annapurna Circuit, we finally arrived in Manang (3519m). we still need acclimatize to the higher stretches that followed, we inaugurated an equally spiritual journey to a Nepalese cave of Milarepa (4000m), the refuge of a siddha (sage) and Buddhist saint.
Sheets of Bahia, Eternal Diamonds, Brazil
Architecture & Design
Sheets of Bahia, Brazil

Lençóis da Bahia: not Even Diamonds Are Forever

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Tibetan heights, altitude sickness, mountain prevent to treat, travel
Adventure

Altitude Sickness: the Grievances of Getting Mountain Sick

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Moa on a beach in Rapa Nui/Easter Island
Ceremonies and Festivities
Easter Island, Chile

The Take-off and Fall of the Bird-Man Cult

Until the XNUMXth century, the natives of Easter Island they carved and worshiped great stone gods. All of a sudden, they started to drop their moai. The veneration of tanatu manu, a half-human, half-sacred leader, decreed after a dramatic competition for an egg.
Islamic silhouettes
Cities

Istanbul, Turkey

Where East meets West, Turkey Seeks its Way

An emblematic and grandiose metropolis, Istanbul lives at a crossroads. As Turkey in general, divided between secularism and Islam, tradition and modernity, it still doesn't know which way to go

Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo, Japan
Meal
Tokyo, Japan

The Fish Market That Lost its Freshness

In a year, each Japanese eats more than their weight in fish and shellfish. Since 1935, a considerable part was processed and sold in the largest fish market in the world. Tsukiji was terminated in October 2018, and replaced by Toyosu's.
Tombola, street bingo-Campeche, Mexico
Culture
Campeche, Mexico

A Bingo so playful that you play with puppets

On Friday nights, a group of ladies occupy tables at Independencia Park and bet on trifles. The tiniest prizes come out to them in combinations of cats, hearts, comets, maracas and other icons.
Sport
Competitions

Man: an Ever Tested Species

It's in our genes. For the pleasure of participating, for titles, honor or money, competitions give meaning to the world. Some are more eccentric than others.
Devils Marbles, Alice Springs to Darwin, Stuart hwy, Top End Path
Traveling
Alice Springs to Darwin, Australia

Stuart Road, on its way to Australia's Top End

Do Red Center to the tropical Top End, the Stuart Highway road travels more than 1.500km lonely through Australia. Along this route, the Northern Territory radically changes its look but remains faithful to its rugged soul.
Train Fianarantsoa to Manakara, Malagasy TGV, locomotive
Ethnic
Fianarantsoa-Manakara, Madagascar

On board the Malagasy TGV

We depart Fianarantsoa at 7a.m. It wasn't until 3am the following morning that we completed the 170km to Manakara. The natives call this almost secular train Train Great Vibrations. During the long journey, we felt, very strongly, those of the heart of Madagascar.
sunlight photography, sun, lights
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Natural Light (Part 2)

One Sun, So Many Lights

Most travel photos are taken in sunlight. Sunlight and weather form a capricious interaction. Learn how to predict, detect and use at its best.
Robben Island Island, Apartheid, South Africa, Portico
History
Robben Island, South Africa

The Island off the Apartheid

Bartolomeu Dias was the first European to glimpse Robben Island, when crossing the Cape of Storms. Over the centuries, the colonists turned it into an asylum and prison. Nelson Mandela left in 1982 after eighteen years in prison. Twelve years later, he became South Africa's first black president.
VIP lights
Islands
Moyo Island, Indonesia

Moyo: An Indonesian Island Just for a Few

Few people know or have had the privilege of exploring the Moyo nature reserve. One of them was Princess Diana who, in 1993, took refuge there from the media oppression that would later victimize her.
Passengers on the frozen surface of the Gulf of Bothnia, at the base of the "Sampo" icebreaker, Finland
Winter White
Kemi, Finland

It's No "Love Boat". Breaks the Ice since 1961

Built to maintain waterways through the most extreme arctic winter, the icebreaker Sampo” fulfilled its mission between Finland and Sweden for 30 years. In 1988, he reformed and dedicated himself to shorter trips that allow passengers to float in a newly opened channel in the Gulf of Bothnia, in clothes that, more than special, seem spacey.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Literature
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Gandoca Manzanillo Refuge, Bahia
Nature
Gandoca-Manzanillo (Wildlife Refuge), Costa Rica

The Caribbean Hideaway of Gandoca-Manzanillo

At the bottom of its southeastern coast, on the outskirts of Panama, the “Tica” nation protects a patch of jungle, swamps and the Caribbean Sea. As well as a providential wildlife refuge, Gandoca-Manzanillo is a stunning tropical Eden.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Semeru (far) and Bromo volcanoes in Java, Indonesia
Natural Parks
Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park Indonesia

The Volcanic Sea of ​​Java

The gigantic Tengger caldera rises 2000m in the heart of a sandy expanse of east Java. From it project the highest mountain of this Indonesian island, the Semeru, and several other volcanoes. From the fertility and clemency of this sublime as well as Dantesque setting, one of the few Hindu communities that resisted the Muslim predominance around, thrives.
St. Paul's Cathedral, Vigan, Asia Hispanica, Philippines
UNESCO World Heritage
Vigan, Philippines

Vigan: the Most Hispanic of Asias

The Spanish settlers left but their mansions are intact and the Kalesas circulate. When Oliver Stone was looking for Mexican sets for "Born on the 4th of July" he found them in this ciudad fernandina
Characters
Look-alikes, Actors and Extras

Make-believe stars

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Dominican Republic, Bahia de Las Águilas Beach, Pedernales. Jaragua National Park, Beach
Beaches
Lagoa Oviedo a Bahia de las Águilas, Dominican Republic

In Search of the Immaculate Dominican Beach

Against all odds, one of the most unspoiled Dominican coastlines is also one of the most remote. Discovering the province of Pedernales, we are dazzled by the semi-desert Jaragua National Park and the Caribbean purity of Bahia de las Águilas.
Tawang Monastery, Arunachal Pradesh, India
Religion
Tawang, India

The Mystic Valley of Deep Discord

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Chepe Express, Chihuahua Al Pacifico Railway
On Rails
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

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mini-snorkeling
Society
Phi Phi Islands, Thailand

Back to Danny Boyle's The Beach

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Saksun, Faroe Islands, Streymoy, warning
Daily life
Saksun, streymoyFaroe Islands

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Sheep and hikers in Mykines, Faroe Islands
Wildlife
Mykines, Faroe Islands

In the Faeroes FarWest

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Passengers, scenic flights-Southern Alps, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand

The Aeronautical Conquest of the Southern Alps

In 1955, pilot Harry Wigley created a system for taking off and landing on asphalt or snow. Since then, his company has unveiled, from the air, some of the greatest scenery in Oceania.