The Vortext

Yesterday afternoon, A.F. went off to run some errands, and I headed out on my own to explore Little India. He’d been an incredible guide, knowledgeable about the answers to all my questions, explaining Singaporean history, culture, sociology, education, and filling my head with data like the fact that 85% of Singapore’s residents live in public housing, which is actually really nice, and that six years ago, when the government implemented the famous electronic road pricing system, all the cars in the country were assigned an exact date and time to have the necessary device installed. Still, I figured I knew by now how to wander a foreign neighborhood and navigate a new subway system, especially in a country where English is the official language, despite the fact that most people speak Chinese, Malay, or Hindi at home as well. So I hopped on the MRT at Orchard Road, where we had been browsing at the Apple Store and at Border’s (I read the The New Yorker and Harper’s, but didn’t buy them because they cost about $15 each after all the shipping charges had been incorporated.), and got off three stops and a line-change later at Little India. There, I walked the streets, explored a little market that had been set up to sell special goods for Deepavali (aka Diwali, the Hindu version of Hanukah that lasts a month around the same time as Ramadan), ate, as I’ve already written, a paratha and drank some heavenly mango lassi, and checked out the famous 24-hour electronics department store, the Mustafa Centre.