A river cruise takes me till the area where the sea takes
over. The port is Malaca. The river is dotted on both sides with beautiful, old
quaint buildings. Portuguese architecture vies for attention with stunning Dutch
and English buildings along the way, as old-style bridges connect the opposite sides.
There is a connect, after all. The
connect of the ancient and modern; of an antiquated post office building and an
internet café; of the gastronomic excellence of a Nasi lemak and the
ever-present pizza-burger; of ancient churches and the new temples of worship:
malls.
The first Dutch ship to have landed in Malaca has been
redesigned as a museum for the younger generation to understand the dynamics
of a nation, born out of maritime trade relations between East and West. This southern
Malaysian port is sleepy, but it had once been a hub of active trade, and one
of the inspirations of European colonial ambition. Today, it stands as a mere
reminder of the past. The aggressive sophistication of the present has
conveniently swept those memories under gorgeous Persian carpets, desperately
being preserved by standalone connoisseurs.
But this was one of the small pieces of Malaysia one can taste.
The rest of the cities are like any other. The buildings, the flyovers, the
malls, the brands, the food: there is no sense of heterogeneity. They all look
alike. Probably they would in any city in the world, what with its indistinguishable
flavours of burgers, pizza and mall “getaways” stocking identical brands .
Is there anything native about a place today? I doubt it.
At least, the countryside in Malaysia has some pockets of pleasant
distractions in the form of stray landforms and stuctures. But its neighbour, Singapore, was
built, it seemed, in an assembly-line factory. The residential buildings and
spaces look alike, the parks are mirror images; their cafeteria-food line-up
almost clinically exact. It was as if a template was created and the city built
on that. This clinical and too perfect a city can evoke a sense of boredom. Its
lack of authenticity and the absence of nativity reflect an identity crisis, a
personality disorder. Are all cities going this way?
Pockets of Indian cities, for sure, look the same with their
malls, pizza-coffee-burger outlets and brands. But there are still native elements
preserved in its chaotic nerve structure. Give me the chaos; I will choose it
any day to the clinical precision of modern cities.
