Lemas Semangat (With Annotations)- Chapter One: mulut ke mulut
Previously published (put together by the amazing guest editors and friends, Cher Tan and Nina Chabra) in Portside Review's #6 Rocking the Boat in 2022 with other brilliant pieces.
Preface:
Recently I’ve created a video work, developed from this essay. I’ve decided to release this piece (in three parts over the next few weeks) here with updated annotations. The video work is currently showing as part of Some Exercises in Futility which will run until the end of this week (4th February 2024).
Chapter One: mulut ke mulut
On our way with my partner to visit my new HDB flat that was nearing its completion, the Grab driver squealed in excitement as we made the turn into Jalan Bahagia, which translates to Happiness Street.
Wow I grew up here you know, from a baby until I was 18 years old. Used to play football there with my friends every day until close to evening and my mother will be shouting my name from across the field, asking me to come home!
He took a right into Jalan Tenteram which translates to Peace Street, a place we had never heard of until now. My partner and I had arrived at that time in every heteronormative's couple life, which was to purchase a home from the Housing Development Board (HDB). That was the flat we were about to visit for the first time, and which will be ‘ours’ but will also leave us in debt, big enough for us to work hard and be productive citizens. Since I am from the west and my partner is from the east, we settled for a central location; somewhere in Whampoa, located between two expressways and flanked between Balestier, Toa Payoh and Potong Pasir and Boon Keng.
Oh, you moving here? This place is good! You will love it. Of course no MRT but it's OK you will get used to it. Yes, these blocks right here have been around since the 70s. And over there, you'll see those like bungalow houses, that's the first kinds of HDB flats. Back then it was SIT[1]…you know?
Anyway, last time over here there used to be a shrine you know…Ah, of a Malay woman. Her name is Siti Subaida. Many people would go visit her but no-one really know her story. This shrine is very special too. You know why? Because she is a woman? Yes, yes but also because there was a Hindu temple and a Tua Peh Kong built next to hers. Ah, basically like racial harmony but more religion harmony! What happened to it? Oh, I am not sure. They just removed it when they were building those flats right there. This shrine very strong magic one, but not strong enough to beat the system…
And so began my search* for the whereabouts of Siti Subaida and the powers she possessed. Who is she and where is she now?
*In the last seven years since this first encounter, I’ve had several other conversations with strangers about the shrine of Siti Subaida. Most of these conversations take place in grab rides. The drivers usually grew up in the neighbourhood and have fond memories of the place. These stories are never the same, contested locations of the actual shrine and what became of it obscured the veracity of Siti Subaida, made it tricky in its capture, elusive in its shaping. This is common for most shrine narratives, making it hard to be accurately documented. Looking through my own personal collection of other local shrines, I think a lot about the making of a myth, its refusal to remain homogenous in its perpetuation, as though through its innumerable manifestations, it remains wild and untethered, invisible against erasure.
A simple search online left me with nothing much to go on. Just one article** in the Berita Minggu published on the 31 March 1981 by Ahmad Mohd Don, with the headline 'Makam Siti Subaida yg penuh misteri' (The Shrine of Siti Subaida is full of mystery).
**As an addition to the video work, I included a book of archives made up of all the collected newspaper articles (some as early as the 1920s), images and notes of other local shrines that still exist or have been removed. While putting together this book, I stumbled upon the Complete Catalogue of Keramat in Singapore by William L. Gibson which coincidentally was also published in 2022, the same year as this essay. In this significant (and imo, important) body of work, I found other information regarding Siti Subaida. The most stark finding was its actual location (which I will get to much later) and also some coloured photographs of the shrine itself. You cannot really phantom my immense joy at this discovery especially since my own search, the last few years, had been rather futile.
These photos taken from the Catalog of Keramat in Singapore. Courtesy of Hikari D. Azyure. Here you can see signs of the syncreticism, and three batu nisan (or tombstones) indicating three ‘people’. I say people loosely as some shrines occur naturally and is not necessarily a gravesite of an actual living person.
According to the shrine's caretaker, Mr Robert, futile attempts were made to move the shrine, to make space for a new road. But it refused to be moved. The contractors tried to destroy the shrine, but they were unable to. They resorted to building a curved road that goes around the shrine***.
***In the video work, I featured a recording of my latest conversation, also with a grab driver, on the actual location of the shrine. He pointed to the flats (block 16 and 17 in particular) which is located across the flat that I am staying. He also mentioned that there was a mount, which grew in size, slowly over the duration of 30 years. The mount look as though a figure was slowly rising or rather sitting up. He also mentioned that it was one of the pitstops for the kavadi walkers during Thaipusam. However, the catalog indicated a completely different location (marked by the red star in the image below)
This was taken from Google maps when the flat that I’m staying in, is still being built. The star is marked on what used to be the workers’ living quarters. Now, that location is just an empty green field. What made this realisation even freakier was that, at that same exact spot (also marked in red) was where I shot a scene for the video, not realising that it could have been the shrine’s location.
The article mentioned that the shrine was located at the end of Jalan Tenteram, near Kim Keat Road. I’ve walked down this road many times a day during my commute. The roundabout makes no sense on a stretch of road that's never busy enough to require this design. In the middle is an open field with a path that makes it easy to cut across. The badly digitised picture attached at the end of the article shows a makeshift shelter where a hand-drawn sign at the entrance reads: 'No Smoking, No Footwear, No Pork Meat Allowed.' None of the caretakers knew much about Siti Subaida either, and one claimed that she was moved to this location from elsewhere. Even her origins are contested by multiple narratives. On certain nights, there is a fleeting fragrance in the air, a certain smell of wet flowers, wafting like whispers. I try to locate where the shrine may have been, between Peace and Happiness, standing in the middle of an empty field, but I too have no way of knowing for sure.
“You know, it starts off and particularly with those who like to put money on horse and numbers. They go to a tree and the word spreads around that if you go and pray by that tree and offer penance, you will be a rich man. And after a while, candlesticks appear. Then a tablet appears; then a table appears; then a roof is put over it. And ultimately, we get permanent building, right in the middle of a circus or at an important junction. I am not against anybody wanting to seek solace from spiritual sources. If anyone can get spiritual comfort or psychological release by either striking the four-digit numbers or praying to the Infinite, I say “Good luck to him!”
Well, the shrine can go to wherever you can find another place to put it. But it is not possible for us to allow a structure to gradually assume larger and larger proportions right in the middle of General Hospital where the sick go. It is not within my dispensation to take public property and say, ‘Here, I give it to your particular sect of devotees.’ It cannot be done. You know, Moulmein Circus opposite Tan Tock Seng Hospital? There is a big tree and a big shrine appeared there. The shrine then disappeared. Then it reappeared and now again, it has had to go. Now, if you go there you will find a nice plot of luscious green grass – as it should be – for everybody.”
– Transcript of a speech made by then Prime Minister Mr. Lee Kuan Yew (31 October 1965) with regards to the removal of Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial Shrine**** from the grounds of the Singapore General Hospital[2].
**** The case of Bhai Maharaj Singh Memorial Shrine stands out as prime example of how a shrine can live on through the devotion of its followers, through time and rapid changes. I realised that even through the violence of erasure and displacement, even in its absence and relocation, even in its further dislocation from its place, the spirit lives on and thrives from these documented reports of violent acts where ‘victory’ is not as clearly marked as being able to, being allowed to remain. Instead the ghosts of these sites manifest themselves elsewhere, sometimes lasting longer than economic machines; condominiums and shopping malls, expressways or train stations, build in their place.
And that was the end of it. She remains, full of mystery and filled with nothing. Her only power is that she has survived this long. I could not find anything else and my search led me nowhere, except for the coincidental mulut ke mulut[3] encounters that have kept her alive all these years. Oral history is a slippery record, especially in a city that is never still, building itself over and over again, layer upon layer, bigger, faster, better. Most of these narratives remain unwritten or cannot be written when the physical spaces they inhabit have long been written off*****. Spoken words are vapour trails in a city that is known for its rapid progress; mere whispers against the loudness of the dominant and permissible narrative. But the quality of the whisper forces one to lean in closer and listen for the clarity that may have been compromised. Mulut ke mulut, bisik-bisik, suspended in a stillness that keeps on resisting.
***** Prior to this culmination, my inability to chart the lifecycles of these shrines and keramats, their jarring absences and gaps, where each search have led to barriers and dead ends, have left me asking myself, what is the point of this work truly? But now, I know there is power in those gaps, those holes, in the force of the land and its ghosts. Land violence is at the core of it all, the exploitation of indigenous and marginalised folks, extraction of resources leading to climate crisis, genocides, post colonial/late capitalism diseased world…you get the drift…
The work is still showing for those of you readers in Singapore so do go catch it if you can. Also stay tuned to part two and three of this piece in the next few weeks. Till then, stay safe my loves. <3