Music of Decay
Last night I dreamt I went back to the old tamarind tree in the bend of Jalan Kolam, and this is what I saw:

Like the face of clocks, floppy, curled and clinging to the ledge and branch of a dead tree in Dali's Persistence of Time, melancholy hangs here in deep shadows and its movements watched by ghostly eyes peering through dusty panes of closed windows — at patches gone grey in the earth and grass untrimmed and gone to seed in the soil; distant leaves of the keladi fringing this sad, haunting decay. "What does it all mean?" someone asked of Magritte, of his paintings that were hard to fathom. "It does not mean anything, because mystery means nothing either, it is unknowable," replied the old master.
This is the sad end-note to the Istana Kolam, one of the surviving istana of wood in Kuala Trengganu, in Kampung Kolam. I used to see its balai through a gap in the fence in the bend of the road when we walked from Kampung Tanjong to the Masjid Putih, past the huge, ghostly tamarind tree, past the house of Mr Isaacs of the Grammar School, past the quaint old-style house of Pak Long who made ma'ajun (a pastille of herbs and stuff for the weary male), and then the shop of a kindly man named Babu of the Paul family on the right side of the road, and a huge house stood across from there, at the junction of two roads, home of Che Mat Riau, another illustrious character of Kuala Trengganu.


Now they are planning to re-build the Istana Kolam in another place, in Duyung probably. Duyung is a farway place across the water with its own niche and history, but it is here that the old istana should be rebuilt as a heritage centre. The authorities should reclaim this land, and rebuild it here, and return the Istana Kolam to its own soil.
See also:
Singing for the Sultan
Music in the Rubble
Man at the Istana
GUiT at the Singapore Writers Festival Latest News: In Kuala Terengganu GUiT is now available @ the shop formerly known as Keda Pök Löh Yunang (now Alam Akademik, 12 Jalan Bandar, Kuala Terengganu). In Kuala Lumpur: Kinokuniya, Times bookshops, and MPH. Elsewhere: You may place your order on-line from Kinokuniya or MPH "A beautiful book, very well written and with its vignettes of life it tells so much about the Malays - far more than one can get from academic studies." — Frederick Lees, author, Fool's Gold; The Arthuriad; The Rape of Rye; etc. |
Labels: Babu, Che Mat Riau, Isaacs, Istana Kolam