Little   India

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Seranggon Road or little India is a place where most of the Indian community gathers. With its air perfumed by chains of roses, margosas, orchids and jasmine that hang from the ceiling of the garland makers whose storefront may be the sidewalk, Little India is a wonderful place. Let me assure you that the flowers for the garlands are very fresh but one should not spurge on them as they might prove to be worthless and might not survive for more than a day. The Indian community to present them as gifts to the god usually uses these garlands. Here, one can find many spices, cookware, and Indian food and textile shops. It is however, a rule to haggle over the price if one wants to get a good price.

Indian food here is cheap and tasty. It is made for those who have a spicy streak in them but for those who are unused to the spicy chilli, it is best for them not to try as the food is really very "shiok"(it literally means extremely spicy). One can feast on thosai, which is a thin, crisp pancake made from a batter of lentils soaked and grounded with rice and eaten with a relish of coconuts and chillies. Masala thosai is the same pancake wrapped around a kind a vegetable stew. Mutton curry is a must-try. Roti-prata, the biggest trademark of Indian food, is a made from goat’s fat and egg (if requested), it is eaten with curry.

Jewellery shops here sell earrings, lockets; nose rings in the distinctively Indian designs. While textile shops sell fabric for making sari which is the traditional costume for Indian women. Choli, the snug-fitting blouse worn with a sari) and the kameez (the blouse and baggy trousers worn by Punjabi women) can also be bought here. One can also have his or her fortune told. Along the sidewalks of Little India, one can find birdmen who practise parrot astrology. They whisper the customer’s name and birth-date to the bird, which then picks out a card with the "fortune" on it. Other fortune-tellers use trained parakeets to select numbered bamboo sticks, then look up the customers’ fortune in a book.