5:30 P.M. I see an artist sitting cross-legged on his art shop floor dabbing paint on a canvas. He is making a copy of an original piece of abstract painting. Meet Abdul Ghani Ahmad who has been painting for over 20 years. His business card says: MALAYSIAN WATERCOLOUR ORGANISATION, ARTIST NATURE & ABSTRACT. His art shop, which is on the ground floor at the Central Market Annexe, is a showcase of his two-decade-old passion.
6:20 P.M. I step into the century-old wood-panelled lift that takes me to The Annexe Gallery to watch TIKAM-TIKAM: MERDEKA! MERDEKA. MERDEKA? This public event was part of the EMERGENCY FESTIVAL! celebration which the brochure describes as an 11-day ‘explosion of histories, images, narratives and sounds from the first Malaysian Emergency from 1948-1960’. Three speakers (economist Tricia Yeoh, law professor Azmi Sharom, and political scientist Dr Mavis Putucheary) get together in this chance-game of tikam-tikam , randomly reading their personal (his)stories about Malaysia with Merdeka as the starting point.
7:30 P.M. One-hour dinner break. I browse in another art shop, visit an art exhibition on Journey into the Mind, which displays artworks by mental patients of the University of Malaya Medical Centre, and have a light dinner at Bau Bau Café. I order a bowl of curry noodle and a glass of special lemon grass tea and settle myself on the balcony overlooking the Klang River. Then I notice café owner, social activist, writer, and film-maker Hishammuddin Rais sitting across my table. What do I do? Fish out my camera, of course, and have my photo taken with this prodigal son who returned from a self-imposed 20-year exile in 1994.
8:30 P.M. It’s back to the Annexe Gallery to watch a play : New Village People and Pineapple Rice. The play recounts how the ‘lives of two good friends change forever when they are forced by the British army to leave everything behind and start afresh in a New Village during the Malayan Emergency’.
What a delectable evening! I have chatted with an artist, visited an art exhibition, sipped lemon grass tea on a balcony café, rubbed shoulders with a famous personality, attended a reading, and watched a play – all that in four-and-a-half-hours! And, there’s more. But that will have to be another evening.
Skip the Annexe and you miss the ‘Art and Soul of Kuala Lumpur’.
The best way to get to the Central Market Annexe is to take the Putra LRT and get off at the Pasar Seni station.
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