RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: The Vulgar New India (Deepti Kapoor)

“Sunny fit into the long line of boys she’d flirted with at school, slept with in college, all the boys she’d parked on the ridge, whose daddies were wealthy businessmen, who represented the new vulgar India her mother railed against. He fit into that line, and he transcended it. While those boys had appealed to her, they’d always disappointed in the end. They’ d been conservative and dull at heart, or painfully dumb, or just plain boring. They had been her rebellion, but they themselves rebelled against precisely nothing.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom” :THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE AMIRA I NEVER WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE AMIRA I NEVER WOULD HAVE SUSPECTED

Amira was Bobby Fong Jr.’s girlfriend. A strikingly beautiful Malay women who could drive a car or a yacht like no ones’ business. Despised by Madame Fong. Shunted to the sidelines because of that by Bobby Fong Jr.

Amira was a kind and gentle soul to me. Happy to give me a squeeze and a treat or a cuddle. I liked her.

I was surprised that investigators of Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s murder aboard the Eastern & Oriental Express spent a good deal of time probing Amira.

Investigators summed up their initial findings as such;

  • Her passport showed her as a citizen of Singapore
  • Charges of sedition and disturbing the peace had been issued by Singaporean police but later dropped for lack of evidence
  • She was a member of Malays for Equality in Singapore (MES) rumoured to be heavily funded from an unknown Sunni Muslim organization in Pakistan
  • She had written several articles for “Malay Equality Today” one of which lambasted Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s shipping companies for its covert refusal to hire Malays
  • The charge for disturbing the peace had been issued as a result of her chaining herself to the office doors of one of Sir Reginald Nicomshire’s shipping company’s offices waving a placard stating, “Stop Mandarin Oppression”.

Malays constitute approximately 15% of Singapore’s population and section 152 of the Singaporean Constitution recognizes the special position of Malays as the indigenous people of Singapore placing responsibility on the Singaporean government “ to protect, safeguard, promote their political, educational, religious, economic, social and cultural interests and the Malay language”.

Amira was steamed up after her interrogation and stormed into our State Cabin venturing forth her tales of Malay discrimination in Singapore and the imperative to break its vile chains. She fumed that Malays in Singapore were earning less than those of the Chinese majority, the lack of high ranking political and civil service positions occupied by Malays, under representation in the armed forces and police and the Singaporean government’s general favouritism of ethnic Chinese and the lack of protection and promotion of the Malay language. This was side of Amira new to me. A murderess…indeed not!

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Get Out of Our Hair British Colonialism (Deepti Kapoor)

“I was there in England, I saw it, this ‘Cool Brittania.’ Oasis. Tony Blair. God Save the Bloody Queen. But you scratch the surface, it’s crumbling, its dying, there’s no future on that miserable island. The same in America. You think India is poor? Go travel around America. I couldn’t believe it. Meanwhile some backpacker in Paharganj wanders around crying about our poverty, shaking his head, taking pity on us, taking photos for the people back home. Take a look at your own backyard. Study your history, man. You people looted us, took everything. Now you look at us and say, You’re so spiritual, you have so much wisdom, you’re so wise. You’re so …simple’. Yeah we’re simple fucker. We’re simply going to destroy you. They don’t want us to, they don’t want us to be strong, to have heart, wit, resilience, ingenuity, wealth, power, but we are, but we do. We took their shit for so long, now the tables are turning. It’s our time now!”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)

“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt-of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead-while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of being silent and impotent and alone, while we taste new possibilities and strength.”

Audre Lorde, “Poetry is not a Luxury”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Militancy Does Not Mean Guns Blazing at High Noon (Audre Lorde)

“We who are Black are at an extraordinary point of choice within our lives. To refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give it up. Do not be misled into passivity either by false security (they don’t mean me) or by despair (there’s nothing we can do). Each of us must find our work and do it. Militancy no longer means guns at high noon. If it ever did. It means actively working for change, sometimes in the absence of any surety that change is coming. It means doing the unromantic and tedious work necessary to forge meaningful coalitions, and it means recognizing which coalitions are possible and which coalitions are not.”

Audre Lorde, “Learning From the 1960’s”

RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Tokensim the Neutralizer of Creativity (Audre Lorde)

“And in the university that is no easy task, for each one of you by virtue of you being here will be deluged by opportunities to misname yourselves. To forget who you are, to forget where your real interests lie. Make no mistake you will be courted; and nothing neutralizes creativity quicker than tokensim. That false sense of security fed by a myth of individual solutions. To paraphrase Malcom a Black woman attorney driving a Mercedes through Avenue Z in Brooklyn is still a “nigger bitch”; two words which never seem to go out of fashion.”

Audre Lorde, “Learning From the 1960’s”

“Lost in Puppydom: Rory Dylan Stephen’s Puppydom”: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE TWO STRANGE MEN ALWAYS IN THE BACKGROUND

The Singapore Times Exclusive: THE ABDUCTION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: MURDER ON THE EASTERN & ORIENTAL EXPRESS: THE TWO STRANGE MEN ALWAYS IN THE BACKGROUND

I noticed these two men early on with red flag aromas of gunpowder and those bulges under their arms were obviously guns in shoulder holsters. And that time I passed by their State Cabin on the train there were numerous laptops and what appeared to be surveillance equipment. And when I was battling with the Malay tiger it was those two men hiding behind the bushes that fired shots wounding the tiger. I couldn’t believe these two were citizens above suspicion.

The fact they were slurping Budweiser beer and eating hamburgers slathered with Heinz ketchup instead of the Michelin starred food the rest of the passengers were scoffing indicated they were Americans.

Add the fact they were not on the invite list for Nicomshire’s birthday party on the Eastern & Oriental Express in my mind made them prime suspects.

The investigators revealed the following;

  • According to their American passports their names were Holden Caufield and Billy Budd
  • They were from Plattsburgh, New York and lived proximate to the Plattsburg Airforce Base
  • Neither had criminal records
  • No record of such individuals existed hence it was assumed they were using assumed names and false passports
  • They claimed to have purchased seats on the train from Canadian third-party seller Cricketmaster but Cricketmaster was not an authorized seller for tickets on the Eastern & Oriental Express
  • Both were packing Colt 45’s which were not disclosed to Malaysian customs before boarding the train
  • They claimed to be travelling to Vietnam after disembarkation for a deluxe Viking River Cruise on the Mekong River

Adding to the bizarre, hours after their interrogation some of us on the train noticed three large black Suburbans with red and blue flashing lights drive into the arrivals parking lot at Woodlands Station and shortly thereafter “Caulfield” and “Budd” were seen entering the Surburbans. The only Suburbans in Singapore were those used by the Embassy of the United States.

Seemed to me with the North Korean angle; the VK nerve agent, North Korean Supreme Leader ETR407 model pistol and the sudden release of Caulfield and Budd which could only have been a joint decision of Singaporean and Malaysian governments we were involved in an intense political “situation”.

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Young, Rich and Glamorous Indians Enjoying Goa/Part Two (Deepti Kapoor)

“And unlike the foreigners, who count every rupee, money is no object for this new group, money is nothing to be concerned with, there’s no virtue in penny pinching. They spend. They want their comforts: they make no romance out of misery. Word of their big spending and the high tips that go with it spreads. The economy of the village is redirected their way. All the workers want a piece of them. Everyone vies for their favour. But some of the foreigners begin to grumble. These Indians, some say, don’t understand their own culture; they have been infected by the West. It’s a sad sign, how they’ve lost their way.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: Young, Rich and Glamorous Indians Enjoying Goa/Part One (Deepti Kapoor)

“Sunny is the leader of a small band of revelers, Indians who live like the foreigners, still something of a rarity in those days. Who live like the foreigners, but who are not like the foreigners at all, four men and one woman, something dangerously new and bold; young, rich and glamorous Indians, not afraid to show it, not afraid to slum it, welcome everywhere. Travelers for whom authenticity is not a question, content to sit in cafés with the foreigners and smoke chillum and eat their backpacker food, who arrived in big, shiny cars without scratches instead of buses and bikes and wore good clothing and stayed in the best new hotels in the village, ones with bright pine balconies and expensive bars.”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023

RKS THE LITERATURE OF INDIA: The “Mercedes Killer” Pawn in the Hands of the Indian Upper Classes?

“Hundreds of inmates piling out of their cells to congratulate. He’s something of a celebrity. They’ve all heard about the “Mercedes Killer”. They want a closer look, judge for themselves his innocence or guilt, see how tough he is, how scared, decide where he could belong. It only takes a minute to recognize he’s one of the innocent, a scapegoat for a wealthy boss. Men try to pry the truth from him. What was he promised to take the fall? Something sweet? Money, when het gets out? Or will his sons and daughters be sent through school? Or did it come from the other side? Was his family threatened? Was his life in danger? Or was he just loyal?”

Deepti Kapoor, “Age of Vice”, 2023