Brightening up Our Little India
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www.ipohecho.com.my FREE COPY DEADLINE As of this issue, the Ipoh Echo is being delivered right to your doorstep by your news vendor. IPOH Call your news vendor echoechoYour Voice In The Community NOW! 30 SEN FOR DELIVERY TO YOUR DOORSTEP – June 1-15, 2010 PP 14252/10/2010(025567) ISSUE ASK YOUR NEWSVENDOR 98 >> Pg 3 >> Pg 4 >> Pg 6 on’t miss LEGAL WRANGLING THE PRICE OF A WHOPPING COST Dout! Call PROGRESS AND your news DEVELOPMENT TO RELOCATE TIN DREDGE vendor for delivery now! BRIGHTENING UP OUR LITTLE INDIA ittle India, where the early immigrants from India congregated and did their thriving businesses at a time when tin mining Lemerged as an important industry in the Kinta Valley, is being given a major facelift. It is to be completed before Merdeka Day on August 31. The area being spruced up under a project financed by the Federal Government covers from the entrance of Jalan Leong Boon Swee into Jalan Lahat and carrying on into Jalan Sultan Yussuf (Belfield Street) up till the intersection with Jalan Sultan Iskandar Shah. The idea to give a facelift was mooted when the Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin visited the area last year and approved a RM1.5 million grant for the facelift. Plans for the facelift was drawn up by Ipoh City Council and presented to the residents in the area at a dialogue held last month to explain the changes about to be undertaken and to get their approval. ....Continued on page 2 2 June 1-15, 2010 IPOH ECHO Your Voice In The Community HIGH POTENTIAL FOR HERITAGE TOURIST ENCLAVE By JAMES GOUGH orks started imme- case in the past, today the throw away, became their Ramanathan. Wdiately after obtain- ethnic Tamils from South beacon. The population in “They built their K.R. Pandian at work ing approval from the resi- India no longer stay solely the area soon grew to 65 money-lending business dents. Among the changes segregated in one place. per cent Indian and 35 per through mutual trust and from India or from Krishna people of all races who to be made are replacing Most of them, particularly cent Chinese. provided the finance to the Bawan on Lahat Road wish to eat or buy some- which had an all vegetar- thing specific to Indian the interlocking bricks of the younger generation, As a result, the area Chinese miners with just a ian menu. culture. The options range the present pavements, are now scattered all over stretching from Jalan signature on a promissory from glittering jewellery laying interlocking pavers the city. Sultan Yussuf to Jalan note.” Exodus to India and clothing, utensils and with motifs characteris- The area began to Lahat became dominated He said since many of The exodus of the spices. Some of the best tic of Little India on the develop at the turn of commercially by Tamils. the small Chinese miners Chettiars returning to authentic Indian restau- roads, installing decorative the last century as tin ore India first occurred in 1957 rants are also found here. lamps and landscaping of was being discovered when Malaya obtained its There are 15 the entire stretch. An arch in the Kinta Valley in Independence from the goldsmiths located in Little will also be erected at the large quantities. Where British. However that was India, where customers Dataran Little India (the others, including Chinese minor when compared to from all over Perak small square in the centre immigrants, moved in to the exodus after the riots would come to make their of the area). work in the tin mines, the of 1969 when a concerted selection especially for The existing memo- Indians moved in to do effort was made to register weddings. rial fountain will be de- business, in particular, that all residents living in the Business in the area molished and in its place a of money lending. country. is usual, except during stage will be constructed. “Most of the Chettiars Deepavali and Thaipusam A police pondok will also Chettiars Move In took their money and went when it will be bursting be located there to provide The majority of them were home. Those that stayed with activities, as make- security. Nattukkotai Chettiars from behind were those who shift stalls are erected South India. They came were educated and saw along the roads causing Original Colours as free people, having a future for themselves”, many traffic congestions. Meanwhile the entire 12 paid their own passage, Owner Ashok Singh of Ashok Fashion added Ramanathan. blocks of shop-houses unlike those brought into In the early seventies Role in Tin Mining Heritage Tourist within Little India will be the country to work in the could not get loans from the Chinese businesses The Chettiar’s contri- Attraction painted with its original plantation and construction the Colonial banks to start gradually moved into the butions towards the eco- Little India has already colours once all the rest of sectors who were bound by their mines, they turned to community. However 20 nomic development of been identified earlier in the sprucing up work has contract. the Chettiars for help. years on after the col- Perak and the country as city council’s 2020 draft been completed. They brought along However interest lapse of the tin industry in a whole have been rarely programme of administra- According to city their trusted book-keepers charged on the unse- the mid 80s the Chinese mentioned or publicised. tive zones done with the council’s engineer Encik and assistants to set up cured loan was “18% PA businesses too have been A descendant of this Town and Country Planning Khairul Anuar Hj Lodin their money lending busi- at the most though most gradually moving out of community is Mr M. Department, as being part the original colours were ness. Their simple ‘busi- times it was 12%” stated the community and Indian Ramanathan, whose father of a cluster of Historical identified by a team from ness offices’, sparsely fur- Ramanathan when asked entrepreneurs slowly mov- was a Chettiar and used and Heritage Zones within the Heritage Department nished, consisting large-ly if the interest per annum ing back in. to live at their kedangi (a the city that had the poten- (Badan Warisan) which of a platformed hall with could be 60%. The manager of one Chettiar’s house), located tial as a Heritage Tourist had scanned the buildings small tables and a large Ramanathan recalls of the few Chettiars still at 68 Jalan Sultan Yussuf. Attraction. to determine the original steel safe, were along Jalan that at the time when he located in Little India, Mr. “Although the role The upgrading of colours. Lahat and Jalan Sultan was growing up in the 50s K.R. Pandian said his fa- played by the Chettiars Little India is timely. Early Little India was, as the Yussuf. there were around 50-60 ther came from India and was only lending out in May, State chairman for name implies, the centre Eventually more Chettiars operating there. worked as an assistant to a money, they had in doing Tourism Dato’ Hamidah for the large Indian com- Indians began to move in After work they would Chettiar. so, helped small tin mines Osman did a walk through munity in the city. While as the Thendayuthapani congregate at the square Unlike the Chettiars of to survive”, explained Panglima Lane and indi- this may have been the Temple just a stone’s to catch up with news of early days, Pandian does cated the state’s plan to home and events of the day. not stay at the kedangi but preserve the location as a Their daily work clothes in a house in First Garden. Heritage enclave. were the white dhothi and His current customers Hence the linking of in the evening before din- come from all races who Little India and Panglima ner the square became a are referred as being trust- Core (the area stretching sea of white. worthy. Meals for Chettiars from the Railway Station were taken at a common Patronised By All to Panglima Lane) could kitchen located behind Little India is now a most be another chapter for a 122 Jalan Sultan Yussuf, colourful neighbourhood, heritage walk and possibly which had a cook imported enjoying the patronage of another Heritage Map. Get your FREE copy of the Ipoh Echo from: Canning Gdn: Ariff Store, 40 Jalan Lee Kwee Foh. New Wing Fook Merchant, 56 Jalan Lee Kwee Foh. Lourd Enterprise, 7 Lorong Cecil Rae. Ipoh Gdn: Muhibah Hair Stylist, 103 Jalan Dato Lau Pak Khuan. Mama’s Home Baked Bread Stall (after 7 pm), Aneka Selera. Ipoh Gdn South: Pasar Mini Manaf, 17 Jalan S.A. Lingam. First Gdn: LSF Sun Li Hardware Sdn Bhd, 50, Jalan Ng Weng Hup. Labrooy Road: LSF Sun Li Hardware Sdn Bhd, 16A Jalan Labrooy. Meru: Golf Reception Counter, Meru Valley Golf & Country Club. New Town: Ruba Rubi Ent 154, Jln Sultan Idris Shah. Tel. No 017- 5048531 Chan Sam Lock Photo Studio, 77-81 Jln Sultan Idris Shah. M & A Securities Sdn Bhd, 52A Jln Sultan Idris Shah. Pooran Enterprise (opp Super Kinta), 5 Jln Dato Onn Jaafar. S.Y. Dry Cleaning & Laundry, 1 Jln Chung Thye Phin. Simee: Newsvendor (morning), Opposite Simee Market. Tmn Ipoh Jaya: Rasu Enterprise, 271 Jalan Gunung Rapat. Tmn Tambun: Bawal Jaya Enterprise, 66 Psrn Desa Tambun 7, Desa Tambun. Tiger Lane: Perak Academy, 28 Jalan Sultan Azlan Shah. Golf Club Road: Fitness Junction, 2 Jalan Kelab Golf. SITIAWAN P.N.