The Blue Lotus magazine issue 14. The Bonn issue.

My short story 'Bourgainvillea' in this Singapore anthology

The Blue Lotus 13

The Forgotten Cities of Delhi by Rana Safvi - A Review

All 322 pages, plus half-gatefold card covers of Rana Safvi’s book ’The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’ reached me, from India, in just four days (two of which were weekend). Harpers Collins Publishers India had, indeed, done me proud to rush off this astounding book to arrive, in Malaysia, so quickly. A diminutive motorcycle courier had stopped by our electronic gate. He had thrust a small ‘Aramex’ parcel at my wife, who just happened two be in the front garden at the time. ‘It is for you,’ she called as the young motorcyclist rode off. For me? But I rarely receive parcels. Then, as my wife handed over the white paper parcel with the legend ‘HarperCollinsPublishersIndia’ at the bottom, the thought struck me, ’The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’ had arrived. Wonderful, now to perchance to read.

India, but especially its capital - Delhi, keeps drawing me back. I had first set foot in India in 1996. It was a trip to see the sea, in Goa, and to ease myself gently into that ancient land full of mystery and mysteries which, at first glance may appear ‘full-on’ and a little daunting. Goa, as it turned out, was just what the doctor ordered.

I have visited many places in India since. My first visit to Delhi was in 1998, as part of a ‘Golden Triangle’ tour starting at Delhi, then visiting the glory of Taj Mahal, outside of Agra, and the wonderful Hawa Mahal or ‘Palace of the Winds’ (Amber Fort et al) in Jaipur.  It was then time to return to Delhi, for a day, before flying back to Britain. When the time came to go, I wished that I could stay on, like William Dalrymple, for a whole year in Delhi (as recounted in his ‘City of Djinns’, 1993).

I recall standing (literally) at a crossroads, staring up into the orderliness of Lutyen’s (New) Delhi, remembering photos of my father there. He had stood, not to attention as a lowly British sergeant erect in his uniform, but as a man, taking a casual stance, sans his military hat, in the city that he loved. The era in which the photograph was taken, was at a time (1930s) before my father had heard of his recall to the British Army, which was to pull him away from Delhi, away from his billet at the Red Fort, and away from the New Delhi Police and his application to serve with them. Despite over a decade in India, once wrenched apart from that city and that sub-continent, my father never did return. In 1998, I stood at that crossroads in his stead.

My second engagement with the glory which is Delhi, was with thanks to the Sahitya Akademi (National Academy of Letters), requesting me to read some of my poetry at the ‘Commonwealth Literary Meet’, in the October of 2010. It was a wonderful time and a further opportunity for me to wander the vastness and antiquity, of Delhi’s cities.

Rana Safvi and Harper Collins India have given me another excuse to return, this time through Rana Safvi’s writing and myriad photos by Syed Mohammad Qasim which grace the book ‘The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’, the second part of Rana Savi’s ‘Where Stones Speak’ trilogy. Delhi calls to me time after time. Delhi is where Allen Ginsberg, after sightseeing for a week, met the indomitable Kushwant Singh for ‘literary tea’ (‘Indian Journals’, 1962-1963) in a great meeting of minds that I wish that I had been party to, and Delhi is where I shall, inevitably, return one day.

‘The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’, is certainly a book that I wished that I’d had when wandering that city during my 2010 visit. Safvi’s work is painstakingly precise in its accounting of the various Delhis, and all-encompassing in its scope to include not just Delhi’s past cities, but also its individual mosques (such as the ‘Mohammad Wali Masjid’, discovered in Siri (also known as Dar-ul-Khilafat or seat of the Caliph). ‘Mohammad Wali Masjid was once a treasured mosque, but had been used for many years to store fodder not for the soul, but for cattle, unfortunately it has that in common with many of the ‘finds’ by Rana Safvi’s and Syed Mohammad Qasim. Safvi’s book reveals not just past glories, but intriguingly romantic structures promising to become present day wonders.

In conjunction with Syed Mohammad Qasim’s affirming photography, Safvi leads the viewer/reader into an astounding history of India’s capital (National Capital Territory of Delhi). Together, writer and photographer make known the beauties of ancient architectures such as the Tomb of Sultan Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq (founder of India’s Tughluq dynasty, died 1325 A.D.), and the quiet serenity of Lal Bangla (now adjacent to Delhi Golf Course) at Sundar Nagar, comprising of the mausoleums of Lal Kunwar (the mother of Shah Alam II), and Shah Alam II’s daughter Begum Jaan. Section six of ‘The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’ unveils the sixth citadel of Dehli - Dinpanah/Shergarth (p181), now Pragati Maidan. Author and photographer show the ruins of a ‘Hammam’ (a traditional Mughal ‘Turkish Bath’) adjacent to the Sher Mandal and within the Purana Qila (or Old Fort). Those Hammam remains are a touching site, situated near to the marvellous Sher Mandal, and within that ancient Indian fortress of Purana Qila, and a poignant reminder of much of India’s northern heritage.

If you are visiting Delhi, or are a confirmed Indiaphile, ‘The Forgotten Cities of Delhi’ by Rana Safvi and profusely illustrated with photographs by Syed Mohammad Qasim, is a must have. Short of actually having Ms Safvi accompanying you on a series of marvellous adventures in and around India’s northern city of Delhi, and its present day capital, the book will guide you. True it will be no substitute for the edifying scholar herself, or for Dev Anand from Vijay Anand’s film adaption of R.K.Narayan’s ‘The Guide’, but in place of these the book will carry you into myriad adventures as you witness, for yourself, and come to love Delhi’s ‘forgotten’, but now remembered, cities.

Martin Bradley 5th July 2018

The Blue Lotus Issue 12

The Blue Lotus 11

Kicking Back in Klang

Bak Kut Teh for breakfast. It’s Thaipusum, and I am in danger of getting drunk on Chinese tea. Well, not really. It’s nine am. My spouse is off plein air oil painting here in Klang. Being an Indian area, all Indian stalls, Dosa places etc are late opening, but Chinese save the day. Just at the rear of a huge light blue and white mosque is the Seng Huat Bak Kut Teh (Chinese pork bone soup) restaurant. You may want to ponder on that for a while.

I hesitate. Thinking, do I really want pork for breakfast. The only pork we British eat for breakfast is bacon. Here, they do not have bacon, fried eggs, sausages or mushrooms. The alternative is noodles from a dubious stall across the way. A stall backing onto a drain no less. My curiosity is piqued.  I am drawn into the bright interior by the sweet scent of the pork, intestines, pig's trotters and chicken’s feet lavishing succulently, aromatic and flavoursome in constantly boiling pots. This is, of course, the reason that those pots are so close to the footpath, right at the very front of the shop. That aroma, that gorgeous scent of mixed herbs and spices are enough to make your mouth drawl, and virtually drag you into the interior in much the same way that the smell of bread, or coffee might, elsewhere.

Bak Kut Teh, Char Kuey and Rice

With the kind assistance of an English speaking, youthful, Chinese waiter I order. A small bowl of boiled pork and its gravy, appear. An equally small plate of white rice and a long Chinese savoury donut (char kueh), chopped into small pieces, are put before me. It doesn’t take me long to devour this assemblage. I feel that something is missing. Something sweet perhaps. I wonder, will I ever settle into this foreign place where order of tea is done through sign language and my scant understanding of the local language. My failing, not theirs.

A gentleman in a black t-shirt and blue jeans wheels a low trolley in. The trolley holds a stained stainless steel pot, probably full of Bak Kut Teh. The gentleman lifts the obviously heavy pot to the serving area, replaces it with a lighter, empty, pot, then wheels the trolley back to the rear. The place is busy. There is no seating room outside, under the tree, near the bridge. There is only room in the slightly warm, but fan brushed, interior. Some Indians, many Chinese (of course) and only one white man (me), take the opportunity of partaking in this porcine delight. I remain a little flummoxed, however. Nine twenty and I have, effectively, taken lunch. What the hell happened to breakfast.

I look around for the young man who seated me, wishing to have another glass of Chinese tea (no milk, no sugar). The place is constantly busy, but I am reluctant to leave. I finally get to order my tea, panas (hot).

The day outside is manufacturing its heat. The heat, and therefore the day, can be felt as far back as my seat. The fans are unable to compensate. In the distance is a haze. Before that, two telephone masts spring from out of a small jungle of trees. The black apron wearing server brushes hair from her middle-aged face. A woman in purple re-lights the fire under one pot. Black and red polo-shirted youths, male and female, bound backwards and forwards carrying pork and gravy in various proportions to eagerly waiting customers. A lorry carrying hundreds of cardboard egg trays momentarily blocks my view to the outside. A young be-hatted Indian man, staggering under a weight, brings his two arms full of egg trays to the rear of the restaurant. The lorry moves, and so must I.

Plain Dosa and Teh Tarik

Klang’s Little India is hot, but relatively quiet. Relatively because of the Bollywood singing emanating from various Indian shops. I espy an Indian restaurant, open on this auspicious day. I cannot resist the lure of a teh tarik and possibly a plain Dosa. At Restoran Sri Baratha Matha Vilas, the teh tarik turns into two. The tea’s milky sweetness is exactly what I need on such a hot day. It is not even midday and the temperature has already risen to 29°, but feels like 35° my phone’s app says. It’s not wrong.

Suddenly sleepy, I amble to see my painting spouse, then to her car and nap until she finishes her oil painting of the Masjid India Muslim Tengku Kelana (Indian Muslim Mosque), Klang. The power nap, and a cold coke-cola enable me to share a little art talk with my group of painting friends, there in Klang

The day’s heat has grown to be most uncomfortable, somehow heightened by the quietness of the Thaipusum Day. While, elsewhere, Hindu devotees perform their various vows and prayers, in Klang the pavements and roads appear hushed, Sunday-like on this Wednesday. Uncommonly there are car parking spaces aplenty, but far fewer emporiums to frequent.

Art Sharing in Klang, Malaysia

Towards an Abstraction, in Chinese catalogue for Yeo Eng Hin

... through the new spirit, man himself creates a new beauty, whereas in the
past he only painted and described the beauty of nature. This new beauty has
become indispensable to the new man, for in it he expresses his own image in
equivalent opposition with nature.

Piet Mondrian in the pamphlet, Le Néo-plasticisme: [principe général de l'equivalence plastique] by Rosenberg’s Galerie L'Effort Moderne, Paris 1921.


There is an English idiom; the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, meaning that the child will resemble the parent.

The Malaysian artist, Yeo Eng Hin’s works stride the lacunae between figurative and, for want of other terms, what we might want to call abstraction. Yeo reveals organic hints of his Italian teacher, the Bolognese artist Leonardo Cremonini. Cremonini, a 20th century European master painter who inspired both artist Francis Bacon and poet W.H. Auden, revelled in his predilection towards semi-abstraction. This is demonstrated in energetic works such as Le Cap (1981) and Vegetazione Invadente (1960-1961) which trends towards notions of a neo-metaphysical art. While simultaneously accepting Yeo’s debt to Cremonini, Yeo’s art works also hint at the stunning, explosive, abstractions of another of his Parisian mentors, the Chinese artist and resident of Paris, Zao Wou ki.

Zao Wou Ki, a graduate of the famous Hangzhou National Academy of Fine Arts, now called the China Academy of Art, in China, relocated to Paris in 1948. He began experimenting in oil on canvas, ink on paper, lithography, engraving, and watercolour, and amongst his circle of friends were modernist artists such as Alberto Giacometti and Joan Miró. Zao frequently, yet subtly, references his Chinese ancestry in his oil painting in a methodology seemingly eluding many proponents of Singapore/Malaysia’s Nanyang. Yeo was a student of Zao’s, and of Cremonini, in the early 1980s.   

Yeo had an extraordinarily fortunate artistic upbringing. Before residing in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, for four years, and studying drawing and painting under the notable artists mentioned above, Yeo had spent his formative years studying, in Kuala Lumpur, under the renown Malaysian artist, Chia Yu Chian, for two years. It was a close relationship, not just founded in art but because Chia and Yeo came from the same Chinese dialectical background - Teochew. Chia recognised in Yeo, a young man very committed to his art, a little of himself. Chia was very lenient towards Yeo, guided him and let him stay well beyond his appointed hours at his studio, to finish his work. It was those little things which endeared Chia to Yeo, helping him understand the professionalism of the man. Chia’s advice to Yeo, was for him to go directly to Paris, rather than spend unnecessary time at Nanyang Academy. Though schooled well by Chia, Yeo understood that he was not ready to go directly to Paris, and needed to strengthen his skills before going abroad.

The opportunity to study under Chia gave Yeo a foundation strong enough for him to enter the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA), in Singapore, for three years (1976-1977). This was at a time when teaching of the fine arts (meishu xueyuan) at Nanyang, had started to develop into a broader based art school (yishu xueyuan) providing training for visual arts, design and performance subjects.
Eschewing both the newly established Malaysian Institute of Art (MIA, 1967), and the even more recent Kuala Lumpur College of Art (KLCA, 1968), it was at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts that Yeo was able to further absorb nuances from the Nanyang masters, such as Georgette Chen (Chang Li Ying, Zhejiang, China). Chen had been a student at the Art Students League in New York, and later studied art at the Académie Colarossi and Académie Biloul in Paris, France. Chen was still teaching painting and drawing at Nanyang (1954 to 1980), when the young Yeo attended. Chen was amongst the immigrant Chinese population of Singapore who had became Nanyang’s Western/Eastern stylistic fusion forerunners. Echoes of those Nanyang teachers can be seen in Yeo’s early works such as Tea-picker in Cameron Highlands (1976), and echoed in later works such as Sound of the Lotus (1995) and Orchids (1997). 

That is not to say that Yeo’s paintings resemble those of his teachers. They emphatically do not. And yet, there are essences, or better yet Baudelairian ‘correspondances', connections and interactions between the works of the pupil and of the teachers. As his mentors before him, Yeo has striven to generate a style of his own; a style looking forward towards abstraction, while remaining, perhaps temporarily, anchored in the figurative.

This may be witnessed in ‘sparkling’ paintings such as Kuala Lumpur at Night and Johor Bahru before Dawn. In his larger painting, Kuala Lumpur at Night, Yeo works with a neo-impressionist attention to light, making the painting shimmer with light in its textural splendour. While capturing the city’s imposing array of modern buildings, Yeo lends an ‘other worldly’ sensation to the whole, hinting at the city as a fantasy. I am reminded of Jean-Luc Goddard’s French style poster for his film Alphaville, created by Jean Mascii, in all its 1965 ‘futurism’. In the landscapes Niah Cave 1 and Niah Cave 2, there are hints of Cremonini’s use of semi-abstraction as a method of depicting that which reveals itself in characteristic shapes and textures. Yet Yeo resists the inclination to be just another Cremonini, but strikes out on his own, seeking inspiration from his subject matter.  Yeo’s flower series leans more towards a melding of Chinese Ink Brush painting, and contemporary acrylics, again with hints of an abstraction which had been demonstrated with the master China’s Zhang Daqian’s paintings, like Peach Blossom Spring (1982).

There is little doubt that Yeo’s work reached a pinnacle of excellence with his recent series of very spiritual paintings, concerning Cambodia’s Angkor (2014), which I have written about elsewhere. However, that is not to dismiss Yeo’s other landscapes, his flower paintings or his sparkling cityscapes, which all deserve reviewing.

My article in Soka Gakkai magazine Cosmic December 2017

Poetry Reading Hotel Duran, Figuers, Catalonia, Spain December 2017