A dry 'Rain Town'

Taiping Heritage Ride 2025

November 30th, 2025.

The trains used to stop at Taiping in those days. It was a game we shared between my sister and me. Each would predict whether it would rain when the train reached Taiping. It would invariably rain, and I would always win. That is Taiping, the wettest town in Peninsula Malaysia. The Maxwell hills, aka Bukit Larut, near the town, recorded the highest rainfall, second only to Bintulu, according to the meteorological report on sustained high rainfall. Historically, the Maxwell Hills are said to have received 5000mm of rainfall. As a result, it acquired the nickname 'Rain Town'.

So when the Meteorological Department issued a warning that a rare storm had arisen in the Strait of Malacca and would bring torrential rains over many towns in the Peninsula, I was concerned. With my planned cycling race in Taiping all in high gear, the last thing that Taiping needed was torrential rain from a tropical storm. Rain in 'Rain Town' on top of a storm did not sound too good. To top it all off, people started marking themselves as safe on social media in anticipation of floods, heightening the already tense situation. The BBC began showing footage of flood victims in Southeast Asia to set the low mood. 

All through the weekdays leading up to the planned Taiping Heritage Ride on Sunday, I was waiting for announcements from the organisers in anticipation of the freak storm called 'Senyar'. Nothing. News of heavy rain, floods and landslides was reported occurring most in the central and southern parts of the peninsula. 

Come Sunday, everything was hunky dory. No rain, no threat of rain, no roads reported to be underwater and dry roads as well. In fact, for once in my life, I did not experience rain while in Taiping. Almost at 7am, as planned, the 90km ride was flagged off. It was a ride as easy as Sunday morning, to quote the Commodores. 

From a town named 'forever peaceful', Taiping, the cyclists rode, under the supervision of marshals and traffic police, to another 'forever' town, a small town named Selama. (Selama-lama could mean forever.) Mainly cruising on flat terrain, it was a pleasant ride, complemented by mild weather: 23 degrees C, with the sun shyly peeking through the clouds throughout the day.

I knew that Taiping town had come into existence ever since tin was explored on an industrial scale in the mid-19th century. In reality, it had already been mined there. The British exploited it by bringing in dredging machines and mined it to extinction. The local rulers had already been using tin coins earlier.

Tin also brought in the Chinese immigrants, the secret societies - Ghee Hin and Hai San, representing the Cantonese, Hakka and Teochew communities respectively. To transport the merchandise, the first railway lines were built between Taiping and Port Weld in 1885.

Besides this, Taiping also boasts many of its firsts in the country. The first post and telegraph offices, the first fire brigade, the first hill resort in Maxwell Hill, the first library and museum, the first English and Tamil newspapers, and, probably, the first mall. There was even an airstrip, Tekah Aerodrom, in 1929, which would qualify as the first Malaysian airport. It is alleged that Amelia Earhart made a stopover here in 1937 during her ill-fated round-the-world trip. There is a mural to vouch for that, it seems. Her navigational log, however, showed stops only in Bangkok and Singapore with no mention of a layover in Malaya. In all accounts, she would have just flown over Taiping and would have obtained permission from Taiping as a possible place to land in case of emergency.

With an impressive past resume, now Taiping, away from the main highway traffic, has to contend with the tag of a retirees' hometown. 

Continuing the ride from Selama district, the convoy turned to pass Bukit Merah town, a recreational park with lakes, greenery and a water-themed park. I remember travelling on the trains through a long waterway. It used to be never-ending, and in those days, my simple mind thought I was travelling across the sea. Until I saw a stretch of railway line running across the Bukit Merah Lake from a flyover in that small town, the avalanche of memories came rushing back. The train had been travelling across the Bukit Merah lake. 

From there, the ride continued back into Taiping through Kamunting. Kamunting earned its notorious name in 1987, when over 100 people from civil society were incarcerated under the cruel Internal Security Act under the orders of the then Prime Minister, Mahathir Muhammad.

It was back we started, and that was it. Another day, another race done.

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The purveyor of culture?

Diwali started early this year. A friend invited us over to his private Diwali function. With the usual mingling, wining, savouring Indian titbits, and exchanging fake pleasantries, the highlight of it all must have been when the DJ showed up with his music machine. 

What started as a head-bobbing event eventually turned into a full-scale, packed dance floor, with the music decibels hitting the roof. Everyone seems to know by heart the lyrics to Hindi film songs that spanned from the 1960s through to the 21st century. One by one, the guests sauntered onto the dance floor, mouthing the song with their legs mellowing like jelly beans. 

I stood at the sidelines, observing the whole spectacle like a fly on the wall. The guests must have all grown up listening to these songs their entire lives. They knew every nuance of the song, its every pause and every moment the music goes ballistic. It must have had an indelible imprint on their psyche as they were growing up, as they displayed so much joy. 

Then it dawned on me how significant a role Bollywood songs and music have played in preserving what is perceived as Indian culture. Playing music from Indian cinema, be it Tamil or Hindi, as well as hip Punjabi Bhangra beats by Daler Mehndi, constitute Indian music and culture today. 

Should we be eternally grateful that Indian cinema is doing such a great job preserving our heritage? Life may not be so straightforward. 

Talk to any conservative Tamil social thinker.  He will say that each movie is three hours of wasted time in one’s life. Three hours to indoctrinate viewers that getting drunk is mandatory when boys go out. It is perfectly normal for girls to binge drink. Pre and extramarital liaisons are common in modern life, and it is perfectly normal for a lady to slap her partner if he crosses the line, but it is not mutually exclusive. The converse constitutes patriarchy and toxic masculinity. 

Oh Poddu!

Then there would be those who fret that the lesser-spoken languages in the Indian diaspora risk being forgotten in the near future. If not for Marathi cinema, Marathi would have been on the decline and marginalised, just as Bhojpuri, Bagheli, Marwari, and other tribal languages are. 

Anyway, Bollywood is acting as a mucilage that binds. When it began using Hindustani as its lingua franca—a combination of Urdu and Hindi—it was hoped that it would act as a national unifier, stirring nationalism in a newly independent nation. When the colonial masters escaped from India in 1947, they expected India to balkanise, various states pulling apart based on linguistic, religious and caste lines. It did happen before, but almost 80 years on, they stay united, probably stronger than before. Bollywood probably thinks it is their good work. 

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If walls could speak!

Vivekanda Illam, Chennai.

Ever wondered how people in the tropical climates used to cool themselves down on a hot day before the advent of refrigeration? Frederic Tudor, a businessman from New England, had the foresight to harvest something free from its frozen lakes to ship it to places that needed it most. He mastered the art of sending tonnes of ice, covered with sawdust, to Florida and the Caribbean in the early 19th century. He later even exported it all the way to India. A trip carrying 100 over tonnes of ice from Boston to Madras typically took 4 months with 80% of the cargo intact. In the 1840s, Frederic Tudor built a facility in Madras to store his merchandise. It was named the Ice House.

Frederic Tudor was part of the Boston Elite or Boston Brahmins, as they were referred to. The Boston Brahmins are descendants of the earliest immigrants from England. They were Protestants and were the leading influencers of American institutions and cultures.

Frederic Tudor

In 1833, the first shipment of American ice arrived in Calcutta. It sent excitement to the locals of such chilly luxury. For the next two decades, these cargos were in Calcutta, Bombay and Madras. They had a good thing going until local artificial-ice manufacturers started their businesses. Around the 1870s, refrigerated merchant vessels started scaling the high seas.

Madras, as it was known in the 1830s, was a bustling metropolitan city with a network of business enterprises. Many of its old buildings aged more than 200 years are still standing today. It speaks not of the English exploitation of the country but instead of the astute craftsmanship and quality of buildings built by the local builder. It is said that Madras had its own brand of superior plaster-mix. Chennai also has the reputation of having the second most number of heritage buildings in India after Calcutta. It has its own Heritage Conservation Committee that oversees maintenance and reservation of their old erections.

Sister R.S. Subbulakshimi

The Ice House was sold off in the 1880s after the ice business winded up. It was bought by a High Court judge who named it Castle Kernan. It was later changed ownership many times. It is now called Vivekananda Illam (Vivekananda Home) as he is said to have spent time there in 1897. The building was also used by Ramakrishna Mission and R.S. Subbulakshmi, a social reformer, for social upliftment activities. Almost all Indian freedom fighters, at one time or another, is said to have met there to preach their efforts for Independence at the premises.

Sister R.S. Subulakshmi was widowed at the age of twelve, and she made it her life ambition to uplift the plight of widows and woman generally. She continued her studies and obtained excellent results. She started Sarada Ladies Union (Sarada, being Swami Ramakrishna's consort) for widows. In 1915, the Government of Madras acquired the Ice House for her social work. 

It went on till 1963 when it was given to the Ramakrishna Mission. It currently houses an exhibition on the life and times of Swami Vivekanda.

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