Pooja Nansi (b. 1981)

SELECTED POEMS

Mustafa Centre. A Fact Sheet.

Mustafa Centre is a 24 hour mall in Singapore on Syed Alwi Road in the heart of Little India.¹

Born on June 8, 1951, 5 year old Mustaq Ahmad leaves his home in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh after the death of his mother to be with his father who sells tea and bread from a pushcart in Singapore.²

As a young boy, he sells up a stall next to his father’s selling handkerchiefs and socks he buys from his own pocket money. Eventually he leaves school early to start his own business.³

In 1971, when the government imposes a ban on street stalls, he rents a 900 square foot space at No. 1 Campbell Lane selling ready-made garments.⁴

In 1985, when rent escalates by 70 percent and following the government’s acquisition of his shop for conservation, he decides to lease a 40,000 square foot space on the ground floor in Serangoon Plaza. 

In a few years, business does so well that he buys 20 storefronts on Syed Alwi Road which he tears down to build a 75,000 square foot department store. 

Mustafa Centre is named for Haji Mohamed Mustafa, Mustaq’s father.⁵

In 2003, Mustafa Centre announces that it will be open 24 hours a day.⁶

Mustafa Centre is home to the widest range of Indian groceries in Singapore, a jewel mart, a money-changing service, a pharmacy, postal services and a travel agency. 

In 2005, for a brief moment, Mustafa Centre sells parallel imported cars.⁷

Following its 2004 renovation, Mustafa Centre turns over $302million per annum. 

You can find almost anything in Mustafa Centre. Almost 

Mushtaq Ahmad became a Singaporean citizen in 1991 and has lived in Singapore for 63 out of the 68 years of his life.

In 2004, The Singapore Tourism Board names Mustaq Ahmad “Tourism Entrepreneur of the Year”. 

In 2008, Forbes ranks him Number 37 on their list of Singapore's 40 Richest People.

In the 2006 National Day Rally Speech, the prime minister mentions Mustaq Ahmad. He says, “You get the right foreigner here, he creates thousands of jobs for Singaporeans like Mr Mustaq and you need to get more people like him.”

Currently Mustafa Centre occupies 400,000 square feet in the heart of the city.⁸

An entry on Trip Advisor calls Mustafa Centre an “out of Singapore shopping experience.”⁹ 

400,000 square feet is roughly the size of 7 football fields.

In 2017, Mustaq Ahmad is asked to vacate the space he has leased in Serangoon Plaza which is slated for redevelopment.¹⁰

In preparation of its impending closure, Mustaq Ahmad can be seen almost every day pacing around the store—as he stops and gazes at the empty shelves.  

“We are not sure what he is thinking but we can understand his feelings,” says one of his workers who has been working at Mustafa for over a decade. “We started from here and have grown so big.”¹¹

For many employees, practical concerns outweigh any nostalgia—several of them will be redeployed to different roles or departments which they are unfamiliar with. 

Still, some of them will miss the place they call home. “It holds a lot of memories for me,” says Mr Mohideen, a cashier, his hands looping a cable tie around another shopper’s bag.

Mr Mustaq, however, shrugs off the impending closure. 

He says, “There is nothing to feel bad about the place that we do not own.”¹²

¹ This is a love poem.

² This is a poem about the places we have to leave.

³ This is a poem about the maps we have to follow.

⁴ This is a poem about relentless immigrant work ethic.

⁵ This is a poem about how we leave our marks. Leave our fathers’ names permanent in the topography of a country—how we turn our fathers’ names into plaques, how we turn them into a likeness made of stone.

⁶ This is a poem about making home feel less far away.

⁷ This is a poem about brown movement.

⁸ This is a poem about taking up space.

⁹ This is a poem about how you can take up all the space in the world, and still they will never see you as their own.

¹⁰ This is a poem about right of soil, about land.

¹¹ This is a poem about where we have come from. Maybe this is a poem about survival.

¹² This is a poem about the displaced children of displaced children.

Poem for Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan Ending in a Beginning

Yours is the music of quiet 4am, of solitary afternoons that seem /
unending. Yours the music of desire, the exhale of the Urdu /
word for 'want', like the sound of a lung first learning breath. /
Yours the shape of my father's mouth turning into song. Yours /
the voice of sandpaper and husk, like the call for God coming /
out of a garbage truck throat. Yours the voice of surrender, /
surrender, surrender to the longing of the living, to all /
bottomless need to be filled, to find another, to be whole. Yours /
the poet's knowledge of how to moan a word, yours the low /
humming of all the world's restless stirring. Yours the yearning, /
the always and forever yearning, yours the trembling lips of a /
muted string waiting to burst into passion. Yours the hunger of a /
fakir who has forsaken begging to shout from the rooftops. Yours /
the sweet wine of grief, the unbridled intoxication which you /
deliver like a lover's return. Yours the lust. Yours the notes that /
land like a hand tapping on the tight drumskin of my heart, then /
the strum of the harmonica which struggles to keep up with /
your voice soaring into the sky. Yours the utterance of devotion, /
yours the prophet's chant, yours the treacherous winding road /
harmony, yours the fevered ecstasy. Yours a wild animal wail /
from before words, the sound of the soul freed of the ribcage, /
from some ancient deep forgotten history, yours every exuberant /
end, yours every troubled beginning.

Some Cities

Some cities you visit and some you inhabit. In some cities the road names roll off your tongue. Joo Chiat, Koon Seng, Duku Road. Google Maps shows you the route without the short cuts you know from habit. In some cities you know where a half pint of beer costs five dollars, know it is next to the dodgy KTV lounge with the tinted doors you have always been curious to be on the other side of. In some cities, you walk without navigation, without worry, you know the night will end with a two dollar fifty cent bowl of wantan mee, know you will get a soup spoon of black sauce and chilli, know you will shovel with chopsticks into your mouth, know when the auntie from China lands it on your table to say Xie Xie Ni. Some cities feel something like relief. Some cities are absorbed in your imprint. Some cities are where the answers should have been.

by Pooja Nansi
from We Make Spaces Divine (2021)

 

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