If KL was a family, Pudu would be its bast*rd child. The first time I stepped off my KKKL bus onto the platform at its infamous bus station I knew I had landed on bad grounds.
As polluted and congested as Pudu might appear during the re-assuring rays of sunlight, it takes on a whole new level of malice in the glow of the night. It was my first trip to KL alone. I was a teenager with a measly 50 ringgit note tucked in the confines of my worn-out wallet. The same wallet I Instictly kept checking as I walked down to the streets below. Even at 11pm on a Sunday night, the streets were crowded. Didn’t these people have work to attend to the very next morning? I realized then that for a majority of Pudu’s citizens – this was work.
I tried to look as invisible as possible. Bag in one hand, heart in the next. My mission was simple enough, grab a taxi to a friend’s apartment. Thankfully situated a good distance away from my arrival destination. The touts we’re pushy, shouts of “Seremban”, “Johor Bahru” and “Penang” rained in my ear as I navigated thru them clumsily. The desperate one’s resorted to tugging at your shirt sleeves or placing a hand around your shoulder. I politely declined, sometimes with a confident “no” and other times with a nod of the head.
As I climbed up the pedestrian walk, I was greeted to the sights of beggars, each one of them had allocated a comfortable seating position along the lines of the dusty and dirty elevated walkway. Their coins jiggling in their plastic containers as the people walked by trying not to make any eye contact from point A to B. As I reached the opposite end, an old Malay lady – wailing child in hand approached me “anak nak makan” she kept repeating. I knew I was probably giving my spare change away to a syndicate more than that poor innocent child but at that moment, it was a 2 ringgit escape from a cloudy conscience and a crying kid. Hopefully I told myself, that kid had got half the share of the night’s profit.
A pimp approached me as soon as I had reached solid ground. “Nak tengok perempuan?”. I acted like I didn’t here him. “Want to see girl?” he persisted. Walking backward to meet my pace. I wondered if he might actually rephrase the sentence in Tamil, but I decided that a wave of the hand to signify my disinterest would suffice. I approached a group of taxi drivers nearby. The drivers we’re busy talking among them, cigarettes in hand. “Kelana Jaya?” I asked, wondering which one of these kind gentlemen would have the honour of ripping me off.
The Indian taxi driver spoke up, “35 Thambi, now late – meter runs double”. I could have argued. There was no way I would be able to live in KL for the next two days on the remainder of 15 ringgit, but I knew if I stayed here any longer, the chances of living in itself would be questionable. I agreed and got in the taxi, just in time to see the pimp I had avoided earlier, escorting a middle aged white man thru the alleyways into the darkness.
Born and breed in the city of Johor Bahru and currently living in Kuala Lumpur, Raveen Dev is a 25 year old Malaysian and co-founder on the infamous and highly secretive “Teh-Tarik Stories” (which would explain why you’ve never heard of them prior to this).
