today, while exploring the mount sophia area, along niven road, i met someone whom i had dealings with many years ago. (niven road is a short stretch of road that links mackenzie road to wilkie road.) i was surprised to find him still in the same line of business, selling sports goods. i made a brief mention of his shop when i blogged about the bras basah area. his shop is ratna sports. the shop was started by his late father.
he is 73-year old naresh gupta. i had always refer to him as ratna, not knowing that it is a girl's name. i found out that his father had named the shop after his sister. i learnt also that his two brothers have migrated, one, a doctor, to australia and the other, a lawyer, to india.
mr naresh is semi-retired. he works half a day, usually up to 11 a.m. and leave all the running around to his three employees. in his younger days - when the shop was in the bras basah area - he would make the deliveries to schools himself.
niven road is in a conservation area. the facade of the houses cannot be altered too much. you can still see the saloon-type of swing doors at some of the houses. at one time, the authorities restricted the height of the buildings in that area because of its proximity to the istana. it is a quiet area although it is in the central business district.
if you look closely at the first picture (on top), you can see a small horseshoe on top of the doorway. why do they have the 'horse-shoe' above the door?
the horse-shoe is considered to very lucky and used to hung in many homes to protect and attract good fortune for the family residing inside.
as with many superstitions, there are contradictions to be found with the beliefs associated with the horseshoe. for instance, many believe that to hang it with the ends pointing upwards is good luck as it acts as a storage container of sorts for any good luck that happens to be floating by, whereas to hang it with the ends pointing down, is bad luck as all the good luck will fall out.
others believe that no matter which way you hang the horseshoe, good luck will come. according to this superstition, the ends-pointing-down display simply means that the good luck is able to flow out and surround the home. if the horseshoe is hung over a doorway, ends up will catch good luck and ends down will let the good luck spill over the door and stop evil from entering.
this horseshoe serves a purpose similar to the round mirror or pakua mirror which some chinese families placed over their front door.
along niven road, there is a sikh temple - the khalsa dharmak sabha. there are two sikh temples in the mt sophia area. the other temple is along wilkie road. free meals of dhal and chapati are usually served at sikh temples.
