And so, to bridge the uneasy period from a servitude he had never felt to an independence he feared (but now a word to conjure governments with), Sir Moksa sacrificed himself into politics. And Authority agreed that far better Sir Moksa and others like him, safe and reliable and ‘one of ours’, than hotheads, adventurers, and extremists who might do unpredictable things.

And thus pip grew into headquarters in Singapore, and now sought to extend itself beyond the Straits of Johore, crossing the Causeway into Malaya.

Heavily guarded by four hundred mata-matas, our local Pantheon cinema hall had been taken over by pip for its inauguration ceremony in Johore State. Besides the four hundred protectors in khaki, there were about two hundred adult spectators and three hundred children, happy milling round fifty hawkers’ stalls issued by magic in a ring round the cinema. There was much chewing of cane sugar and spitting of betel juice and tasting of fried crabs and shrimps and great sizzling blue cloudlets of smoke springing out of frying pans. Little groups shrank or ventured from hideous white-hot sun to the cooler urine-scented shade of the cement steps leading into the dark echoing cavern of the hall and winging up on both sides to the balcony stalls. These were occupied at the back by Malay women, their eyes outlined with kohl, startling and liquid and in compact addition, like black prunes floating in coconut milk, their faces round and covered with cooling white powder, and the inevitable row of front-teeth work of the goldsmith. It was a rose-musk wafting, colour-gaudy bevy, full of hushed titter, and tranquil with the long habit of waiting for nothing at all but for life which came and went of its own accord, not to be assaulted with action as it was by the whiteskins and the Chinese.

Their husbands of course sat downstairs, thin phalanxes of men, their heads covered in velvet black songkoks, and dressed indecisively (not knowing whether this was meant to be a rejoicing occasion or not) in a variety of garments, open flowing nylon shirts and tapering corduroy slacks, sarongs and white flowing blouses. Treble-voiced children ran up and down, losing their red and green and blue and yellow rubber slippers on the cement steps.

But in front of the ladies, the first two rows of the balcony stalls seated white police officers and members of the Government, dressed in obvious approval of the oncoming function.