Isle Of Harmony

The turtle-shaped island of Penang is a fascinating fusion of different cultures and traditions, say HUGH and COLLEEN GANTZERConventional wisdom is not always either right, or wise. It would have us believe that when multi-ethnic religious communities are sequestered on a small island, once occupied by an alien power, dissensions are bound to erupt. Malaysia’s Penang fulfils all these conditions. We asked our guide, the affable Sara Yeap, “Have you ever had sectarian strife here?” She thought a while, then smiled and said, “No. Never!” We had stopped at the old fort, from whose battlements a statue of Francis Light looked out across the Andaman Sea.Captain Francis Light was an authorised land grabber in the mould of the East India Company. He had sailed out of Calcutta in the 18th century, struck an arms deal with a beleaguered sultan, and planted a flag claiming the whole island for the world’s first multi-national company. We had arrived in Penang 325 years later, and were struck by its self-confident tolerance. Not only was Francis Light still remembered, but his statue had been moved to a place of honour in the restored Fort Cornwallis, where he had first landed. The old town named after an English monarch was still called George Town and had been awarded Unesco World Heritage status. Clearly, the people of Penang were not in denial of their past and had done their best to conserve its icons.St George’s Anglican Church stood as immaculately white as it had been when Captain Robert Smith of the Madras Engineers had built it in 1818, inspired by St George’s Church in Fort St George, Madras. We boarded two umbrella-shaded pedi-cabs and toured Little India.Absolute TaoPeople in mundus and saris strolled past, and in the Mahamariamma Temple, under a towering gopuram, banana leaves, garlands, the fragrance of incense and temple bells were a vignette of distant Chennai. One of our Chinese pedi-cab drivers said, “We cereblate evely festivar of evely lerigion,” his r’s and l’s transposed in his manner of speaking.We left our pedalled transports, tramped down a lane redolent of Chinese kitchens, and stepped into a small square. On one side, sanctuary lights flickered at the base of a spreading tree, protecting a Taoist shrine. A little further on, there was a Taoist temple. “Absolute Tao” is the reality that is the source of all things and can be appreciated intuitively only if one lives in complete harmony with nature. It is mystical and inexplicable but mankind needs images to focus their devotion.Inside the temple, votive lamps threw a golden glow on dark statues of Pao Sheng Ta Ti, God of Justice and Ma Chao, Goddess of the Sea. The Chew Clan clearly believed that justice had been given to them by the sea after their arduous ocean voyage from China to Penang.Here, they had built their village on jetties along the Weld Quay, reputedly because they did not want to pay land taxes. Their village, standing on pilings driven into the tidal flats, is linked by wooden walkways open only to pedestrians and motor-cycles. Every house we looked into had its revered altar with venerated Taoist icons.Both Taoism and Buddhism were founded in the sixth century BCE, both were non-theistic philosophies but both developed elaborate iconographies.In George Town, the Thai temple was a resplendence of gold, green, red and blue with towering guardians resembling our dwarapalas and an enormous reclining Buddha with a pink face and gold robes.Across the road was the slightly less assertive Burmese Temple, where a blue-bodied Buddha stood radiating serenity. Interestingly, souvenir-sellers outside the temple offered a variety of statuettes including little ones of Rama and Sita.Floating MosqueThen, to add to our whirling kaleidoscope of images, was the Chor Soo Kong Snake Temple where live pit vipers, with patterned green bodies, had draped themselves on dried branches within easy reach of visitors. Pit vipers have small, heat-sensing pits in their heads and large, poison-injecting fangs. Here, apparently, they are under the soothing influence of a departed seer. We did not check the efficacy of his posthumous charm!Finally, in our multi-faith tour of this enchanted isle, we visited its mosques. Islam is the state religion of Malaysia and its mosques have the most elegantly creative architecture we have seen anywhere in the world.The imaginatively named Floating Mosque seems to have been built on a spit of land and then extended outwards on pilings. It gives the impression that it is suspended on water. We stood looking at it for a long while, as it rose on its reflections in the sea. Then a wind came, blew over the surface, rippling and distorting the image, briefly.But intruding ripples don’t seem to have disturbed the many faiths of this serene little island. For some wonderful reason, the conventional wisdom that dissensions are bound to erupt when multi-ethnic religious communities live in close proximity, does not prevail in Penang.