INTRODUCTION

HEY there! We are the FIRE5!!...

Well, to be specific, we are actually a group consist of five girls called the 'FIRE5'!! All of us will be doing a research about a place called Little India, Brickfields, located around Jalan Tun Sambanthan for our English project...

..so we will be posting up all the photos we've taken on site RIGHT HERE, at our new blog! so hope you guys enjoy.... 

By the way,  below is the location of Little India based on the google map... :) hmm...Dont you just love GooGle?!! I know I do..... lol XD

ARCHITECTURE

Finally!! Little India Street!!

We've reached our destination... YEAH!!  XD

Below are a few pictures we took when we first arrived there... :)

The first thing we noticed when we arrived at Little India...

The fountain and an unfamiliar monument...

Unfortunately, the picture was taken at a wrong angle... :(

We were blocked by a tree... noooo....

forgive us for our awful photography skill... 

A closer shot of the fountain...

B.E.A.U.T.I.F.U.L

I love how the elements of the Indian cultures are applied to the design of the fountain...

and the detailing of it as well... 

For your info, those peacock sculptures on the fountains are actually a symbol of India... It is actually the national bird of India itself... Peacocks are large and majestic birds of the Indian-Asian region... Besides, the people in India believe that whenever the cock spread it's tails in an ornamental fashion, it indicates that rain will come soon. In a way, it is quite true... At the sight of dark clouds, the bird will outspread it's tails and starts dancing in a rhythmic fashion...

As for the elephant sculptures, those are actually a part of the hindu religious symbol or gods. The Hindus have worship the elephants for many centuries.... When the hindus worship the elephant, it actually represents their obedience to  the Hindu god known as dharma... O_O

And here is the central of Little India!!

As you can see, there are many high rise building surrounding the Little India street...

*drumroll*

FINALLY!! 

A way better shot compare to the first picture!!..

I guess my skill isn't that bad after all...

 It just needs a little polishing, thats all :D haha... 

Anyway, here is a picture of the monument and fountain from across the road...

From the picture, you can also see the landscape design surrounding them... :)

NicE... 

Awesome way of decorating the street with the beautiful pillars...

Aside from that, the transparent sheet of plastic tied to the roof and pillars actually acts as shelter for the people walking along the sidewalk from the rain...

As you all know, Malaysia is a tropical country...

Hence, the sheet of plastic used is a great way of shelter without the need of carrying an umbrella or even worry about one when u shop...

It is not only convenient for the people but cost saving as well!... ;)

The beautiful pillars aligned in a simple and neat way...

Love the detailing on the pillars too... :)

It is indeed a unique way to decorate the street...and act as a great partition between the sidewalk and the road as well...

Even so, there are still people who just dont get it... sigh~ 

While I was snapping some pictures along the walkway, I was stunned when i suddenly heard the sound of a motorcycle heading my way... Thank God I managed to avoid it in time...

Well..., that's something you dont get to see everyday... 

Surprisingly, this is actually a restaurant...

At first, I thought it was a shop that sold those vintage, retro kind of stuff...

As you can see, it has a unique structure and design to the building...sort of like an arabic design to it...

This is the front view of the restaurant just now...

love the curve-like balcony...

Inside the restaurant, there's also an interesting carving design on the ceiling...

This reminded me of a decoration where the Hindus would use rice grains of different colors to create a 'Rangoli' or known as 'Kolam' on the floors of living rooms and courtyards during festivals like Deepavali or Diwali... 

Based on the Hindus belief, it is meant to be a sacred welcoming area for the Hindu deities... 

ACTIVITIES

This is the shop where they make the Indian Wedding Garlands. For Hindu weddings, they will usually use a long flora necklace called the "Jaimala" which symbolizes the couple's respect for each other and their promise to accept one another. Garlands are actually one of the beautiful and colourful part of the traditional Indian weddings. It can also be quite expensive if purchased from a florist shop. So, usually people will buy the flowers and make the garlands themselves. 

Many shops in Little India sell a lot of the Indian cultured things. This is an example of one of those shops in the street. Shops like this will normally sell Indian traditional clothes (sari), accessories, decorations, and many more. Especially during special events or festivals, there will also be plenty of SALES! Example of such festivals are Pongal, Thaipusam and Deepavali.

This is one of the events that takes place before and during the Deevapali celebration. It is call the "Konsert Deevapali Bazzaar Little India Brickfields". It's objective to celebrate Deevapali and to allow the people to enjoy the celebration as well as to be involve in such event...

Those are fire crackers. During Deepavali. certain shops will usually sell fire crackers to increase the ambience of Deevapali...

source: http://www.google.com.my/imgres?um=1&hl=en&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbnid=dcskDnL8iCqqEM:&imgrefurl=http://jdlcanada.wordpress.com/2012/08/12/&docid=lyXQIgTK68KpDM&imgurl=http://tundratabloids.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/hindu-in-pakistan.jpg&w=610&h=436&ei=k1OsUO3PKYP_rAeBh4HYBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=515&sig=106781493356016392464&page=1&tbnh=129&tbnw=178&start=0&ndsp=16&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0,i:70&tx=77&ty=53 

Five Daily Duties of Hindus:

First, worship God in the form of family deity in the home shrine through prayers and meditations. To practise arouses a sense of togetherness in the family to worship together, singing, rituals, chant and study the scriptures together. 

Second, study vedas and other sciptures. To refresh ones mind with sacred knowledge and also helps to preserve and enrich knowledge.

Third, contemplates on the teaching of the sages, saints, holy men and womens, and one's forefather. Practise to serve as a reminder to perserve, enrich, and continue the culture heritage and family values. 

Forth, provide food for those who needed. To create the sharing of spirit with others. 

Fifth, serve guest with respect, love, and reverence. Is the basis of the traditional hospitality of Hindu household.

PEOPLE

Little India, Brickfields is one of the few streets in Malaysia where it is specially for the Indian types of businesses and events or activities...

When I heard the name of the street we were visiting was named 'Little India',

 the first thing that came into my mind was a place for the Indian people.

But I was wrong......

There are many non-Indian teenagers that I see walking and shopping around with their friends at the street of Little India during weekends and school holidays...

Besides, some of them will also hang out with their families to shop around this area....

But majority of the people that I saw walking around Little India were teenagers.... 

Regardless of the different races, religions, culture, skin colors,  age, languages or even the different backgrounds of peoples' lives in Malaysia, 

you can still see various types of people with different races walking around Little India... For instance,  the Chinese, Malays, and many more.

Besides, not only did we saw the Chinese or Malay people, there were also a few foreigners that we saw walking around Little India, Brickfields...

Besides teenagers, we also saw lots of adults in their mid 30's and above in the streets too... 

The people there very friendly and welcomed us warmly to buy their groceries and stuffs...

Last but not least, is this picture we took when an old man was seen playing with his cute little grandson... he was actually standing in front of this chinese restaurant in Little India.... we were actually planning to take a picture of the shop itself only but

when he saw us taking pictures, he even helped to pose for us in front of the shop....

wish there was more people like him.... haha 

HUNGRY TIME

 The Favourite Part Of Our Group is the food part. We ENJOYED looking around at the food stalls and how they sell them.

Firstly:

Source:http://themummysya.com

This style of eating is famous in the Indian Restaurant. This is call the Banana Leaves style. This is one in a lifetime chance to try and eat with the banana leaves.

It looks so Tasty...

This is one of the many Restaurants that sells the various types of food...

Examples are sweets,  banana leaves-styled nasi briyani, chinese food and many more.

This shop is like a factory outlet food store where they sell most of the sweets at half price.

Natalie(one of our teammates) was eyeing this shop cause she wished that she could try out one of the indian traditional bread and murukku sold here... ;)

Here is a picture of a hawker stall that sells many types of fresh cut fruits, fresh coconut drinks and artificial drinks like 'air bandung'.

This Restaurant is kind of interesting... They used a Hindu GOD's name as the name of the restaurant...

Here, they sell the many typical indian food like "nasi briyani", "nasi lemak" and many more...

Its a Clean & decent place to enjoy an affordable as well as reasonable meal... ;)

These are some of the sweets: Candy, Ladoo and many more

In Little India, Brickfields,  there is a lot of nice indian food for us to savour...

The tasty food around here just makes you want to come back for more

mmm...nyummy~.....

CULTURE

One of the important topics in this report, which is about the indian culture that can be seen in Little India.... I happen to be a foreigner myself and I have never seen the indian culture in real life before... I've only known and heard a little of them from the country, where i came from... but I am indeed fascinated with their culture and to have experienced a real-life encounter with it was even more exciting... Ok...before i proceed further, let me introduce myself first... Hi...im one of the FIRE5 group members... and like I've stated earlier, I happen to be a foreigner from Iran. My group and I  have decided to do an in-depth study of "Little India". And it was an even more interesting experience for me as we were visiting Little India during one of the most busiest time of the year in this street... It was actually during the"Deepavali" or "Diwali" week (it is also known as the festival of lights and the Hindus celebrate diwali as one of their most important celebrations of the year...). As you can see from the pictures below, the used of different colors with all sorts of design and patterns can be seen on it.... We even saw a few shops that sold lots firecrackers for  the Deepavali event...

Firecraker:

Selling Firecrackers

Diwali Rangoli:

Diwali is basically signifying the victory with the light of positive energy and peace.

Rangoli make me go W.O.W!!!!!!!!

It is really a beautiful and colorful way of expressing an artwork!!!!

http://www.beautytipsmart.com/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012.html/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012-9/

http://www.beautytipsmart.com/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012.html/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012-9/

http://www.beautytipsmart.com/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012.html/diwali-latest-rangoli-designs-2012-9/

Diwali sweet:

They also have especial sweets for the "Diwali" celeberation...

http://www.tastyappetite.net/2012/10/diwali-recipes-diwali-sweets-recipes.html

 Based on the pictures below, these are actually shops that sell many types and colors of Indian traditional accessories and clothes:-

As u can see here, the round shaped thing arrange behind those see-through glasses are actually bracelets and bangles... they are so beautiful and colorful...

And also the way how they arranged them in a neat and colorful form is also very nIcE....

In the two pictures below u can see the many beautiful and unique indian dresses...

I really like their traditional clothes but they can be quite pricy as well depending on the certain fabrics and quality...... 

Hopefully, I can buy it in the near future.... ;)

and by the way, those dresses are actually called "Sari"!!

Another interesting culture of theirs can be seen in the pictures below...:

The patterns on the road are quite similar to kolam... from these pictures, you can see that most of the designs that they used for their decorations in Little India have their own meanings and a taste of Indian culture in it....

Kolam(Rangoli) is a form of design of something like maybe a flower(for example) or it can also be something else...for  this rangoli, they can use rice, chalk, chalk powder or white rock powder or more often they would use coulor powder especially in their homes... 

These three pictures are a part of their cultures as well... from the first and second pictures,  those bright and colorful flowers are actually going to be made into a necklace known as a flower garland... it is almost similar to a necklace and you can usually buy these flowers from indian florist shops... based on what ive seen in the television shows and internet,  they will usually use this wedding ceremonies for the bride and groom... they will put these garlands on each others' necks...

These are about all the general ideas I've gotten and understand about the Indian cultures up till now.... I hope that I will have the opportunity to learn more about them and upload more on this blog for u guys to check out... ;) .... And before that, I also wish to apologize if I have made any mistakes or error when sharing all these infos about the Indian cultures... if there is any misinterpretation of culture or inaccurate information uploaded here, please feel to write a comment below.... we would really appreciate it.. thanks....  I hope that you will enjoy reading this blog and find it beneficial to all of you out there.... btw, thanks again for checking out our blog!! Dhanyavad...... wheee ~  ;) :)