From Kuala Lumpur: Holy Temples & An Unholy Casions

The City of Contrasts

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia ~ 8 March

A morbid curiosity brought me beyond the city to the Genting Highland Casino, a bona fide Disneyland for all those venturing to a cultural Mecca — the city of garden lights, of karaoke bars and the king of fruit, of contrasts and temples, of street food and roast duck — simply to gamble. The mountain resort sits roughly an hour outside the city up a stream of winding roads and against a torrent of tourist buses; you see indications of the resort long before you pass its threshold: faded buildings painted in pale rainbow colours, something resembling a castle facade washed yellow and housing a lone security guard, a mountain view broken by hideous high-rise hotels.

I stepped out of the cab and found myself lost in cloud purgatory. White block letters set against a beige veranda spelled out G R A N D H O T E L. The air was cool and still, with fog so dense I could hardly breathe; one step into the hotel revealed the type of liminal hellscape achievable only through unbridled luxury, one where a rural mountaintop’s ancient soul has been forcibly removed from every atom of its being. It is a space that exists outside of the regular functionings of this world, occupied by those with too much money to spend and no clue how to spend it. Genting Highlands reeks of gilded decay: a vacuum, a testament to the creeping lifelessness of private greed, a microcosmic warning for the world we are creating for ourselves.

Purgatory // Credit: M. Cole Grady

The resort is owned by Genting Malaysia Berhad, a subsidiary of the Genting Group owned by Lim Kok Thay, a Malaysian Chinese billionaire whose hand also digs deeply into the pockets of palm oil, property development and fossil fuels. Greed permeates the very carpet and can be tasted in every bite of an overpriced egg custard tart. You’re acutely aware that every single ringgit you spend will be hoarded and invested, forever trapped as a growing number on some broker’s computer screen.

I stepped onto an escalator and began moving upwards from the lobby to the casino. The sounds, sights and smells I’ve grown used to in gambling centers — the lingering smoke, the free-flowing alcohol, the man built of new money throwing himself over the roulette table in a fit of rage, the stone-faced blackjack players — were nowhere to be seen. Instead, strict, luxurious order.

There were only a handful of tables with human dealers, demanding abhorrently high minimum bets. I stood and watched for a while as ultra-wealthy chubby Chinese women, in their immaculate makeup and sleek tops and floral perfumes, bet more than my three-month salary on a single blackjack hand. They tossed black poker chips around like they were small change and never broke composure. The ringing electric bells of slot machines buzzed faintly in the background.

The Gates of Hell // Credit: M. Cole Grady

Those who could not afford to lose a small fortune were relegated to long rows of gaming computers: roulette, baccarat, and other staples all available on a screen the size of a large tablet. I inserted money and played a few hands at digital blackjack; the dealing was slow and without excitement — there was no glancing at the person next to you as they lost an expensive hand or snide remarks at the dealer, no shouting in the background or the buzzed impulse to play longer than you should.

I sat hypnotised at the screen over two eternal hours, neither winning nor losing, watching the numbers grow and shrink and grow and shrink and grow again, the sound effects occupying my entire headspace, strategy charts pulled up on my phone. I tried to cash out — it wouldn’t let me, giving an error in a language I couldn’t read — and realised just how much time had passed. The flash of lucidity gave me enough wherewithal to leave. I spent half an hour navigating anxiously through hotel arcades, luxury shops, and expensive restaurants looking for the exit.

Much like Genting Heights, I felt empty, soulless, like the day meant less than nothing, like it had never happened at all and I was exiled from time for an afternoon. I was in need of a spiritual antidote and, despite the storm clouds blanketing the city, ventured immediately to the Batu Caves temples.

The Batu Caves on a stormy day // Credit: M. Cole Grady

The grand Batu Caves were converted into a religious site in the late 19th century by Tamil merchant K. Thamboosamy Pillai as a devotion to Lord Murugan, the son of Shiva and Parvati and the Hindu god of war; they are now a significant Hindu pilgrimage site, and the caves house numerous temples. From the taxi stand to the base of the staircase, monkeys circled around pani puri stands, and the smell of marigolds filled my nose. I had escaped the Genting purgatory and bathed myself in Murugan’s golden gaze. Colour returned to the world.

Under dark skies, I began the journey upwards. With each of the nearly 300 steps, each ache in my legs and drop of sweat rolling down my neck, each flash of brilliance and heavy drop of rain, the cavernous maw approached. Ceremonial drums reverberated many times over against the stalactites, and a collection of brightly lit temples illuminated the caves: to Murugan, to Shiva, to Rama, to Ganesha. Wisps of incense floated through the lone skylight. In these spaces, the divine — the fantastic and the epic — become human.

Life extended not just to the trees and bugs and pilgrims, or even to the idols brought to life by ancient poetry. In this strange outcropping of our universe, up the rainbow staircase protected by Murugan’s youthful wisdom, the cavern itself took on a certain intelligence, a dance that moved in tune with the beat of drums, an infinite palette of colours arranged to grasp your heart, unravel it by the ventricles and evaporate it into the air’s intangible currents.

The cave’s mouth // Credit: M. Cole Grady

The trance lifted. I exited the cave and was greeted by Kuala Lumpur’s concrete skyline, free from the fog of a gambler’s Naraka but no longer among the divine. Of grey pavements and of metros and taxis and high fashion, it was neither shrouded in fog nor colour—it was distinctly of this world. My feet felt neither heavier nor lighter than they should, and any ideas of the soul were second to the relentlessly real preoccupation of whatever came next.

The skies opened up once again to a downpour.

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