by Dr Rahim Said
There was a time — long before hip cafés, Michelin-star pretensions and Instagrammable brunches — when Sunday afternoons in Kuala Lumpur had a different kind of quiet elegance. And for a small circle of oddballs like myself and Professor Kit Machado, that meant one thing: curry tiffin at the old Majestic Hotel.
The old Majestic wasn’t the sprawling luxury landmark it is today. It was charmingly weathered, with a lobby that smelt faintly of wood polish, colonial ambition and the ghost of long-dead rubber planters.
But its real treasure lay in its lounge on Sundays — when they rolled out the curry tiffin like clockwork, much to the delight of pensioners, civil servants, and the occasional overworked visiting academic.
Kit Machado, a Visiting Professor of Political Science from the University of California at Northridge, made it a ritual.
Whenever either of us had an early meeting on Monday, we’d hop on the late morning flight on Sunday into KL and head straight for the Majestic. Not to the bar but straight to the lounge. Because curry tiffin waited for no one.
To Kit, this was no ordinary meal. He swore it was the best curry he had ever tasted, and I never had the heart to disagree. Who would, when faced with that glorious spread?
Each dish came in its own little plate, meticulously arranged just the way the colonial officers probably liked it in their day — mango chutney gleaming like amber, crunchy papadoms still warm, and white rice that could almost pass inspection at Buckingham Palace. At the centre, a bowl of rich, deeply spiced chicken or mutton curry, its aroma bold enough to stop conversations mid-sentence.
We argued about plenty of things in those days — politics (naturally), our research, the state of the world, and whether a poorly paid college don could ever afford to retire.
But never about the curry. On that matter, we were united.
I often wonder about Kit now. If he’s still around, he’d be past a hundred. And if the stories are true, the new Majestic still serves a version of that Sunday curry tiffin.
But I doubt Kit and I would make it through those polished new doors. The Majestic of today isn’t for the likes of us — not for scribblers, college dons, or visiting professors on meagre stipends.
Back then, it was good, it was honest, and it was ours. And on Sundays, for a little while at least, the world felt like a far kinder place — over curry, rice, and the company of an old friend.