Little India and Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple

Serangoon Road began as a route for carrying plantation goods across the island and appears on Lieutenant Jackson's map of 1828. By the 1820s the British had set up lime pits and brick kilns here, and Indian workers called the area Soonambu Kambam, the village of lime. After the kilns closed in 1860, cattle trading took over, with related trades such as slaughterhouses and milk peddling, and Indian herdsmen and milkmen settled along the Rochor Canal.

Tamil workers from the lime pits set up a shrine to Kali on the site of the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple as early as 1855, and Bengali labourers built a temple here in 1881. It was restored in 1908, when a statue of the goddess was brought from South India, and it sheltered people during the Second World War. The old Tekka Market dated from 1915; its successor, now Tekka Centre, opened across the road in 1981. Little India was gazetted as a conservation area on 7 July 1989.

Little India is busiest on Sundays, when many workers from South Asia gather to shop, eat and meet friends. Temples hold daily prayers, and the major Hindu festivals, Deepavali above all, fill the streets with lights, music and shoppers buying sweets, clothes and decorations. Traditionally, dishes such as masala thosai are eaten with the right hand, and many restaurants serve meals on banana leaves.