Majulah Singapura

There have been few cities in this world that I have despised. Come to think of it, there is not a single city where I have not felt at home. But Singapore is something different. Singapore is a city I have fallen in love with while trying not to.

She’s like that girl in the college who is way out of your league and yet you fall for her, head over heels. And you know what? Suddenly, you do go out with her for a coffee.

I remember the day I stepped into the city, far removed from the chaos of Mumbai I was used to love and cherish. It seemed straight out of a story book, where trains ran on time, people were polite and helpful and taxis were ready to ferry you over to your neighbour’s house without asking a question.

But the reason I have fallen in love with Singapore is because of the small surprises the city springs at me almost every day. The 24x7 grocery shopping, the coffee made out of a sock, the breakfast on kaya toast, the movie theatres without an interval suddenly breaking your concentration, the gardens, the walks and the public transport that apologises for the slightest breakdown in service.

The late night music on classical channel and the golden oldies, the walks on Orchard, getting lost in Vivocity, proudly proclaiming that one could find absolutely anything in Mustafa, everything makes Singapore dearer every day of my life.

It’s been more than a year here and everyday is a new discovery. Different sunsets greet you at the different look out points where if the clouds do not cover your view, chances are at ships will. But even then when the sun takes his first dip into the ocean, only to emerge brighter the next day, you feel nice that you are in a city that got urbanization right.

You remember the girl you went out for coffee with? Savour the moment while it lasts. Who knows what happens tomorrow?

Five Days of Bongness

Technically it’s not just Bongness. It’s also about being a true blue Calcuttan whether you have bong genes or not and if you are unlucky, it’s also “I am unfortunate to have more than one Bong friend”-ness. October typically is the month when this virus spreads across the world from as I call it, “Beleghata to Baluchistan”.  The only rare exception so far has been Colombo but I am sure it’s because we have not searched intensely.

Anyway, according to last desktop research done through the highly scientific “Eenie, Meenie, Minie Moe” method, I have come to the conclusion that 98.675% of the bloggers who would have written about Durga Puja would have written on the following topics – Durga Puja in Calcutta, Durga Puja outside Calcutta, How awesome bongs are, how awesome Calcutta’s people are, how awesome whoever who sees an idol is, how they miss home, how they miss Cal, how it is never the same. You get the drift. Bongs revel in their nostalgia.

So this year, I decided to write about the 5 things I dislike about Durga Puja.

1. The fact that the food I yearn for during these 5 days is so very hard to get outside my home in Calcutta. The rolls, the puchkas, the bhog - everything seems different and seems to fall below the standards that a young you would have set up. Money can’t buy you the khichuri on the morning on Ashtami made by your mom, for everything else; you can use your credit card. I dislike the fact that we have put a man on the moon and yet we don’t know how to ensure chhanar payesh does not go bad within 2 days!
2. The fact that every self respecting bong starts shouting in a very strange North India influenced way – Durga Mai ki Jai. Now clearly Bongs and Hindi pronunciation don’t go together so it ends up in a form of “Doorga Maaeee Ki Joy”. Now while going to Vaishnodevi you start shouting this I have no issues; in fact if I ever can make the trip I can outshout you. But seriously for us core “Karonbaari” drinking Shaktos it’s cringing to shout Jai Jai instead of rolling all over the floor crying like a baby “Ma Ma” (The Tantric influence is strong in us. We also worship Goddess Kali you see)
3. The fact that all Bong women suddenly start wearing the gorgeous sarees. All through the year, the British taught Bong will be stuck up in his Victorian morality and will not even look up even if Paris Hilton walks past him. But deep inside him, as taught by most of his great ancestors, there is a hidden romantic. And these 5 days the women of Bengal decide to test the resolve of the Bengali man. Age no longer remains a barrier (upwards I mean) and if by chance the woman has decided to let her hair out of the natural work day bondage, the Bengali man starts reciting his Jibonanondo, imagining the long black hair to be the darkness that hangs over the ancient city of Bidisha. Again by desktop research I have found out that in North Calcutta, 76% of the para romance happens when boy meets girl at Pushpanjali.
4. The fact that everyone turns a dancer. Dhunuchi naach is an art. The fire held in the hands is a symbolism of the fire within. But every Ajoy Babu, Bijoy Babu and Sujoy Babu, after their 2 pegs of Old monk will become a dhunuchi dancer. And sometimes, there is flower inside the dhunuchis instead of fire! This is more scandalous than Messi being called the new Maradona. The burn on my left foot starts itching and all I desire is to give the gentlemen a kick like our God Pele had given the phootboll when he had come and played in Calcutta.
5. The fact that there is a logical discrepancy in the prayer. Now having had the Marxist influence on most of our upbringing, these are perhaps the only 5 days we pray. (and also on Christmas but that’s more for the cake I guess) First I dislike the fact that contrary to everything that Howard Roark stood for all neo capitalists start saying dehi dehi. I mean I seldom have seen a race to be such a strong believer in being a Momma’s Boy (I am a proud one) but to even pray asking the Mother of All to just give (almost everything you can think of) is taking it a bit too much. Now I could have survived even that. But the fact remains is that after all these years and carefully listening to every priest I have figured out that nobody knows what the correct “mahastami anjali mantra” is. It completely depends on what mood the priest is in on that day. Since 2000, I have not heard the same mantra being repeated even once!!! I mean the only difference in the Christian call to the Trinity is that some people love to call the Holy Spirit the Holy Ghost. Now that’s still manageable!

But God Bless you Singapore and Bongs of Singapore. You have lived up to the tradition that if there are 3 bongs, there will be 2 political ideologies and if there are 5, there will be 2 Durgapujos. To find 4 in a new city is what I would call a miracle.

A Month Young

So, a month’s passed since I moved to Singapore and it feels nice to be posting from my new apartment - a place hopefully will be my address for the near future. That does give life a sense of stability. That one’s a strange word – you run away from it all your life and suddenly one fine day you begin to crave for it. I crave for my bean bag. I hear it’s coming this Saturday.

I realized Dara House had given my Mumbai life a strange stability and G was the anchor in my life. As I look around trying to figure out what all I need for the house, I miss him terribly, a little selfishly perhaps as well. It’s not easy to understand out how many dustbins will be good enough for one man and his apartment. The space looks empty; perhaps a 6 ft 6 inches human is missing as well. But luckily for him, he would not have fitted into any bed in Singapore.

Settling down in Singapore has been easy thanks to quite a few people, J the first and foremost. Starting from Day 1 when she ensured that she meets me at the station so that I can reach office without hassles and know the routes till ensuring every time I travel that I don’t forget my tickets to the airport, she has been God’s helping hand. I made new friends. Friends who took really good care of the strange Indian who doesn’t like to eat lunch before 1:00 pm, who always is looking out for a snack in between meetings and an excuse to postpone going to the gym. You know it feels nice when suddenly you are in a melting pot of the strangest of cultures where everyone is accepted as they are and there is no set rule for anything. And you realize this was the reason you chose selling soups as your career.

The friend networks came strongly to the rescue, from offers to give an accommodation if needed to financial help if required, from inviting a lonely friend to Janmastami celebrations to showing the joints to satiate the cravings for home food - friends sprang up and made me feel at home even while they were spending nights at their offices. People called from back home to check up if I had settled down and did not believe me till they had probed long and hard enough.

The freedom to be completely alone has given me the permission to do something I have been meaning to do for some time. I have decided on an interesting experiment. Starting September 1, I intend to go on a no “traditional media model” which essentially means I will be off TV primarily. There are a couple of reasons to this – I really want to understand how the mind works when it has to source new sources for information and entertainment and somewhere in the process I want to find out more about digital media – how it works, how it gets its users, how it interacts with our lives. Staying alone helps to take such calls. Let’s see how long I survive given the fact even compres could not stop me from watching Oscar Fever on Star Movies!

Every journey of mine has had its connection with a book. This was no different. C has been a friend for a long long time now and quite a few of my favourite books have come to me through her. Just a couple of months before I left, she gave me an amazing collection of articles which documented the 50 years of South Asian journalism. Every morning in the bus, while taking the 40 minute ride, I used to read the articles one by one and remember the home I left behind.

It was during one of those journeys that I realized why I fell in love with Liverpool in the first place – for football I had Mohun Bagan, for camaraderie I needed to know...

“Walk on

With hope in your hearts

And you'll never walk alone”

I did not walk alone in Singapore, even while trying to be the lone wolf I fancy myself to be.

Week 1

So a week and a couple of days have passed since I have landed in Singapore. And I have to say it was all because of the men from 2006 that I have found settling in so easy. In 2006, when the 5 of us came down to Singapore, we never thought we would have so much fun. Those 2 weeks turned out to be one of the most memorable ones during my stay in IIMB.

And thanks to them I had walked every nook and corner of Singapore during those few days. So when I finally landed here to start this new phase of life, I was not at all apprehensive. In fact, it felt like smoothly getting into a mode I once knew. Yes, probably life would have been easier if Kushal was here, he is just amazing at figuring out life with just a Lonely Planet and wikitravel. And with Kushal around one never needs to bother about logistics. He is the best travel planner I have ever met and I think his camera and him have been parts of some of my most memorable trips. In fact, I don’t even know if RL, the only wiki editor I knew then, still does the editing. He was the one who led us to wikitravel. Or Wipro, who experimented with every form of food that was or Prasanth who always brought sanity back. Or for that matter one who I shall not name, who used to leave us in the night and return back in the morning with fantastic tales :)

Singapore gives you a culture shock once you land from Mumbai. The roads are not only devoid of potholes, they are also devoid of any kind of dirt or grime. The cars drivers have not been trained in Delhi, so they know how to follow lanes and basic traffic signals like red means stop. The pedestrians have never been to Calcutta so they know that a road should be crossed only at designated crossings. The citizens have never lived in Bangalore so they get agitated if a metro line is delayed by just one month. The trains run on time, something I still need to get used to, the buses are comfortable and come on time. So all in all, if you know the rules and follow them you can very easily survive here. There are stores that are open 24X7, the life in the city, at least near Orchard, where I stay presently, seem to be alive, reminding me of the Bandra that I left behind.

There are people I miss, most importantly Swati Didi and Yogesh. In my realm of self sufficient awesomeness, I get worried only on two counts – if I have to cook daily or if I have to do my own ironing. Cooking breakfast or weekends is not a major concern but cooking daily is and there was Swatididi to take care of us like the Mother Hen. She was there with us for three years and has taken care of us like her own family. Life in Mumbai was so smooth mainly because of her and the brilliant food that she cooked. It’s not easy to take care of a bachelors’ pad but she did it with so much ease and panache. She might not be reading this but I thank her from the bottom of my heart. The other was Yogesh – the day we realized that there was the reliable IFB Laundromat near our house, we let go off all laundry work. Since then, till yesterday I have never done my laundry, leave alone ironing. Now doing laundry is not difficult if you have a washing machine, but ironing is such a pain. The last time I did it was perhaps before the campus interviews in BITS! Anyway, Yogesh was God’s gift to us. He always called up the night before to check if we would be home and then punctually would come in every Saturday morning. We would forget, but Yogesh would not. In fact, the last Friday night in India, even though he knew we had left, he called up to check.

There are things I miss about home – the most prominent amongst them are chewing gums. The city has no chewing gums! Mints are just not the same. So if there are any separation pangs that tugs at my heart, it must be gums. My life suddenly has no gum and I am not happy about it. It’s actually making me full of gham.

Anyway, there seems to be an unending range of food choices and I have not even started scraping the tip of the iceberg. But that has to wait as I fly to Manila tomorrow.

And Happy National Day Singapore :) May you and I fall in love soon.

Midnight in Midair

So a new phase of life finally begins; in a city I had no idea I would come back to. It was 2006 and there were 5 of us who had come to this city for a short project. Without much money in our hands, we had walked through the length and breadth of the city, trying to optimize the MRT fares. We all were a living encyclopaedia of what to do and not to do in Singapore. It was the first international trip for most of us and we wanted to ensure we made the most of it.

As I was flying into Singapore, alone and just a little scared, Woody Allen came to the rescue. Singapore Airlines had Midnight in Paris playing on their system. One of the recent quirks of the master film maker has been to romanticize Europe. And he paints the most seductive picture of Paris. But the best part was the originality of the screenplay. Suddenly, it occurred to me, this was so very Bengali – Loving the past, always reliving the golden ages, wishing that one was born before his or her time. The treatment was exquisite and Owen Wilson managed to pull it off to a large extent. Yes, probably someone else could have done a better job at showing his surprise. Imagine me running into Tagore. I would have fainted then and there.

The protagonist is a writer facing a block and one night he suddenly meets all his literary idols, and is transferred back to the golden age of Paris – 1920s. He has an option to stay there or come back. The subtlety with which Woody Allen shot the movie was sublime to say the least.

But most importantly, as I was about to land in a new city to start a new phase of my life, it taught me to treat nostalgia as it should be – like a memory that helps to keep you going, not hinders you by pulling you back.

5 years ago the city had struck me as being operated on clockwork. Nothing seems to have changed much. Yes, it’s a bit more crowded, definitely warmer, the Changi Airport keeps adding terminals and there are trains to take you from one to the other, the roads are smooth, chewing gums can’t be found in grocers, the food is super costly, the food courts are buzzing and the MacDonald’s have the ability to come to the rescue of a hungry nomad.

How the story turns out to be only time can tell. I believe stories make their own paths. They are alive and even if we try we can not dictate how they will turn out to be. Maybe yes, the best we can do is to give a nudge here and there. But that’s about it. A nudge. Life ensures that every story goes through their own twists and turns.

As the plane was getting farther and farther away from my country, I sipped on the most brilliant mocktail I have ever tasted - Awaiting the Golden Dawn. Maybe, it was just the mood, the memories, but somehow, when I said cheers to myself, as Owen Wilson decided to stay back in Paris, I realized I was lucky to be able to fall in love with the cities I go to.

Best part? The weighing machine in my room shows my weight to be 10 kgs lower than it was last week in Mumbai. Now that’s one welcome that can floor me any day. May the good times continue.

7 months back

While working on my excel files late into the night, I suddenly realized that 7 months back I was sitting with Kushal in a swanky office in Singapore trying to help find a way so that a multinational services organization could make their entry into India. Yesterday morning I was braving the rains in the markets of Patna. As I stood under a shed, I realized that when people call me up most of them are taken aback by not finding my voice dull and tired. :-)

It’s not true that I do not have my doubts. But then a pretty favourite Peanuts strip comes into mind. In it Charlie Brown says,

Sometimes I lie awake at night, and I ask, "Why am I here?"
Then a voice answers, "Why? Where do you want to be?"

Today however, the cold I caught though seems to want to answer, "Home with a hot cup of coffee and tucked away with a book."