Category: General

The last time I had lunch with Ashwani, I suggested we try the black pepper crab at Long Beach before he finished his Singapore posting. He had told me that his 3 year term was up and he should be getting his new posting out anytime soon.

So we met yesterday. He hasn’t received his posting yet but he thinks it would be anytime soon. Well I am not sure either one of us would find a common time once he receives his notice to catch up again, so this was my farewell lunch for him.

As always, we spoke about many things, india-china relations, us-india relations, racial matters in Singapore etc. It is always good to get the perspective of an intelligent and keen observer of events to see a different point of view.

He enjoyed the black pepper crab and hopefully our paths cross again someday!

I was informed last week that the celebrity chef Alvin Leung, the owner of Forbidden Duck, would be in Singapore yesterday during lunch.

I have always liked the Peking duck there and since he was going to be there as well, I had to go. Managed to get a table for the second sitting. Enjoyed my duck and a quick conversation with him.

Yesterday I booked my ticket for this musical in Singapore for this August under some rather strange circumstances.

I have known the music from this musical since 1976 when our school band played excerpts. I loved the music and of course I didn’t know who the composers were or the storyline and it’s surrounding controversies then. Soon after playing this piece in the band, a friend from the band took me to Sungei Road to buy a pirated cassette of this musical for $2. I must confess that I didn’t appreciate the rock nature of the singing then.

Years later of course I was reintroduced to this musical via the movie soundtrack and I learnt about Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice and what this musical was about.

This musical came out in 1973. The movie version came out soon thereafter and was shown here in the 1970s. So I couldn’t understand the noise in social media by some religious groups calling for a ban on the musical here and expressing concerns about the governments’ decision to allow it this here. Weird. This is not a new work. It has been around some 50 years and has been shown here and the movie has always been freely available here. Why the concern now? In any case, I have seen nothing controversial in the musical. If a religion is fearful of what a book or movie would do to the foundations of the religion, then surely something is wrong? Faith must be based on firmer foundation.

I purchased my ticket immediately after reading the concerns by the religious groups. Strange that they ended up encouraging me to go when under normal circumstances I may not have gone.

On Thursday, through my Facebook feed, I found out that Bharthiraja had passed away aged 84.

I don’t know him personally and have never met him. But he was a legendary Tamil movie director who burst onto the scene in 1977 with his first movie 16 Vayathinilae. He completely changed the tamil film industry by focusing on rural outdoor shooting and portraying the people as they were in real life in the rural areas, the way they talked and dressed and behaved.

I will always remember Sigappu Rogakkal, which I watched with my parents at the Naval Base cinema when it came out sometime in 1978. Such a well done and scary movie.

The other 2 that I will always remember are Kilakae Poogum Rail and Mudhal Mariyadai. He, of course, had many more movies to his name.

He became famous at the same time as Illayaraja and Gangai Amaran, All around the 1976 and 1977. Out of the blue. They were all friends growing up in their village, playing music and singing to audiences, with visions of making it big in Tamil cinema. With no formal education or training.

They all came to Madras in 1967 and struggled to find work. They worked hard and learnt their craft and all 3 of them became successful in their own different ways.

Most of Bharthiraja’s movies featured the amazing music of Illayaraja. Theirs was an amazing combination during that period and it is now slowly reaching the end of an era.

Last Tuesday we met again for dinner. This time at Shousin Izakaya at Boat Quay. Vincent Chong was the host and he picked this place. A smallish japanese restaurant but the food was good and fresh and the prices were reasonable.

So good catching up again. Strangely we didn’t talk at all about politicians or current politics or community issues, something that usually dominates our conversation. Perhaps it is because of our lesser involvement in the community activities nowadays. Much of the conversation was on healthcare concerns, medical tests and costs of living in Singapore.

We ended early this time as both San and Dr Teo had to attend other matters thereafter.

I am now back at at Trichy airport for the flight back to Singapore. The flight leaves at the unearthly time of 330 am Indian time.

The flight was originally supposed to be at 3pm. Then they cancelled that flight and changed it to this one. So overall this has been a horrible trip in so far as flights go. The going flight was delayed 10 hours and the return flight canceled and scheduled to a 3am flight.

So I had to book the hotel for an additional night, and then check out at 10pm. The drive from the Madurai hotel to the airport took about 2 hours and 15 minutes and I am now waiting in the airport for the flight. If I feel exhausted, then I can only imagine how much more tiring it must be foe my mother!

I can safely say I didn’t do anything this trip, unlike the previous occasions when I visited different temples. I spent all my time reading and resting and only today I went out to eat lunch at Sabrees, a famous vegetarian restaurant here in Madurai. My set lunch was Rp120, which works out to S1.50. A wonderful meal.

I also managed to catch up with both the drivers I encountered on my previous visits. One I met at the hotel and the other drove me to the airport today.

Now to look forward to the flight and recuperate when I get back.

Today I had my mother over at the hotel where I am staying for lunch together with my sis in law and my nieces.

A decent buffet lunch, although they told me that they have had to cut down a number of items because of the higher cooking gas prices.

Not much conversation, except with my mother. So hard to get the rest to say anything. They have always been so quiet. Well at least they ate well.

My mother needed to attend to some matters in her home town, Aruppukottai, and to also visit the grandchildren. So we left today for India.

It used to be so convenient when they had a direct flight to Madurai.They cancelled that flight last year and now I have to travel to Madurai via Trichy, which is a 3 hour car journey. She then has a further one hour journey to her home town by car. I stay in Madurai.

The flight was supposed to be this morning at 11am. I woke up and checked my email and the first one said the flight had been cancelled. The later email said it had been postponed to 915pm.

Anyway we are now on the way there. We land at 11pm Indian time and will be about 3am when I reach Madurai and 4am for her to reach her home town.

Saturday morning was this award ceremony. I had signed up for the event and I didn’t know then that I was actually receiving an award. So it turned out to be a pleasant surprise when I turned up.

This event celebrates volunteers from all walks of life, including schools, students and corporates who contribute their time, money and energy helping others in the NW district.

So good catching up with everyone and the advisers who turned up that day. Time to look back on my 23 years helping at the NWCDC.

Yesterday I organized a thank you lunch for the management team of Jobs and Lifelong Learning at NWCDC.

Now that the 3 year term is ending , I thought it was an opportune time to meet up socially and thank them.

I arranged it at ShangriLa whilst the Briyani Festival was still ongoing. Good crowd yesterday but still I think they enjoyed the food there.

In the age of AI and transformation everywhere, the issue of finding and maintaining employment and constantly upgrading and updating knowledge and skills will become important. I am glad that the CDCs are doing this and that I have been able to be a part of this movement.

I can see that the team is doing their best to reach out to residents not just to hit their numbers but also to make a meaningful impact on their lives. I only hope that residents appreciate the hard work they are putting in to help them.