Blog

Yesterday at about 2pm when I was driving home, Dhinakaran, the owner of Madras Woodlands restaurant called and asked if I would be free to have dinner at his restaurant. He was meeting some friends and he wanted me to drop by.

I haven’t seen Dino in a while and since I was free, I said I would be there.

Fortunately I managed to get parking right in front of the restaurant and as I walked in, I noticed that the restaurant has undergone some renovations. It looked cleaner and brighter. Good for them. It was looking rather dated recently. Later Dino proudly told me that he got the renovations done in about 15 days without closing the restaurant.

Soon the invitees started arriving. The key guest was Graham Mayer, the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy. Dino had invited me but the rest of the group was assembled by a Mr Renganathan, who apparently had just flown in and knew everyone. The others there were the GM of Indian Bank, TT Durai and Mustaq the owner of Mustafa.

The food was good. Dinner started with a spinach soup, then a vadai, thosai, poori with vegetables and finally an appam. I ended up eating much more than I normally would.

The conversation was varied and I ended up speaking to Graham most. We talked about the current situation in the US re the scourge of drugs, immigration and their courts. We talked quite a bit about China and Singapore and the huge online presence of Chinese interest groups and their influence worldwide, including Singapore.

I did tell him the US has not been effective in presenting their message and with hardly any soft power and they need to do much more. I have said the same things to the previous Ambassador. Let’s see if anything changes.

For as long as I can remember, my parents have always made sure that we celebrate each others’ birthdays. This has always been a ritual and it was always a family only affair.

I remember simple birthdays when I was young at our one room rental flat in Queenstown. It was a small flat and I still can recall that address, although that flat no longer exists. It was Block 3, 34-C Margaret Close, Singapore 3.

Later we used to celebrate our birthdays with a dinner and almost always it would be at a North Indian restaurant. The ones we then frequented were the restaurants at Imperial Hotel, one at Colombo Court and one at Boulevard Hotel. None of these buildings or these restaurants exist anymore.

Now it’s just me and my mother here and we celebrate birthdays at lunch rather than dinner, since it is easier for digestion purposes and also because it is more convenient traveling in the day time for my mother. And so for our past few birthdays we have ended up having lunch at Straits Kitchen at Hyatt, which has a decent buffet with a North Indian section. We did try the one at Ritz Carlton for a while but the quality and offerings of the Indian food dropped so we stopped going there.

As It was my birthday yesterday, we again did lunch at Hyatt. Am now 63 and my mother turns 86 in January. Time has flown by but am still glad that we have kept our tradition going.

Last night was the birthday celebrations for Han Seng Juan’s mother, Doris, who turns 90.

What an incredible milestone. To cross 90 and still be able to have a birthday celebration and participate in it with your family and friends in good health is truly a blessing.

I remember attending the 80th birthday celebrations for Doris as well. That celebration was at the Capella. Then they had her favorite Chinese singers come to perform for her.

I went up to her last night, she remembered me, spoke to me kindly and said we will celebrate her 100th birthday as well. What a remarkable lady. The family had prepared a short video clip of her life, which showcased her colorful and energetic life.

With Patricia Mok as the MC, they had invited Richard Hadfeld, of the Collabro fame. He sang really well all the old classics. He flew in just for one night to perform. They also had a lovely erhu player,Callista, who played really well, though I wished more people would have paid attention to the performance.

The food was great and I felt it was a meaningful celebration so well planned by Han, his wife Susanah and the family. No effort had been spared in making this a truly special evening.

The highlight surely was Doris singing 2 beautiful songs on stage for everyone.

Such a meaningful evening for a wonderful lady with a huge beautiful cake.

Lunch yesterday was at Yantra restaurant, organised by Ashwani Kumar from the Indian HC with myself and Ramesh Selvaraj.

Actually the lunch came about because Ashwani wanted to get to know Ramesh and since I know Ramesh, I became the fortunate beneficiary of lunch.

I used to go to Yantra a long time ago when they first opened at Tanglin Mall. They used to do a buffet and I have been to their weekend buffets many times.

Now they do a weekday set lunch which I must say was good and substantive. But like all Indian food, one cannot have it on any regular basis and as I feared, my weight was up this morning.

In any case, we had a good discussion on many issues; Singapore public housing and the prices and sizes of our HDB flats, immigration, integration of the local Indian community and the coming impact of AI on jobs.

I have known Ramesh for a long time but have never sat down for a meal with him.

A good and productive session.

Yesterday I received a package from Min Liang. It was a special limited edition book celebrating the 20th anniversary of Razer.

I always look forward to receiving things from Razer. Anything from them is special. The way the product is packaged, the design work with their trademark colours of black and green and the placement of their logo on the product makes every item from them desirable.

This time, to celebrate their anniversary, they have produced a hardcover book. The book is so pretty that I haven’t had the heart to open and read it yet.

The company started in 2005 with just a concept of making a good quality gaming mouse that gamers would want to own.

I must have become a shareholder sometime in end 2006 or 2007. Certainly it was before the financial crisis of 2008.

Along the way, the company moved away from just making a good gaming mouse to producing all the things a gamer would want to have so as to be able to play their games well. Their logo was ” for gamers by gamers”, and they made the entire range of gaming products including laptops, apparels, gaming chairs, sound systems and headsets. They even did a gaming phone.

As a small shareholder, I watched them grow and was elated when they finally listed in 2017 in HK with 1337 as their stock code.

I made the trip to HK for the listing and there was just so much celebrations all around that day.

They delisted just before Covid to become a private company once again. Looking forward to even greater things from them as they celebrate this milestone.

I had lunch yesterday with Alina and Matthew at Chamoon Hot Pot. So kind of her and her husband to remember my birthday and arrange lunch.

I was wondering why she picked this place. I thought she liked this restaurant and wanted to eat here. Turned out that she thought this was my favorite restaurant and so she booked this place for me. So sweet of her but although I did go there previously, I haven’t been there in quite a while. I wouldn’t call it my current favorite restaurant…If asked, I would have given her a list to choose from which wouldn’t have included Chamoon… Pity

Anyway it was a healthy vegetarian hot pot with tomato papaya soup.

We talked about many things but the 2 of them seemed so tired. I was talking most of the time. Having children must be very exhausting. It is a huge sacrifice couples make. Your life changes and thereafter revolves around your children, traveling and holidays become difficult, finding the right balance between work and family is tough and it is increasingly expensive to raise children, especially in Singapore. I have always wondered if all the sacrifice that parents make is worth it. Or why they do it. I think I will never find the answer.

So grateful that they found the time to come out and spend time with me and have lunch!!

Earlier this week, a friend send me a video clip of PM’s Bloomberg interview. I had read about that interview in the mainstream papers and so I didn’t feel the need to open it to view the clip.

Yesterday evening, that same friend called me up to grumble about how the PM could say such things in that interview. So I asked him to summarize what the PM was supposed to have said.

He said PM had talked about the current China Japan spat and had said Singapore had forgotten and forgiven the Japanese for what they had done during WW2 and that China should learn to do the same and move on. According to him PM also said that ASEAN has accepted that Japan is a reliable security partner for this region.

I was surprised PM would have said such things and as I was outside, I said I would watch the video clip and revert to him.

Last night I watched that clip and I was shocked to discover that what PM said was completely different from what was told to me. Nothing he said in that interview was even remotely close. The position that he took was conciliatory and nuanced and carefully phrased.

But what surprised me is how some people believe a narrative told to them without verifying the information from the actual source and then spread it to others. But more significantly, who are these people with such ulterior motives to completely come up with a false narrative and spread it?

I understand that many of these narratives are from overseas actors based in HK. Singaporeans need to wake up and be alert and not be swayed by overseas actors appealing to clan and ethnic roots to support them in their own agendas.

Lunch today was at Koma, courtesy of U-Zyn. Very kind of him to remember that my birthday is coming up!

Koma is a Japanese fusion restaurant and they have reasonably priced set lunches. That could also explain their popularity as the place was packed. I was told that another reason why this place has become popular is because Taylor Swift visited this place twice during her last tour here.

Interesting experience. The food is decent but I didn’t think it warranted Taylor Swift wanting to come here to eat, and not just once. Perhaps she was invited by some influential person or was paid to eat there or maybe she just liked the ambience?

Conversation was great and varied. Most of it centred on the inequalities within the public schools system in Singapore.

And a nice birthday cake to end off lunch!

I received an award yesterday evening. Actually it was not a new award but was given to me to recognize my National Day Award. This is because I have done some work for Bukit Panjang.

I was not involved in BP until Mr Liang Eng Hwa took over as MP in 2020.

It was during Covid when I organized a job fair there. It was one of the first job fairs in Singapore and it received good coverage in the press. Thereafter I have done adhoc charity projects for them.

So grateful that I was invited yesterday. But what also surprised me was the sheer number of volunteers from all walks of life who help out to make other people’s lives better. Some of them helping out for 40 years. Well done to all of them! This surely must be a pure Singaporean phenomena.

I was introduced to this society some years back by my colleague Kalender, who is also an alumni of the College. This Singapore chapter comprises a group of ex students from this college, which is based in Thiruchy, Tamil Nadu. I didn’t know that they have about 500 of their alumni in Singapore. This college celebrates its 75th year this year.

The key events the Singapore chapter organises are talks during the Tamil Language Month, a break fast event during the Muslim fasting month and various other educational events.

They kindly invited me to their event, celebrating 15 years of the establishment of their Singapore chapter yesterday, giving me a front row seat. Hamid Razak MP was the guest of honor.

The event started at 6pm and I had hoped that it will be done by 730pm. Unfortunately there were many speeches and a song and skit item such that the main event, which was the speech, only started at 735pm. So I missed the speech. I had to leave by 745pm.

Anyway glad I could be a part of their event! Such gracious hosts.