Letter to the editor

My next letter to the editor was published in the national newspaper on 20th March 2013.

The excitement and motivation levels have risen :)

Writing letters to the editor is a whole new experience compared to writing a memory or a blog post. The article has to have a few characteristics. For starters, the content has to be well thought, precise, have the potential to make the readers/authorities think and as my good friend pointed out, should be constructive.

Thank you my readers and critics for encouraging me to come up with better articles each time.

My beautiful neighbourhood

Even though I am a big fan of the cityscape and other vibrant parts of Singapore, I have to admit this - Lower Peirce reservoir is the most beautiful and serene place in this island. I know that writing more about this tiny reservoir park would make it famous and people would come to visit and it might eventually spoil the beauty of the place. But, it feels almost criminal not to share this place. This place gives a very different view of Singapore - no HDBs, no skyscrapers and not even cranes.

We have visited this park on numerous occassions – rainy evenings, sunset hours and mornings runs. This place never fails to impress us! We have developed the habit of visiting this park when we have free evenings, just to watch the sunset colors. Don’t be mistaken. It is not possible to see the actual sunset from here. The still waters here, which capture the sunset colors brings magic to this place!

A twilight moment at Lower Peirce [Photo by Manu]

Each frame showing the gradual change in colors from sunset through twilight to nightfall was incredibly beautiful! It was so awesome that even I was silent for the hour and Manu started asking me if I was all right.

The park is quite small, with a few trails. A total of just about 2-3 kilometers inside the park. But, we have seen a lot of monkeys and sometimes wild boars(Yes!) in these grounds.

The reservoir and the track around it

The red track shows the whole trails and the outer perimeters of the park, which we scouted. Foodies, this is a neighborhood which you should not miss! Those green blobs in the map are especially for you.

The prata shop – Casuarina is right at the end of the trails. This is a great stop to replenish all the calories you lost with the walking and wow-ing. If you are coming to watch the sunset, explore out to the cozily tucked in Awfully chocolate and IceCream chefs just within 10 minutes walk.

If you live in Singapore or are on here on a vacation, do visit the Lower Peirce on a beautiful afternoon. The view is so awesome that you will come back to this post to thank me :-)

How to get here : 

If you are not driving, the easiest access is through bus.
Board any of these bus services - 132, 163, 165, 166, 167, 855 or 980 which ply along the Upper Thomson Rd. Get down at 53099 (BusStopID) or the one in opposite direction 53091. You would be able to see the board pointing to the reservoir entry.

Nearest MRT stations are Ang Mo Kio (NS Line) and Marymount (Circle Line). You would need to further transit to any of the above listed buses. From AMK interchange, you can board 132, 165, 166 and 169 to alight at BusStop 53091. From Marymount MRT, you need to walk 5-7 minutes to get to the bustop Opposite Shunfu estate - 53021 to board 132, 163, 165, 166, 167, 855 or 980.

As published in Straits Times

I know all of you, who are connected with me/Manu in Facebook have read the letter and the reply, even if you don't live in Singapore and this news does not matter to you. You all read that particular artice in the newspaper because I wrote it. Yes, it matters to me :-)
I am writing this post to thank you guys for being happy for me & also for me to read this in future and rememeber how excited I was about this.
You can imagine my happiest face you have ever seen. Add a bouce to my steps and that's how I looked like, when I saw my name printed in tiny blocks in the bottom left hand corner in an article in the national newspaper. :-) Manu brought the copy of the newspaper. I will take a picture and upload it here sometime.
Meanwhile, sharing the online edition

I was reading today's newspaper, and was pleasantly surprised when I came across this reply from Land Transport Authority. 

I do realize that LTA has replied with just a reassurance and not a complete plan. But, I am glad that they are planning to address the issue. I will do further follow ups as well.

A Rainy Weekend

Like most people from Kerala, Rain is an integral part of my life.

The rainy school days, the upside down umbrellas, splashing in the muddy waters, rubbery wrinkled toes, paper boats and much more all are part of our lives .
I can't express how much I used to miss the heavy downpour when I was living in Japan. To make up for that loss, we have enough rain in Singapore. Though the showers here aren't decent enough to get organized into a monsoon season, it scatters throughout the year. The rains don't last longer also.

There have been only two instances where I got troubled by the rain. Come to think of it, both were during bike rides.
Once in India, when I went for a movie with Dad & Anup, I had conveniently forgotten that I had my passport in my handbag. While we were riding back home, I had the handbag slung over my shoulders. I didn't realize the consequences until the passport officer got quite angry when I filed a reapplication &, to my utmost regret, told him the true reason. He made me read out the declaration by the President of India, in front of the whole office and waiting crowd! He made me promise that I would never neglect my responsibility towards the passport & the President! To this day, I keep my passport very safe. Am not bothered much about the President part after APJ's term ended.

Second is a more recent bike accident. As always, I was talking to Manu oblivious of what was happening on the roads. When the bike started moving horizontal on the road rather than the usual perpendicular stand, and I was thrown to the middle of the road, I imagined a big trailer at full speed had knocked us out and is coming to run over my head. Why else would the bike fall? Can you give me one good reason? In reality, it was just a tiny skid on the wet roads that started the slide. Results were patchwork on my knees and losing my precious linen trousers. The momentum finally stopped and when I finally sat up on the road, I saw that the bike was lying there in one piece, Manu was up and about & I still had my full head.
To Manu's intense horror, I was laughing when I saw my knees bleeding badly. It did hurt when the doctor cleaned up the bits of tar from my wound & I couldn't bend my knees for a week. But, my joyous mood of escaping from the (imaginary) trailer was more than enough to distract me from the pain.
// If you are curious, send me emails and I will share with you the pictures of Red Africa on my knees. Manu found it too irresistible to take a photograph of it.

Anyways, back to the good stuff about the rain. I still love the rain and can't resist playing in the rain. If am headed home from work or anywhere and it starts raining, I never use the umbrella.
Last Friday evening, when we were riding home, it started raining. After the accident, I get a bit freaked out when it starts raining while we are on this bike. But then, this was Friday evening (only very few things can make my Friday evenings dull) and the rain wasn't that strong. The best part is, it steadily increased through the night, and continued raining. We left the windows open and slept to the music of the rain. When I wake up in the midst of the night I could still hear the rain. And the most beautiful way to wake up on a Saturday morning(when you have no specific plans) is to the sound of the rain. It beautifully rained throughout the day. Later, around six, when the rain was lighter, we went out for a walk. We scouted around a reservoir and the rainy muddy tiny forest alongside it. The following cloudy Sunday kept up the feeling of the monsoon season.

I haven't had such a beautiful perfect rainy weekend for such a long time.
I can see the nostalgic faces of my Malayali friends while reading this, coz that’s what I feel now while writing this.
Honestly, it did not feel like we were in Singapore. The weekend was as refreshing as a short trip to Kerala. In a way, this rain saved Manu a lot of money on air-fares ;) Now, he can spend that on the earrings which I wanted!

Kite Runners

Flying kite is an image which I always associated with visiting my mum's house during summer vacations. Back then, I ddn't own a kite and I never knew how to make one. So, I just enjoyed clapping and running behind the people who maneuvered the kites.
Manu knows to fly kites and we usually go for kite flying sessions. I did not deviate from my policy - "Do not attempt anything more than my old skills."
This weekend, we went to Marina Barrage with T.J. and my dad. Oh, Teena and Jai are the T.J., so named to respect Teena's extreme knowledge and love for abbreviations.
Thanks to the excellent navigation skills of our shotgun and driver, we reached the destination in just 50 minutes (usual drive time is 20 minutes)

Consequences - sky was getting ready for sunset colors, wind was dying out and the place was crowded enough. Our skillset dramatically shrinked, with a man-down situation. Manu gets easily distracted with the sunset, impending blue hour and his new camera. I know him well enough to walk away when that glazed look comes over his face and he starts talking sentences which have filters, shooting modes and cloud patterns.

Jai has enough knowledge on how to fly kites, from watching movies. Dad has seen the it live in Rajasthan. With the solid theory backing, we started. It was fun, not for us, but for our on-lookers. They circled around us and started giving suggestions on what step to take next. The kite somehow had an affinity to the ground and never wanted to defy gravity. How much ever we ran with the kite and released to the sky and envisioned it to soar high, the kite did not understand the concept. It just insisted on falling nose first to the ground.

Photos (almost always) never lie !

(ഇത് ഇപ്പോ എങ്ങിനെയാ ആകാശത്ത് എത്തിക്കുക? പണ്ടാരം  ! ഞാന്‍ പുലി ആണെന്ന് പറഞും പൊയി ) 

Being an expert, How do I make this thing fly ? 

അവന് അറിഞ്ഞൂടാ , ഞാന്‍  ദിപ്പൊ ശരി ആക്കി തരാം ! 

I will fly this kite in a minute!

Jai decided that the kite ain't good and went to buy another kite. Feel free to imagine my un-surprised face when he came back with cola & chips and a flying rubber band with lights. He named it "Shashi"! (പേര് ശശി)
Dad said that the wind has died and suddenly cultivated an immense interest in functioning of a reservoir and water purification!

Me and Teena decided to learn from scratch. In practical terms, it means to watch how others are launching the kites & duplicate it. Close inspection revealed that our experts had assembled the kite wrongly! So, we re-assembled it and started running around. The draft was stronger now and the kite started soaring high :) We got too excited and forgot to thread it. It came back at double speed! Once we had mastered the technique we were ok to fly it again.

Workers Me & Teena with Senior PM

After a while we noticed that our kite ain't flying higher even though when we were threading it quite generously. We tried to bring back the thread and realized that our kite was in a love triangle - A Donald duck kite and another rainbow beauty. How much ever I hate to interfere in an entangled relationship, this was a must do. We rescued the kites and relocated to another space in the park. When the sky was getting darker, we gave up the air space to kites with lights and retired to enjoy the beautiful skyline and the light show at the Super tree groves in Gardens by the Bay(Google for 'Garden Rhapsody' until I write about it one day and link it here).

It was a great evening peeps. We should do this more often with more kites and friends. Hereby, I officially declare Marina Barrage to enlisted be in my "Fave Five Spots in Singapore" list.

Note :
How to reach Marina Barrage, if you are taking public transport - Board the North South(Red) Line, go to Marina Bay and take Exit A. You will see MBS on the left side. Don't get distracted. Walk straight to the bus stop and board SBS 400.You will see the Barrage right after the Gardens by the Bay.

Power failure @ SG

For the first time ever, we experienced power failure at SG. This happened on 2nd Jan evening at my block. Owing , I was opting for a quick fix dinner. I had convinced Manu, Mahesh (Bro) and Appa that I make restaurant quality creamy Pasta. Even though I suspect that the tipping point in my favor was the excuse to open the Shiraz bottle which Mahesh had brought :)

As I was draining the al-dente pasta & finishing up the sauce, the music and lights went off! It took us a few seconds to realize that it is power failure. Being from the state with scheduled & unscheduled power failures, we know the protocol. First step was to check the fuse status. Second, but the most important step, is to check if the neighbors have power cut. Last step is to call PUB, the Singaporean version of KSEB and inform.
The truth is that, it was a relief when we saw the neighbors rushing out and panicking being unsure of how to handle this situation. Kind of a NUTS (No U Turn Syndrome) by fellow Singaporeans. But then, we decided to skip the informing part and enjoy the first power outage.
Glorious moment dawned when the men of the house agreed how useful my candle collection is. We lighted all of it and set around the dining counter, refilled the wine glasses and had a beautiful candle light dinner.
The timing was excellent.The power was back when we were getting ready for the pudding.

Only set back is I won't be allowed anymore to quote 'power-failure-free-Singapura' as a plus point.

Making a memory

Friends and family are clearly bored with how proud I am of Singapore.
They disowned me when I wanted to by ‘I Love SG’ Christmas ornaments for the tree. They make fun of me when I refer to LHL quotes. Manu knows to look for me in the "Singapore section" if I went missing in the library, even though he accuses me of being an extremist and a brand switcher. Back in 2010, I hated the idea of spending the rest of my life in Singapore. I disliked Singapore even during the transits. In my defense, How can the Singaporean attitude fair positive against the humble Japanese or ever tolerant ever best chaotic Indians ?
The exact moment when the idea of loving Singapore first struck me was on the beautiful twilight of Aug 9 2011. That is when I heard 'Majullah Singapura' for the very first time. Well, it ain't just the anthem, but the collective force of Red & white clad people assembled at the Marina Bay area, the NDP, the anthem & the grand fireworks! The emotional results were complicated and I can see your perplexed face as I am trying to put the feeling into a single sentence. I had goose bumps, I missed the Independence Day celebrations back home, I felt patriotic and missed India, but somehow that was exactly the moment I started wanting to live in Singapore. But then, the hour which sealed the deal occurred a year later, when I watched the telecast of PM Lee’s speech, which he delivered at the NDP rally at the NUS campus in 2012. I remember wishing I could run to NUS from Ghim Moh right then, and be right there at the auditorim. It is the most impressive, thought provoking speech which I have ever heard. I felt leadership, vision, sincerity, true concern for the public, integrity towards the nation.
Now that I think back about it, one of the major reasons why I continue to choose to live in this city is that touching speech & his focus on Hope, Heart and Home. Another reason is the friends who have made Singapore a ‘Happy’ place to be.
The biggest beating Singapore gave me came after this speech. If I hadn’t heard that speech, we might not be living in SG right now, I wouldn’t have decided to apply for Permanent Residency, we wouldn’t have decided to achieve what we want in SG itself. The very fact that I follow LHL on FB, walk dismissively past the Indian stalls at food courts to queue for Char Kway Teow, be extremely defensive abt SG policies, being a strong believer of IRIS, know the bus numbers and transits even in semi-sleep state, devour incredible amount of local news, politics, history and SG events is described by Manu as Singaporean traits.

So, you can imagine how privileged I felt when NLB invited to me to pledge my blog as part of a Singapore memory project. Thanks, is what I would say, to motivate the lazy bones in me to restart writing.