Yo Singapore !

It is strange that living in Singapore and after having met several Indians here , Indians here still search for anything that is remotely Indian - it could be the face , the colour of the skin or even gestures , glances , spoken words anything at all .

I have been in Singapore for a while now. I have often sat back and thought what does this country have that is its own? I mean let's leave alone the MRTs and SMRTS,the cabs ...what else is there? Most of the things you pick up has a 'made in malaysia' or ' made in New Zealand' thing on it and if you happen to be in Mustafa(The Grand super market here which is always crowded ) then you can get to see any Indian stuff you could dream of..including Indians;oh well South Indians is more like it ...but who cares...Indians nonetheless.

While I was in the lookout of a new house here , I was strangely treated with a different story almost everyday . Life had begun to rock...a new story everyday , a break from monotony .
I remember I saw this house in a plush, boulevard sorta looking area .My friend and I just loved that area. We wanted it . Badly.Desperately .
Somehow there was this sweet lady who looked so south Indian . Keralite was my guess.However she believed that she was 'Singaporian'. Oh well she sure was...on the passport perhaps , on all the legal documens that she possessed...but hello...what was she really...where were her roots...In India or In Singapore? Debatable , I guess . So shall leave it for now. Yet this whole identity crisis thing continues to intrigue me .

She showed me the house . I could also hear some voices from the house next door.Some women chattering ,narrating some stories in an imitable shrill voice interspersed with an equally shrill laughter. I instantly thought that this place is great .

But like all good things come in small packages ,there was a twist to this too . The owner of the house was a Chinese man who apprently hated Indians . I also heard that it was because he had bad tenants and they were Indians too . (Perfect!)
And so me and my friend waited impatiently for the landlord to arrive , take a look at us , talk to us and then decide . Phew! Felt as if I was waiting for an interview to take place. So strange .
He did arrive . He did look at us . Carefully , I must add. But he didn't talk .

What the hell did he want to see? How Indians looked? Oh no..I remember the sweet 'singaporian' lady from kerela mentioning it to him that we were not from southern India but were from the northern part of India...so he drove all the way from his home at 10 pm in the night...just to see how North Indians looked ?
Hmmm...my life hasn't stopped getting stranger . Amidst all this chaos and drama of my initial days of struggle in a new country ,those same next door neighbours (the women in the house) came to me , looked carefully , smiled at me and said -"we'll pray that you get this house" And this one lady went inside and started praying for me . I felt a bit odd at that moment . I mean there are so many larger things that would need her prayers , if not in her life then the world outside her home...but she was praying for something so small and insignificant as a house for a stranger like me . Yet it was touching . I wanted to hug her and thank her . I never did that. I hate it when you think so much and do so little !!

That day I felt Singapore should be a nice place to live in. Somehow to me the places don't matter much anymore . People do . It does not matter much how they look or how Indian they look , how they talk , how their accent is different from mine , how their food is different -these things never mattered . What matters most is the the purity of the heart , the beauty of a smile , the glint in the eye when someone talks to you , the reassuring look that a stranger gives you when you are lost on the road in a new place and walks close to you to guide you through the lost roads till you reach a familiar place and ofcourse how can I forget , by far the best-the amicable , the ever so talkive , rangers of the night and the saviours of a bad rainy day-The cabbies -the cab drivers . I have often sat in cabs in a rush to reach my workplace ,feeling terribly low and lost and got out of the cab after 15 minutes of drive..feeling so good after having a conversation with the cabbie . I have also faced some cabbies turn around , take a u-turn and and then pulled over near me just because they saw me standing alone and lost too in the middle of a road . I have been through cabbies forgetting the roads and driving a little more than they needed to , thereby increasing the fare ...yet they took lesser money than was being displayed after calculations . Honesty and sincerity to work is a prized possession of every Singaporian . I have grown to admire this quality in them .

I think it is important to look for the good things first before you reach out and search , whine and complain about what is not right in whatever that is facing you in the present .

Trust me this world can become a much better place to live in , if you try .

I think now that it is not Indians I search for in a foriegn land . It is the qualities I look for that makes me search for something more , something that would still connect me , something that can bring forth that feeling of belonging to one's country;my country .

And to add , I do miss home . Just that now I know what I miss .

:) Cheers .