Just Relax..

It had been more than a year since I last visited my sister in Singapore. In between, there was another cute addition to the family. So in addition to my dear little niece, I also had my tiny nephew to look forward to in this trip. Things were changing at work too and the likelihood of getting into a shepherding role was looming large and I thought it was the right time to take a break, forget all about work and office and get away from the madding crowd.

So we made plans - my parents and I, booked the ticket on Tiger Airways - the TNSTC (Tamilnadu State Transport Corporation) bus that flies. The cheap guys actually charge you for every checked in baggage and also for seat selection or even reserving overhead compartment space for cabin baggage. However, they had no idea of the genius of Indian brains when they formulated their rules. As a result, we paid for a single check-in baggage and smartly utilized all our cabin baggages and the usually-not-weighed handbag allowances to carry a mini-grocery-store to my sister. My darling niece had already requested (actually, ordered) us to get her a ‘Barbie’ or ‘Hello Kitty’ mobile phone and after hunting around in multiple stores, my dad had success in finding it in one of the platform shops in Mylapore.

Tiger Airways is called a budget airline and we were never allowed to forget that fact. In the Chennai airport, our check-in baggage was not even scanned. And actually it is an insult to TNSTC buses to compare them with the Tiger Airways flight, however my conscience was also telling me that you usually get what you pay for and so we settled uncomfortably in our seats. Once the plane took off, I saw a strange guy trying to put his head on my lap. I was shocked, but only for a minute, for I realized that the guy in the front seat had merely pushed his seat back and thanks to the spacious seats, he was almost on my lap. So I decided to do what any other sane person would do - I pushed my seat back to scare the guy sitting behind me!

I frequently criticize or make fun of people on their English but I didn’t try any of that on the flight. The flight attendants spoke in a language that sounded vaguely like English. The Singaporean accent is kind of strange to untrained ears. It is nothing like the American, British, Australian or French accents. To get some idea of how this language sounds, imagine trying to speak with your mouth full of marbles - much like Eliza Doolittle is made to do in the film version of ‘My Fair Lady’. Consonants seem to be hurrying on their way out tumbling over the previous guys and causing general mayhem!! After a while I gave up trying to understand the announcements and instead concentrated on my ‘Thuppariyum Sambu’ novel by Devan.

Since this was not the first time we were travelling to Singapore, all of us had become a little careless. As a result, we had forgotten to note down my sister’s address and happily put down the name of the town where she stayed in the ‘Address’ box in the immigration form. True to my unerring instinct to pick the slowest moving queue, we ended up in one all the while hearing passports being stamped in rapid succession in the nearby lines, while the ‘uncle’ in-charge of our queue seemed to be taking some sort of sadistic pleasure in reading the details in every passport and immigration form one tiny alphabet at a time and relishing each second of our agony. He took a full 2 minutes to read through my immigration form and then looked up slowly to tell me that what I had written on it was the name of a town and not the address. I gave him what I thought was the smartest possible answer - that I did not know the address, and added helpfully that my sister would know it, since she lived there!! Uncle thought for a while (seriously, I wished I had a fast-forward button for this man to make him move at my speed) and said that I had to at least write down the phone number of my sister, which I did on my form and then on my parents’ forms too.

We had already decided that we would not go sight-seeing on this trip and that our main source of entertainment would be the kids. So we kept our promise, the first half of it at least. However, we did go out often and each such outing caused a larger hole in our pockets (figuratively of course, since we were carrying the demon called Credit Card with us). I realized in the end that what used to be only luxuries once have sort of become habits - like perfumes, watches, clothes etc. and where once we shopped to meet our daily needs, we now shop for the pleasure of shopping - to quench an insatiable thirst, which only increases with every dose of shopping therapy. Needless to say, I safely had these philosophical thoughts almost always after returning from the store. But still, better late than never, right?

I have said it before and I will say it again - the public transport system was amazing. All places in the country are well connected by buses and trains and a single pass worked in all of them. People walked quite a lot. I spent more hours walking in these 10 days than I would have done in 3 months in Chennai. In spite of the high number of apartment buildings, cars, people etc., Singapore seemed to be wonderfully green - there are trees everywhere and it was quite a pleasant sight. The apartment complex that my sister lives in is what are called housing board apartments. These are supposedly highly in demand in the country. The apartment community is a sprawling area with open gyms, play areas, tracks for running, walking etc and a lot of well maintained lawns and plants.

People are health freaks and irrespective of the time of the day, there are people running around in shorts or shorter shorts. I was feeling good about myself till I went there and starting thinking that I was abnormally obese. Interestingly, there were restaurants all over the place and people seemed to be eating at all times of the day. And yet, they remain super slim and that remains a mystery!!

Another remarkable thing was how little eye contact people made there. 9 out 10 people had mobile phones/PDAs or iPhones in their hands and earplugs in their ears. In fact in one station, I was looking through the door as the train was halting and I thought that people looked like zombies or automatons with their lost-in-thought expressions and lips that never smiled. Singapore Indians (mostly Tamils) were easily identifiable with their gaudy clothes, jewellery and heavily made up face.

My 3.5 year old niece kept us constantly entertained by pretending to be our teacher and insisting on teaching my mom and me Chinese (although I strongly suspect that Chinese has more words than just ‘tse’ or something sounding like that!!). She would sing entire songs in familiar tunes using this single alphabet and insist that it was Chinese. Rebels were not entertained and I was constantly told by my teacher that I would get a smiley on my palm if I behaved well and a star otherwise. But as she did not know how to draw a star I always received only smileys . She learnt to sing ‘O Susanna’ and part of ‘I am a barbie girl’ and would insist on singing it 10-15 times in a row without getting bored!! My 8 month old nephew would hold long conversations using the ‘aa’ syllable alone for hours together as long as his nanny or mother was holding him.

All good things must come to an end and the same happened with our trip. I wonder about this concept of time. When I come to work on Monday, Friday evening seems light years away (and now don’t ask me how time can be compared with distance. I am emotional, try to understand!) and yet when I was with my dear niece and nephew, Friday seemed to come a millisecond after Monday morning . Anyway, the honeymoon is over. I will be meeting with my flock soon and my new role as a shepherd will start immediately after.