Singapore Diary

A Thunderstruck Look

Those of us who moan about power failures, water shortages, traffic chaos and flash strikes can take heart in the fact that things do go wrong in “earthly paradises” like Washington or Singapore. A couple of years ago, while visiting my daughter at Alexandria, Virginia—a half-hour drive from Washington DC—an evening’s thunder showers snapped electric poles, uprooted trees and disrupted traffic. We were without power for most of the night. Such thundershowers hit Mumbai almost daily during the monsoon but the impact is seldom as harsh. During a recent trip to Singapore, the local papers reported major disruptions of rail traffic on the North East Line (NEL) on two days. Despite regular maintenance, a pair of steel cables snapped just before services began. Over 90,000 commuters were hit during peak hours and had to make do with emergency bus services and cabs. It took 10 hours to restore normalcy. On another day at Boon Lay station, two escalators broke down during the morning rush hour. Once again, thousands of commuters were hit; two had to be hospitalised. The packed escalators suddenly stopped and came down crashing.

Tooting No Horn

A recent hefty stamp duty hike in Singapore brought back unpleasant memories of Mumbai and could hit foreign investment and trade. Yet these are minor, infrequent mishaps in a city which is clean, wholesome, green, noiseless (no honking at all) and prosperous. If ever Laloo Prasad came here he would agree that the roads were as smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks. The large Tamil migrant population practise their rituals like fire-walking and temple visits in peace. There is no language problem because all public announcements, statements and ads also appear in Tamil. Singapore was next to Japan in public approval among Indonesians in a recent poll. Yet 44.2 per cent of Singapore’s professionals migrate and work somewhere else. The figure was only 29.4 per cent for Hong Kong, a more crowded, noisy and chaotic city. There is no accounting for public taste!

Maid To Order

For someone who reads eight dailies and doesn’t miss TV news bulletins, it was hard to manage with just one paper, The Straits Times, a rather bland, government-controlled publication. TV news was even more boring, the lead stories mainly about renaming of streets, traffic problems or digging up and relocating cemeteries. While political news coverage was skimpy, no detail was spared in reporting crime and punishment. Reports on murders, fraud, molestation and rapes and court judgements spare no salacious details like which breast the accused squeezed. Jail terms and fines are supplemented with strokes of the cane. Maids are bit news in the Singapore media. You can hire them from government agencies. The maids normally come from Indonesia, Philippines and Sri Lanka. I read, in great detail, of a “Maid War” when Indonesia hiked the rates of its maids who were going abroad. There was more fun after negotiations with Malaysia and Indonesia when the former hotly denied that Indonesia had insisted on a “One maid, one task” rule. If a maid was asked to do two tasks like cleaning and washing clothes, she should be paid extra for the additional task! The Malaysian “Minister for Maids” clarified that the confusion arose due to a “miscommunication in language” during the press briefing. Salaries and perks like weekly offs, extra work payment, airfare for going home during annual vacation, were all fixed by government agencies. Pampering? Maybe, but that didn’t stop an Indonesian maid from stealing nearly $250,000 using a DBS ATM card that had gone missing from her employer in 2007.

All That Glitters

Qualified Indian professionals do well in Singapore. My host Hemant, an IIT engineer from Mumbai, and his wife came to the island some 18 years ago. Hemant is an executive consultant with IBM and Anju, a student of B.K.S. Iyengar, teaches yoga to batches of students throughout the day. The Indian high commissioner’s wife is a student. The couple faced difficulties and for years nursed Hemant’s father, an Alzheimer’s victim who demanded constant attention. Owners of a new three-bedroom flat, they enjoy Singapore’s facilities and professional challenges, but miss Mumbai’s bustle and cultural activities.

Butter Up

The Chinese seldom seem to cook at home! ‘Little India’ offered a fascinating variety of Indian goods, including fabulous idlis at Murugan Idli House. The salesgirl at a busy supermarket was puzzled when I asked for ‘adai mavu’ (batter for the south Indian delicacy adai). “Theriyadha, adai dosaiin Annan? (Don’t you know, adai is Dosai’s elder brother?),” I explained. She burst out laughing and promised to have it stocked the next time I came to the store.

An anecdote...

A New Delhi tailor was asked by Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew how he could stitch four suits from a suit piece as against two in Hong Kong and just one in Singapore. The tailor explained, “Sir, the farther you move from Singapore, the more you tend to shrink!”

V. Gangadhar is a veteran journalist and columnist; E-mail your diarist: vgangadhar70 AT gmail.com