Connie

Brutus:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.

Julius Caesar Act 4, scene 3, 218–224

Vote for the future.

I was worried and I couldn’t sleep last night. I worried that we would miss this opportunity to support and help build the capacity of alternative political parties. So I sat up to write this piece.

What is of an enormous concern for me and to others, I am sure – beyond the immediate – is that we the citizens and the state of Singapore had failed our nation and the future generations in not building the capacity of other political parties and alternative voices, capable of running the country. There are many intelligent, capable, passionate and well-qualified people in Singapore beyond those in the PAP. But political activism has been so demonised that people keep away from politics.

I hold the PAP responsible for this state of affairs for demonising citizens who challenge them and their values and for the environment of fear they have created over the last 40 years.

Can MM Lee, SM Goh, PM Lee guarantee that the PAP can continue to provide clean and capable government in say 10,20 or 30 years? History has shown us that when a political party hold on to power for too many years the party becomes elitist, arrogant, smug and patronising – all characteristics which can lead to their downfall. The elitism that the PAP has fostered is damaging to the long – term well-being of Singapore, especially since this elitism was fostered by actively suppressing alternative voices.

A dangerous situation for a country to find itself in is not to have other political parties able to form an alternative government. Mr. George Yeo, many years ago said that nothing can grow under the shade of a banyan tree. He said, “The banyan tree has a huge canopy and long hanging air roots. Beneath it, nothing much can grow because there is little sunlight.”

We need to trim the Banyan tree. When we vote in opposition parties we are giving these parties opportunities to grow and develop their capacity to form a government with well-qualified people who care for the country.

Yes MM Lee is right when he said that WP’s ambition is to form a government. That is how it should be. Otherwise their political participation would be seen as frivolous.

The PAP is fighting a hard fight in this General Election. The opposition parties have fielded many good and strong candidates and are also working hard. The Electorate sees the need for alternative voices in Parliament to give voice to their concerns and values. This election is an opportunity not to be missed for giving voice to our concerns.

GRC

The trouble with GRC is that its disadvantages affect both the PAP and the Opposition parties. I am in Bishan-Toa Payoh and for the first time in a long time I am getting a chance to vote. My current MP, Hri Kumar Nair of the PAP comes across as caring, compassionate, and approachable – very different from his predecessor, who once retorted to my neighbour, “ I don’t need your vote’ when she had an argument with him and said she will not vote for him. We never had a chance to vote him out since the PAP was never challenged in this constituency.

People in my neighbourhood speak well of Hri Kumar. He is a hard worker. But he comes with a package. There are some members (not all of them) of his GRC who need to be in an SMC to experience a dose of humility and to learn what is required of them to win the hearts of their constituents.

I am sorry Hri Kumar but I am voting for the opposition since you keep company with the wrong kind. That is one reason for voting for the Opposition. Another reason is that I am impressed by Chiam See Tong’s 27 year – struggle to bring about democratic changes in Singapore, his belief in the importance of alternative voices in Parliament and his belief that we can do it – we, the citizens, can change the system. His persistence and bravery and his service to the people in Potong Pasir have won him immense loyalty and the love of the people of Potong Pasir. This is truly inspiring.

I am also impressed with the work George Yeo has done for the country. But then he is also in the wrong party. If the PAP wanted George Yeo to continue serving they should have put him in an SMC.

In a discussion about George Yeo, SM Goh asked the people of Aljunied: “What mistake has he ( George Yeo) made?” he asked. “You can take a minister and criticise him for not delivering on perhaps housing and transport. … Like Wong Kan Seng you can say he let Mas Selamat escape. George Yeo, what has he done to deserve this? And he is a core member.” (Today, May 3, 2011)

They (PAP and Mr. Goh) just don’t get it, do they?

I think both George Yeo and Wong Kan Seng should have stood in SMC wards.

SM Goh’s is in denial. He says that people are not really concerned about ministerial salaries. This is just shows how out of touch PAP has been with the real concerns of Singaporeans.

The GRC system denies the Singapore voter the democratic choice to choose the best person for the job of looking after his interests, and that of the constituency, to stand up for the long term well-being of the nation.

Some of my favourite lines from poetry are the opening lines of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land:

“April is the cruellest month, breeding

Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing

Memory and desire, stirring

Dull roots with spring rain.

I suppose as you age it is cruel to be reminded that everything in nature revives at spring time and the earth is filled with new life. But the years go on relentlessly and wreck damage to our aging bodies.

I just received a letter from my friend Liz, in Melbourne, telling me that the countryside is all green. This is the time of the year when much of Australia is usually burnt brown after the summer’s heat and draught. The trees are denser and the wild flowers are in their spectacular best. But the floods had caused a lot of damage and the clearing up is still going on while it has stirred the dull roots and nature is once again ‘breeding lilacs’.

As for me, after a hectic first few months of holidays and visitors I am settling down to writing.

My dull roots are  ’stirred by ‘memory and desire’

It was serendipity. It has to be. I was hungry and walking around in circles in an unfamiliar building – 313 Somerset.  In the basement, where the food outlets are located I spotted a sign “The old Malaya Cafe”. Nostalgia beckoned. It was crowded. Another good sign. I made another circle and came back to it to find that the lunch time crowd was thinning and I found myself a table.

I was not disappointed. A lunch of Wanton Mee, a bottle of water and Chendol cost me less than $10/- And it was very good. The Chendol was good, perhaps not as great as the Kandahar Street Chendol, but still pretty good. It is going to be my favourite eatery when I am in the Orchard Road area. What  better can you ask for – a good bowl of Wanton Mee and a great serving of Chendol in a little cafe called “Old Malaya Cafe” in the middle of Orchard Road.

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One my favourite haunts is the MacRitchie Reservoir. Fortunately for me it is close enough for me to walk to.  It has served my exercise needs. It is a place to escape to  when I  needed some peace and quiet. It is a place I have met friends for walks, for coffee and for just sitting quietly. It is my green lung and I have often sat there and delighted in the sound of birds and running water.

I have seen it when it was neglected and I have seen it through many transformations. It is currently going through another of its transformation and I am excited and so looking forward to is completion. The website information on the reservoir tells me that It was constructed in 1867, as the first impounding (whatever that means!) reservoir in Singapore. Then in 1907, in honour of the Municipal Engineer, James MacRitchie, who designed and built the reservoir, it was renamed as MacRitchie Reservoir. So much for history.

The various improvements have added a board walk, another of my favourite and a tree-top walk which I have yet to attempt. More recent transformation,  completed about two years ago, added a new car park and what National Parks calls the Amenities centre, an unimaginative name for a place which is really quite beautifully landscaped and attracts many birds and monkeys. It also houses a cafe, one of my favourite meeting places, which serves really good  local coffee and tea.

Mornings are great for bird and monkey watching. The evening sunset is quite spectacular. My amateurish attempt at capturing these, my ‘favourite’ things doesn’t do justice to anything of what I have described.

I am trying to write my autobiography. I wrote my first chapter, which covered almost everything I wanted to cover. It was a summary of my life and experiences – at least what I remember. But now I want to go into details and I have been procrastinating.

The object of the exercise is to try and understand my life and the forces that have shaped me. Like many people of my generation I have experienced so many different cultures; I live in a multicultural society and have lived through a time of fast social and technological change. I am just happy to be me. But what is that ‘me’?

Stuart Hall in “ The Question of Cultural Identity” discussed ‘identity’ as on-going process. He says and I quote

“… rather than speaking of identity as a finished thing, we should speak of identification, and see it as on-going process. Identity arises, not so much from the fullness of identity which is already inside us as individuals, but from a lack of wholeness which is ‘filled’ from outside us, by the ways we imagine ourselves to be seen by others.”

How do I imagine myself to be seen by others?

My father came from a place called Anjengo which is a coastal town in Kerala. Anjengo is described as a town in some reports. For me it was just a place where my paternal grandmother lived.

As a child, whenever we visited Anjengo, our playground was the Anjengo Fort – the biggest structure of my childhood days. It’s massive, thick walls were perfect for running around; the underground tunnels and cubby holes served superbly for hide-and-seek games.

Then I was unaware of the Fort’s historical significance. Now it makes sense as to why Anjengo then was vastly different from Puthukurichy, my mother’s village. It had a more ‘urban’, urbane feel about it. The architecture was more impressive, more reminiscent of older homes in Singapore and Malacca. And no wonder! The Dutch, the Portuguese and the English had all been there and left their mark. This also explains why Anjengo appeared in most old maps of India. I had always been curious about its significance and had wondered why it deserved a place in the map whereas nobody had heard about my mother’s village, Puthukurichy.

I did some research and discovered Anjengo’s great archaeological and historical importance. In the 17th century, the English East India Company selected Anjengo for their first trading post in Kerala. The Queen of Attingal granted the place to the British for trading. They established a factory and a fort here with the permission of the queen.

Many ancient churches, an old Lighthouse, an old convent and school, tombs of Dutch and British and the Anjengo Fort are the major relics of Anjengo’s colonial past. The fort played an important role in the Anglo-Mysore Wars in the 18th century.

Anjengo is now a poor village and most people who lived there when I was a child have moved away and settled elsewhere.

The days of its importance and glory are long gone. The past as they say is history.

These days, as I settle down for the night, the last thought is that of the steaming mug of coffee, deliciously sweetened with milkmaid condensed milk that I will be having first thing the following morning. With that mug in hand I will sit back against a pile of pillows with the newspaper in hand and spend the next hour reading. When the newspapers disappoint me of decent reading I pick up my current reading – could be journal or a book. I find this a delightful way of starting the day.

In his book “Delight” J.B. Priestley wrote “ One of the delights known to age and beyond the grasp of youth is that of Not Going. When we are young it is almost agony not to go. We feel we are being left out of life, that the whole wonderful procession is sweeping by…”(pg.152). How true!

What delight not too rush into the day, so different from the days and years of hard work and responsibility of the last 40 years. Once again I can smell the roses!