Connie

The past few nights I have been sleeping on a new pillow that I bought for $37/- and let me tell you that for me is a really expensive buy for a pillow. But my head just sinks softly and blissfully into this particuarly luxury item.

I didn’t think that pillows can cost that much since I am still caught in a time/price warp. 30 -40 years ago we made our own pillows. I still have a pillow my mother made for me 30 years ago. Ten years ago I did buy two new pillows – made with down ( organic pillows are better I was told) till a couple of months ago when the feathers started escaping their cover and eventually began pecking me and disturbing my sleep.

I spotted a pillow at NTUC for $9/ and bought it. It seemed like a decent price for a pillow! But my head kept bouncing off. I comforted myself that it was a new pillow and it would settle down. A few days ago I spotted pillows on sale and these have been reduced from $75/ – $55/ and the penny dropped – there are pillows which costs way above $9/- well, way above and you can pay up to a few hundreds for a pillow.

I decided that my $9/- pillow was not going to settle down at all to ensure me a comfortable night’s sleep hence my purchase of a $37/- pillow from Robinsons’.

This reminds me of a story that my nephew told me. He talked of a classmate who received a $5,000/- gift  from her father for doing well in her O’ level. What did she do with the money? She bought two handbags – two handbags for $5,000/- and she spend it in 20 minutes!

One of the resolutions that I made, ten years ago, when I moved into my current home – a small flat – from a bigger home was  not to accumulate, not to crowd the space, to have more open spaces for easy of movement  and so on. Especially, when I had to make hard, even brutal, decisions to  discard stuff I had accumulated over the many years. But I am a collector of papers – newspaper articles, magazine articles, essays photocopied. I love reading and making copies for future reading and soon I was running out of space to store these papers.

The last time I tried to sort them out, two years ago, I ended re-reading them and I didn’t have the heart to throw them out. So I move them to under my bed!! And there they stayed for the last two years, collecting dust.

This year’s resultion is to de-clutter and I was determined and I wa equally determined not to push them over to another corner. This became an obssesion and as a result I have thrown away 5 trash bags of papers that I had collected over the last 40 years and some furniture and other bric-a-brac.

I feel good.This is one new year resolution that I have actually accomplished in many years!

But there is gnawing a fear that tomorrow I am going to need an article that I had just thrown away!!!

One of my passions in life (the other is social issues) that only my friends know about is cooking. Ask my friends who have come to my home, chatted around my kitchen table and enjoyed, appam, puttu or pancake for breakfast, and roast chicken, pasta, or a variety of curries for dinner.

Food and family around a large table has always been part of Sunday gatherings and festivals at my parents home in Singapore. Now the family is spread out in three different continents. However most members now live in Perth. The family get togethers are always an ocassion for feasting and our experiences of food have extended far beyond the traditional Malayalee food of my mother’s table.

I am reminded of the joy of getting together around a table now that Christmas is here and once again I am in Perth to celebrate the event with my siblings and their families. When we sit down to dinner on Christmas day there are 44 of the immediate family. The family is still growing and the latest addition to it is one month old Zoe.

So for this Christmas dinner I have been assigned to cook the family’s favourite, the mutton curry. There will be the traditional roast turkey, glazed Ham, salads of different cultures, Greek and Lebanese vegetable dishes and dips, rendang, and a variety of desserts whose origins I am not sure of. But they are always a delight.

This morning I did two of my favourite ‘things’ – go to a book shop and then spend the rest of the morning in a café, set in lush, tropical, garden, all very nicely landscaped to give the impression of  nature running wild, drinking a nice tall glass of  cold cappuccino.

I don’t know how long I am going to be able to afford these luxuries.

Even without the economic turmoil currently underway there was enough that should worry me about my old age. This is strange coming from a person whose approach to life is to avoid the unpleasant and if it is possible bury the head in the sand.

Couple of years ago and for many years before that my utility bill was never more than $45-47/-. It leaped to $147/- or so two years ago and the explanation from Singapore Power was that they have changed the meter to a more modern and efficient one. They were not about to check to see if there was another reason for this sudden jump. And now, and now, the markets tumbling, people losing jobs and me with no way of improving my finances, my power bill is going to go up by another 21%- and this when oil prices were falling dramatically.

Do I understand that? No. So I shall be myself again, avoid the unpleasant and enjoy my cappuccino in this beautiful green setting. It is a delight!

Another strange thing happened to me today. I met a young man – no wait for me to finish that – at the book shop who told me that I had a beautiful face – that I think too much and that there were two people who think of me all the time . But I think of only one person. All this from looking at my face! He suggested that I keep an open mind. He would tell me who the two people were if I could give him a bit of my time.

Yes, that’s right he was a fortune teller who was doing his ‘spiel’ Did I fall for it? No! I am usuallyquite easily taken in. But today I didn’t spend time with him. But I did tell him that he made my day and that I shall smile all day long. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

This is my favourite time of the year. Because it is festival time in Singapore which begins around October and ends in February. And if you have friends who celebrate the various cutural traditions then it is also party time and catching up with friends who one doesn’t see during the rest of the year.

Yes. It is my favourite time of the year. The festival season this year, began with Hari Raya Puasa ( the Malay-Muslim celebration at the end  of their annual fasting month), then there is Deepavali or Divali as the North Indians call it, my own festival, Christmas, followed by the Lunar New Year which usually comes at the end of the season of festivals.

From October to February , streets are decorated and lit, crowds flock and bazzars flurish as people of the various cultures get into the spirit of celebrations. I love it. I love the buzz. I love the lights. I love the crowds. I love the diversity. I love the colours and above all I love the sense of goodwill that  pemeates the air when people get into the celebratory mood.

I wander the streets of Lilltle India during the Deepavali Season, Arab Street or Geylang in the fasting month, Orchad Road during December and China Town during the Lunar New year Celebrations.

I am enchanted by these celebrations. It is the kind of delight that I experienced it best as a child but I am still open to and appreciate as I age.

Last week I turned 72 and October is delightful; no more than delightful – I am amazed – that I am alive, in good health, full of energy and blessed with the love of family and friends.

The on-going confusion about who we are, Singaporean, Chinese or Chinese Singaporean or Singaporean Chinese, Indian, Indian Singaporean…you understand what I am saying don’t you? We have all been there.

Defining our identity, of who we are, is an exciting journey in self reflection. It has been an important issue, individually, nationally, and politically, since the beginning of the 20th century with the more, historically recent, flow of mass transnational migration.

“Who am I” must be a more difficult question for the current generation of young, exposed as they are ,to many cultures

What are your thoughts on the subject?

There is a good ending to the story of lift-up-grading.

A few months later, after complaints and protests to the local MP, another vote was taken. This time one of the ladies decided to make sure that everybody remembered and so she went door –to-door getting signatures – it was not easy, often people were out which meant several visits and she had to deal with rude and unhelpful residents, but she did it and got the necessary signatures. So now we are waiting for the authorities to follow up.

There is a tub of honey sittting on my kitchen table. It comes from China – the first time I was buying Chinese honey as all  other brands of honey had gone up in price.

But after the Chinese milk scandal I am not sure what to do with that tub of honey. Maybe after some weeks of staring at the tub on my kitchen table I would be able to get over the guilt of throwing it out and waisting, a quite possibly harmless, tub of honey .

I can’t help thinking the risks that parents are forced to take when buying products that have been ‘enriched’ chemically.

Which reminds me of the good old days….I know, I know all the arguements in favour of modern tecnology and how it has enabled the world to feed millions more people or saved millions more from starvation and from ill health. Do we keep count of the millions who suffer ill health and pain because  this  technology is used knowingly as bad for health, as the the manufacturers of Sanlu Milk had done to their own people in China , because of greed, individual or corporate?

This is not the first instance either of babies put at risk.

Remember the 1970s scandal, also centered around infant milk formula? Apparantly a munfacturer’s recommendations to  nursing mothers to switch to its infant formula milk products, led to the alleged deaths of about 1.5 million babies each year as a result of  the formula being mixed with contaminated water.

Perhaps mothers will revert to the good old fashioned way of feeding infants- and go back to breast milk.

Anyway to go back to the good old days. I was five when I and my four siblings ( you can guess the ages of the four) went to visit our grandparents in India. Upon our arrival my grandfather bought a cow to provide us with fresh milk every day and we ate fresh eggs from chickens who had the run of the place. These days when I look at the eggs in the supermarket shelves it is hard to come by eggs which have not been enriched one way or another!

Let me tell you a story, no two stories. Recently we had an upgrading exercise in my block of flat. Residents were required to vote to put in a lift on every floor but the block lost out because one person forgot to cast her vote. Just one more vote and we would have lift on every floor. Life would have been made easier for the young disabled man who has to go for dialysis every day. Another resident has a mother in a wheelchair which has to be carried down one floor every time she has to see a doctor. Most days she is trapped in her home like many other old folks who live in the block. One more vote would have made a difference to the lives of many people in the block.

Recently I attended the Rolex Award for enterprise which Rolex created for outstanding human achievements. Five individuals, one each from India, Thailand, Siberia, Britain and Australia amazed and inspired me by their achievement. For example, Chanda Shroff of India set up a non-profit organization to teach women the dying art of traditional embroidery in the region of Kutch in Gujerat. Under her guidance women are gathering together to create exquisite handiwork despite difference in religion and status and to building an economic base for their communities. Chanda Shroff has inspired more than 22,000 women in 120 villages to value their talents and recognize their potential. She empowered them and enabled them to earn an income and support their families.

Let me interest you to two books that explore the current preoccupation with questions of identity and culture.

The first one Pico Ayer’s “The Global Soul: Jet-lag, shopping malls and the search for home”. Pico Ayer uses his own background of multicultural upbringing (Indian, American, and British) to reflect on who you are, where you are or what you are. The Observer reviewer claims that Ayer “ helps us understand the disoriented, directionless, contemporary condition”.

The second book is David Pollock’s and Ruth Van Reken’s book “Third Culture Kids”. It speaks to the challenges and rewards of a multicultural childhood – the joy of discovery, the meaning of personal identity, and the complexities of transition.

Both books are interesting reading for those who want to understand our modern cultural condition.