simulacrum of life

i used to have this annoying habit when i was younger. i absolutely LOVED to use "and then". it stemmed from my mother's storytelling before i could read by myself. she wanted to be dramatic and read with expressions and all (ie. slowly). i on the other hand was eager to find out what was going to happen next, so whenever there appeared to be the slightest pause in the narration, you could hear me going, "and then?" this habit carried forward to daily life. i was never sure if people had finished with their spiel, whatever it might have been, so i used to go "and then?" during pauses, until they went "no more.. that's it". "and then" moved from being a question to part of my sentences. anytime chronology was involved, EVERY sentence would have "and then" in it. "i went to school in the morning. and then ,i went for assembly. and then, i went to class. and then, i went for recess. and then, i bought my food. and then..." i'm guessing you get the idea. i'm quite surprised that i didn't get slapped for being that annoying. just reading those few sentences makes me wanna slap any kid who speaks like that :P anyways, my mother decided that enough was enough and set about attempting to reform me. i'm quite sure that her methods were painful, since i have absolutely no recollection of how she went about her reformation, which suggests suppressed (ie. painful) memories. but the end result is that i learnt to use other words and phrases in my sentences.

p.s. i also used "after that" interchangeably with "and then".

I am unwritten
Can't read my mind
I'm undefined
I'm just beginning
The pen's in my hand
Ending unplanned

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else
No one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is
Where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

I break tradition
Sometimes my tries
Are outside the lines
We've been conditioned
To not make mistakes
But I can't live that way

Staring at the blank page before you
Open up the dirty window
Let the sun illuminate the words that you can not find
Reaching for something in the distance
So close you can almost taste it
Release your inhibitions

Feel the rain on your skin
No one else can feel it for you
Only you can let it in
No one else
No one else
Can speak the words on your lips
Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is
Where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

- Unwritten by Natasha Bedingfield

i stepped bleary eyed into the bathroom. rubbing the sleep away, i gazed into the mirror to inspect my face for any new imperfections. and then..... from the corner of my eye i spotted something small and black reflected in the mirror. it was in the far corner of the bathroom, near the ceiling. what was this unusual thing? i stepped out of the bathroom to get my glasses. mounted on my nose, i peered back into the bathroom. my suspicions were confirmed. it was a HUGE black cockroach. jet black and with wriggly antennae, swishing back and forth. how was i to be bathing with this tiny intruder watching my every move? what if it suddenly jumped onto me and wriggled its way into one of my body's orifices?!?! *shudders at the thought* that could not be allowed!! but how was i to smash it into a pulp when it was perched so high up beyond my reach? the solution would be to bring it to the ground. but how was this deed to be done? no bug spray was gonna be used. for one thing the bathroom is an enclosed area with items that go onto or into my body. no way i wannabe imbibing any poisons :Þ and even if i was ok with that, i didn't have any that i could use. so there was the rubber band. shoot the bugger until he dropped. shoot him i did. scramble along the top edge of the bathroom he did. until he got near the toilet bowl area. ahhh.. from here i could reach him. but i didn't wanna get squished bug guts on my white wall. so a ton of soap spray did i use to make him slip and slide til he tumbled onto the floor. up and down went my thonged foot, and splat went the roach. and peace was once again restored, after 30 minutes.

Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn't make to make you blue
Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn't mean to hurt you

All lovers make, make the same mistakes, yes they do
Yes, all lovers make, make the same mistakes as me and you

Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn't make to make you blue
Sugar baby love, sugar baby love
I didn't mean to hurt you

People take my advice
If you love someone
Don't think twice

Love you baby love, sugar baby love
Love her anyway, love her everyday

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with the hubris of youth, i believe myself to be capable of more than i am. i pray for guidance. i pray for the ability to do what is right. and most of all, i pray to be true, to be able to look in the mirror and be able to live with what i see

today marks 1 year since thatha left for a better place.

when i was about 5 or 6, the whole extended family used to go to east coast park for picnics/bbqs, and us kids used to like playing in the water. parents would usually stay dry. the men getting the BBQ stuff done, and the women talking and taking care of the other stuff. thatha would be the first one in the water, and he would swim out about 20-30 metres and then he would swim laps parallel to the shore. it was understood that we children had to play in the area between him and the shore. if any of us approached him, he'd gently rebuke us and tell us to play/swim closer to shore.

in this way he watched over us to ensure that no harm befell us as we swam. and i hope that wherever he is, he still watches over us to ensure that no harm befalls us as we swim through the sea of life.

thatha fell and broke his hip early in january last year. due to his state of mind, members of his family rotated to stay the night with him, so that he would always have company. getting an independent man to use a bedpan is not easy. he always wanted to go to the toilet, but due to his immobility, he couldn't. since i was on holidays at that point in time, i stayed the nights with thatha more than the rest.

after he had his hip replacement surgery, he was placed in the high dependency room, so that he could be easily monitored. it was an individual room and i was given a mattress to sleep on that was placed beside his bed. once, in the middle of the night, he woke up and started complaining that someone was pulling at his feet. the doctors figured that this was due to inactivity of his legs. it would take a while for him to grasp the idea, and then he would accept it, but due to his dementia, he'd forget it soon after. anyways, i tried to comfort him and tell him that there was no problem.

there was another night, when he was lying in bed moaning and i asked him, "thatha, are you ok? do you want anything?" it startled him a bit, because my mattress was below the level of his bed, and so to him it felt like a voice coming from nowhere. "who are you?" he asked. "{my real name}" i replied. "ahh.. you are my guardian angel. i hold you close to my heart and i know that you have been sent to be by my side to watch over me. thank you, but please look after my family. they need your guardianship more than i do", at which point, i reached up and held his hand, and i felt him grip my hand back with a firmness that seemed beyond his physical capacity, and we both lay down silently, me with tears rolling down my cheek, until he fell asleep.

it was an afternoon about 4 or 5 years ago. i was sitting in the kitchen at home, and thatha was sitting opposite me at the table we usually have lunch at. we'd just finished lunch and my mom was just cleaning up the last bits of stuff, and then she asked thatha, "so pa, what do you think about {insert my real name} having a girlfriend?" thatha gave me a long soul gazing look, i think to accertain if his leg was being pulled, before he asked "is it true? do you have a girlfriend?" to which i nodded. and then he continued..

"for you, i'd say that variety is the spice of life, so i'm not sure about this girlfriend business. you are still young. enjoy life, and find out what the world has to offer. but do remember that if you are going to marry, don't convert. i had a malay girlfriend in my time. she wanted me to sunnatify * and i said no. because of that we had to part ways. marry a girl of any race. as long as you love each other. that's the most important. be tolerant."

*sunnat - circumcision that muslim males undergo. part of the process when a male converts into islam

until the dementia got really bad and his wife and children began worrying that he might burn the house down, for as long as i can remember, thatha used to smoke his pipe. and he was one of those who didn't inhale. which probably explains why his fitness was so good despite the smoking.

even now i can remember his pipe-lighting ritual. he'd have a sheet of newspaper spread out on his lap, onto which he'd dump out the ashes from his previous smoke. and then he'd gingerly pry open his tin of erinmore flake, tear off a pinch of the fragrant, fruity smelling mixture and place it in the bowl. following this, he would tamp it down with his thumb and place the stem in his mouth. with a swift stroke, he'd light the match, and hold it against the tobacco and start puffing away until it caught the flame and started smoking. the lighting ritual completed, he'd lean back against the cushion and puff away for the next half hour or so, just staring contentedly into space, or holding a conversation with someone nearby.

there was this funny incident related to thatha's smoking. we went to tirupati in india for a pilgrimage in 2000. my dad and i shared a room with thatha during our stay there. anyways, my sleeping attire whilst there consisted of my "singapore is a fine city" t-shirt, which had a list of offences along with their fines printed on the back. i'd hung it up to air, whilst my dad and i went out. thatha decided to stay in and have a smoke his cheroot, since he hadn't brought his pipe along to india. when we got back, we saw thatha standing over the toilet bowl, looking all frantic. we proceeded to ask him what the problem was. "do you know that there's a $500 fine for smoking over here?!?!" he replied. what we gathered then was that he had seen the print on my t-shirt and thought that it meant that there would be a $500 fine for smoking in tirupati. after putting out the cheroot, he had attempted to dispose off the incriminating evidence by flushing it down the toilet, but it refused to get flushed down and insisted on floating around, hence thatha's frantic disposition.

the doors of the lift slid open and a wheelchair was pushed out by a middle aged man. sitting in the wheelchair, a hunched nonagenarian. he'd been in and out of the hospital for the past 3 months. living in the hospital was as depressing as depressing gets. he needed to commune with nature, and so he was being wheeled into the garden. as the chair wound around the paths, he stretched out his hand and touched the leaves and flowers that came within his reach. soon, he rolled along beside an ixora plant in full bloom. "wait", he called out to his son-in-law who was wheeling him along. the chair came to a stop, and he stretched out of the chair and plucked a bunch of ixoras. with trembling hands, he slowly raised it up to his face and gazed upon them lovingly. handling the flowers like a prized possession, he gently placed them in his pyjama top breast pocket. after making his way around the garden, time had come to be returned to his confinement.

he rolled along into the ward. turning around to face his son-in-law, he said, "bring me to my wife. i want to see her". down to the TV room, he was pushed. as he peered around the corner and gazed upon his wife, his glazed over eyes lit up. he held his hand up and his son-in-law stopped pushing him. with his weakened arms gripping the rim, he slowly wheeled himself over to his wife. with concerted effort, he reached into his pocket and took out the ixoras, and placed them in the hands of his wife of 56 years.

3 days later, at his wake, in front of his picture lay a bunch of wilted ixoras...

(this story may be familiar to some because it comes from here. that piece was written soon after thatha's funeral. i am familiar with the details, because the son-in-law who wheeled him around was my dad)

he relied on his memory for his jests and on his imagination for his facts. that, in a line sums up thatha's years after sliding into dementia. he had such a straight face and a somber expression when he related to people stories of how he met queen elizabeth ii, and how she called the air force base he was working at and how he stood at attention whilst she spoke to him over the phone. all this was quite believable, until he mentioned how my grandma met the queen and fell at her feet. and that's when eyebrows would rise. but hey.. he's a respectable elder person, so one shouldn't call him a liar, and so people would be a lot more believing of his story than they otherwise might be. until today, i'm not sure if he did invent those stories or if there was some element of truth in them. i'm quite sure that my grandma didn't meet the queen, because she said so herself, but thatha might have, since he was in the RAF when singapore was still a british colony and the queen did visit the country then. thatha did have the makings of a good storyteller. he intertwined truth with fiction until one could not differentiate one from the other.

a good command of the english language allowed thatha to flirt with females young enough to be his granddaughters. during his long stay in the hospital at the beginning of last year, he totally charmed the nurses and the doctors and the physiotherapists. and it was quite funny watching the doctor question him so as to gauge his state of mind. thatha had been suffering from dementia in his final years, and he realised that his memory was not what it used to be. but he would not admit that he'd forgotten. asking him what he had for his last meal would get the answer of "whatever you ate" or "whatever your grandmother gave me".

whilst in the hospital, his state of mind started going downhill. for a man who had 2 dislocated knees since he was 50+, he only started using a walking stick to aid his movement after he turned 85. he prided himself on never being a burden to anyone, and thus being bedridden and having people tending to him was not something that pleased him, to say the least. so he used the best tool he had in his control. his speech. he'd flatter the nurses, saying that their voices sounded angelic and they had sweet, darling expressions on their faces. and how could such angelic creatures bear to see a poor old man who is old enough to be their grandfather lying in bed, and wouldn't they please help him to get out of there?

his flattery made the physiotherapist blush and she commented that even her husband never said such nice things to her. she was quite a plain jane sorta girl, and when thatha commented on her lustrous hair and her smile that looked like the sunshine, i'm guessing that she quite melted.

the doctor would come on his morning rounds and ask questions like "do you know what the date is today?" to see if thatha was situationally aware. thatha's answer was "you are the doctor, and you don't know what the date is?" to which the doctor would reply "yes uncle, i know what the date is, but i'm asking if you know it." thatha's rejoinder would be "well.. if you know you needn't ask me, right?" after which the doctor would retreat, since he probably figured that if the old man could spar with him verbally, he was still in control of his faculties.

i know that the passage below may seem long, but do take the time to read it. however, if you are in a rush, at least read the passages that are in bold.

some time ago, i was in geneva for a series of interviews. at the end of a day's work, and because a woman friend i was supposed to have supper with cancelled at the last minute, i set off for a stroll around the city. it was a particularly lovely night, the streets were deserted, the bars and restaurants still full of life, and everything seemed utterly calm, orderly, pretty and yet suddenly... suddenly i realised that i was utterly alone.

needless to say, i had been alone on other occassions during the year. needless to say, my girlfriend was only two hours away by plane. needless to say, after a busy day, what could be better than a stroll through the narrow streets and lanes of the old city, without having to talk to anyone, simply enjoying the beauty around me. and yet the feeling that surfaced was one of oppressive, distressing loneliness - not having someone with whom i could share the city, the walk, the things i'd like to say.

i got out my mobile phone; after all, i had a reasonable number of friends in the city, but it was to late to phone anyone. i considered going into one of the bars and ordering a drink; someone was bound to recognise me and invite me to join them. but i esisted the temptation and tried to get through that moment, discovering, in the process, that there is nothing worse than the feeling that no one cares whether we exist or not, that no one is interested in what we have to say about life, and that the world can continue turning without our awkward presence.

i began to imagine how many millions of people were, at that moment, feeling utterly useless and wretched - however rich, charming and delightful they might be - because they were alone that night, as they were yesterday, as they might well be tomorrow. students with no one to go out with, older people sitting in front of the TV as if it were their sole salvation, businessmen in their hotel rooms, wondering if what they were doing made any sense, women who spent the afternoon carefully applying their makeup and doing their hair in order to go to a bar only to pretend that they're not looking for company; all they want is confirmation that they're still attractive; the men ogle them and chat them up, but the women reject them disdainfully, because they feel inferior and are afraid the men will find out that they're single mothers or lowly clerks with nothing to say about what's going on in the world because they work from dawn to dusk to scrape a living and have no time to read the newspapers. people who look at themselves in the mirror and think themselves ugly, believing that being beautiful is what really matters, and spend their time reading magazines in which everyone is pretty, rich and famous. husbands and wives who wish they could talk over supper like they used to, but there are always other things demanding their attention, more important things, and the conversation can always wait for a tomorrow that never comes.

that day i had lunch with a friend who had just got divorced and she said to me: 'now i can enjoy the freedom i've always dreamed of having.' but that's a lie. no one wants that kind of freedom: we all want commitment, we all want someone beside us to enjoy the beauties of geneva, to discuss books, interviews, films or even to share a sandwich with because there isn't enough money to buy one each. better to eat half a sandwich than a whole one. better to be interrupted by the man who wants to get straight back home because there's a big game on TV tonight or by the woman who stops outside a shop window and interrupts what we were saying about the cathedral tower, far better that than to have the whole of geneva to yourself with all the time and quiet in the world to visit it.

better to go hungry than to be alone. because when you're alone - and i'm talking about an enforced solitude not of our choosing - it's as if you were no longer a part of the human race.

a lovely hotel awaited me on the other side of the river, with its luxurious rooms, it's attentive employees, its five-star service. and that only made me feel worse, because i should have felt contented, satisfied with all that i had achieved.

on the way back, i passed other people in the same situation and noticed that they fell into two categories: those who looked arrogant, because they wanted to pretend they had chosen to be alone on that lovely night, and those who looked sad and ashamed of their solitary state.

i'm telling you all this because the other day i remembered being in a hotel room in amsterdam with a woman who was talking to me about her life. i'm telling you all this because, although in ecclesiastes it says there is a time to rend and a time to sew, sometimes the time to rend leaves deep scars. being with someone else and making that person feel as if they were of no importance in our life is far worse than feeling alone and miserable in the streets of geneva.

(the passages in bold are my emphasis)

he was born a hindu. he died a hindu. and he believed that no religion was above any other. which is probably why my earliest recollection of thatha and religion was him praying at his altar in his bedroom, after his shower. it was 1 of the virgin mary, and he'd kneel in front of it and genuflect. this would be followed by a visit to the family prayer altar with the hindu gods. he saw nothing hypocritical about it and neither did i. we used to go together for the novena service on saturdays at the church in novena. and he used to participate in thimithi and thaipusam. and in his last years, his standard salutation was "may allah the great bless you". whenever i was in need of a spiritual boost, he'd tell me to write a petition to mother mary and drop it in the box at the novena church and to buy a packet of milk and break a coconut for ganesh. he was not one for religious dogma, for to blindly follow is foolish. one should always use their brains to question what is being said, because priests are human and are thus fallible. and god is in our hearts, which was why he had no problems bowing before anybody, for he said "i am bowing to the god within you".

i am grateful to him for not allowing the shackles of dogma to hold me down during my formative years. in time to come, i hope that i too may leave such a legacy

thatha could drink and drink in his day. up til he was about 80, he could easily finish 1/2 a bottle of whisky in a night. on a good day, he could finish a whole bottle. his poisons of choice (in descending order): chivas regal, johnnie walker black and johnnie walker red. and his everyday drink would be a large bottle of ABC or guinness stout. i remember being about 4 or 5 at my grandparents' place during dinner, and thatha would be sitting at the corner of the table during dinner with his piece fried mutton and glass/can of stout. that was my first experience with alcohol. sip of stout. man.. that was some foul stuff then..

his eyes used to light up when presented with a bottle of johnnie walker. think of gollum caressing the one ring. as age caught up with him and his ability to hold his liquor started falling, whoever poured him drinks would dilute it with water (he preferred to drink neat). he would gripe n gripe about how the taste has been diluted. he'd make it sound like an absolute sacrilege had been committed.

once when he came over to my place, parents put him on an alcohol ban, and he looked sooo down that i sneaked him a peg of whisky. ahh.. the look of glee that he had on his face then :)

ingredients (serves 1):
6-7 prawns (with or without heads, intestine removed and shell on)
4-5 cloves garlic crushed
chopped red chilli (to taste)
1/2 tsp dried italian herbs
2-3 tbsp cream
20-30 gm shredded swiss cheese
120 gm dried linguini
30 ml sweet white vermouth
2 tbsp olive oil


directions:

• marinate prawns with crushed garlic, italian herbs, chopped chilli and 1 1/2 tbsp olive oil for 30-45 minutes
• whilst prawns are marinating cook linguini according to instructions. time it such that the pasta would be ready just as the prawns have finished marinating
• heat remaining olive oil in pan, and add in prawns with marinade
• saute until prawns turn pink
• pour in vermouth and stir until alcohol has been evaporated
• turn heat to low, and add in cream and cheese
• mix well and ensure that melted cheese is well incorporated into the sauce (or you might end up with cheesy lumps)
• throw in cooked linguini and toss to mix sauce
• serve and garnish with parsley

this recipe is extremely rich and fattening due to the cream content, so feel free to modify to have a less guilt inducing meal :)

one thing that thatha was known for was his language. most people knew him for his verbosity and the usage of bombastic words. his command of english vocabulary was quite astounding. he always kept us on our toes. with him, you were better off saying that you didn't know the meaning of a word than to bluff your way through, because there was a large chance of the following conversation happening.

thatha: so do you know what XXXXXX means?
bluffer: *blink blink* erm.. lemme think about it
thatha: if you don't know what it means say so, don't need to bluff

and then he'd explain the word. if there's something that i think thatha has given me, it is a love for the english language. he encouraged my reading and to have a dictionary by my side so that i could understand the hard words. it was nice to know that in his last few years, he began to consider me his equal in the english language, which led to many a happy conversation for the two of us.

one of my earliest distinct memories about thatha were of seeing him rock to sleep my sis and my cousin. he'd sit on the sofa, barebodied and wearing his sarong. he'd place the child he was rocking in the basket formed by the sarong between his legs. then, he'd start alternately shaking his legs VERY vigorously. this wasn't any gentle sorta lulling to sleep business. more likely that we ended up being very dazed and disoriented as a result of the rocking and nodded off feeling nauseous.. not to forget that during this time he'd be puffing on his pipe. so it was kinda cute to see the puffs of smoke emerging to the rhythm of the rocking. like a choo choo train.

another early memory was him feeding my cousin and me rice with fish curry. my grandma used to cook fish curry with one of those fishes with tons of bones. thatha was concerned that we wouldn't know to spit out the teeny weeny bones, and so he did what i refer to as his "bird act". he'd basically chew the fish and remove all the bones and then feed it to us. even after picking out all the bones, he'd warn us to chew carefully and to not choke on any bones. i think he was overly concerned about us choking because he ALWAYS made sure that we had a glass of water with us when we ate. we were not to drink it during the meal, but it was there just in case, to help flush something down if it got lodged in our throats.

in an effort to preserve certain memories from being erased by the ravages of time, everyday for the next 10 days i'll be blogging short anecdotes about my grandfather, or thatha as i called him, who passed away on 19/05/05.

i believe that is the only gift that the dead would appreciate if they are aware of what's happening in this life. to be remembered after you're no longer here, that would be nice..

spurn her and she chases you
chase her and she spurns you
welcome her with arms open,
and forever her boudoir you'll never enter
be coy and she'll shower you with feathery kisses
ending with the long kiss goodbye
for she is death, destroyer of men and worlds.

(inspired by the hanging man, currently playing at the sydney opera house)

i open my eyes to see darkness. i attempt to blink it away, but it lingers. i put my hand up to my face and even whilst my finger touches my eyebrow, i see not my hand. i feel nothingness surrounding me. i feel myself turning head over heels through space. i hear not even the sound of my heartbeat. but feel my heartbeat i do, whilst i'm turning revolutions through time and space. i open my mouth to scream but no sound emerges. where am i? how did i get here? what can i do to get back to the sensory world? i long to feel... to see... to hear..

do NOT call people at 2 something in the morning, unless you are 101% sure that they'll be awake OR it's an emergency.

if it is the latter, under no circumstances should you hang up the phone at the point when the person whom you've woken up from deep sleep is just about to pick up the phone. said action results in decrease in GNH falling by many, many, MANY points. said action can also result in callee wondering what the hell was so important that someone had to try and call at bloody 2 something.

when callee has had about 2.5 hours of sleep the night before, it is highly likely that callee would be wanting to sleep well the following night.

and guess what.. it's 2 hours later and callee is STILL awake!!!!

i climb into a warm bed, slipping under the covers to warm up my feet and the rest of my body. god, my feet are practically freezing. i lie there waiting for my body to reach a comfortable temperature so that i can gently fall asleep. i wait... and wait... and wait... i stare at the ceiling, willing any stray thoughts away from my mind, for i know what a distraction they can be. i finally doze off... only to be awoken by my too warm body. i throw back the covers to cool down. i drift back into sleep. the dreams haunt me. it reaches the stage where i jerk upright into a state of wakefulness, cold sweat sticking my t-shirt to my back. sticky sweat collecting in the folds of my neck. i slowly lie back and stare up at the ceiling. i stare and stare until i can't stare anymore and my weariness drags me back into morpheus' arms. before i can settle comfortably, the alarm rings and it's time to start a new day.

if there's ever any person playing any instrument that looks overtly sexual i think it would have to be a female playing a cello. especially if she's holding it in a more or less upright position, as opposed to it being slanted. because in the upright position she practically has to straddle it to play the instrument. and her arms are engaged in a full embrace of the bundle of curves. when she's caught in raptures of music it really looks as if the two have joined as one.. oh.. to be transported to that state, what wouldn't you give?