Two Carol Quotes

The mezzanine floor of the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple has statues of several eminent monks, such as Venerable Miao Hua (1922-2009) pictured below.

My friend Carol described it as "Madame Tussauds for monks".

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Last year I watched Women's Football World Cup final with Carol and her dad. Before that, we also watched a few Men's World Cup games together which, here in Singapore, were very late at night.

On one such occasion – a Friday – we went to a birthday party in the evening. Carol and I left around 11pm to come back to my place, where her friend also joined us. We watched a game from midnight to 2am. I napped for a bit, while the two of them went out to eat bak kut teh at one of the all-night joints on my street. Then we watched another game from 3–5am.

I was wearing this t-shirt, which dates back to my college days when I was much more into football than I am now:

"Maybe you should cross out the Sleep," Carol said.

Fundamental Questions

Two perfectly-phrased questions (one of them rhetorical) that I came across online:

1. Last year Straits Times published this article (paywalled) with the somewhat clickbaity title: 'Wild boars likely to recolonise whole of Singapore in next decade: Study'.

The article was reposted on HardwareZone, where one forum member asked the all-important question:

means what? good or not good?

Straight down to brass tacks; a classic Singaporean response. I often think about it when reading academic papers or attending conferences.

2. Twitter user Zuvele, on her kindergarten-age nephew:

I asked my nephew if he could count to 1000. He said "no". I asked if he could count to 100 - yes. 200 - yes. Why not 1000? He looked at me wearily and said, "Who has the time?"

Unconditional Love: part 2

When my parents visited me in London in 2012, it was their very first trip abroad. They stayed with me; I gave them my bed while I slept on the floor on an inflatable mattress.

At the time, I was renting a house with three other friends. None of us liked the house, so our plan was to find a new place and move as soon as our 6-month lease was over.

The house had four bedrooms, and we split the rent unequally based on size and other factors. I paid the least because I picked the smallest bedroom (featured before on this blog). It also had a lumpy mattress and no attached bathroom. It had nice light though, which counts for a lot.

I was working at a law firm, and could easily have afforded one of the "better" rooms. But I reasoned that since I didn't like the house anyway and planned to move as soon as possible, I may as well save some money.

I was recently going through my stuff and found a letter from my mum, which she left on the last day of their stay.

It says:

Bugai, [my nickname]

We tidied your room as far as possible. We cleaned the microwave oven too. Your phone SIM is under the white cup on your table.

When you shift, please don't choose the most inconvenient room. We want you to have a good life for yourself. It was no problem at all for us, but at the end of a long day, you should sleep in a nice room, on a nice bed. Next time we'll come for a longer holiday.

—Mum

Blog notes:

• Here, in case you missed it, is Unconditional Love: part 1.)
• In 2023 I wrote more posts than any year since 2015. I think 24 posts a year (two per month) is a good number to aim for. Let's see if I can keep it up.

The Mirik Cormorant

When we were in Darjeeling, my friend and I went on a day trip to the nearby hill-town of Mirik to visit another friend, Gaurav. As we walked around Mirik lake, Gaurav pointed out a solitary cormorant.

These birds typically spend the summer months in Mirik, migrating to the plains in winter. Four summers ago, it seems that this particular bird got injured. Gaurav said he can still fly, but not for long distances. Unable to join his fellows in the winter migration, he stayed on at the lake.

Local people tried to catch him, hoping to nurse him back to health. But each time someone got close, he would dive into the lake and evade capture. After a while, they gave up trying.

The cormorant has now spent four years in Mirik, catching fish (of which there are plenty) and apparently not too bothered by the winter temperatures. Once a year, his friends fly back to the lake and he hangs out with them. Then they fly off again, and the Mirik cormorant is on his own.

Perhaps he likes it this way.

Three Species of Annoying Song

There are songs which I almost love, which makes them more frustrating than songs which I don't like at all. I have identified three such categories.

1. Songs which have a small part which I really like, but I don't like the rest of the song.

Example: Dissect the Bird by John Craigie. I love the chorus – "Oh, you're doing it wrong / Dissecting the bird, trying to find the song" – but that's about it.

2. Songs which would be perfect at 3-5 minutes, but stretch out for longer and overstay their welcome.

Example: Taylor Swift's All Too Well (10-minute version). She has recorded shorter versions of the song too, but they don't have my favourite verse ("And you were tossing me the car keys / Fuck the patriarchy key chain on the ground / We were always skipping town / And I was thinking on the drive down, any time now / He's gonna say it's love").

3. Songs where I like the writing and composition, but not so much the rendition.

Example: If We Were Vampires by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Luckily my friend recorded a really nice version accompanying herself on piano, so I can listen to that instead of the original.

A bonus fourth species – though this is more of an annoying artist (as opposed to annoying song) situation. My friend Rajasi, who is an excellent amateur singer, recorded a version of Aashiyan. Approximately once a quarter, I try to coax, cajole or emotionally blackmail her into recording more songs, but no luck so far. "It's a lot of work" is her usual excuse, or sometimes she just deflects me with "haha".

Caterpillar Rescue on the DHR

Fourteen years ago, I travelled by train from Siliguri (120 metres above sea level) to Darjeeling (2,045 m) – a seven-hour journey on the magnificent Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.

Last week, I took the DHR from Darjeeling down to Siliguri. (A separate trip. Don't worry, I haven't been stuck in Darjeeling all this while.)

The train, as you can see from this photo, passes alarmingly close to houses and shops.

Much of the route is forested, and the train also passes alarmingly close to trees, frequently brushing against leaves and branches.

One such branch had five caterpillars who were scooped onto the windowpane. We were worried that they would fall onto the road and get crushed by vehicles, so when the train stopped midway as it sometimes does, we decided to try and rescue them.

My friend picked them up with a boarding pass. I got off the train and ferried the caterpillars, one by one, to the trees on the other side of the road that runs alongside the tracks.

Another rescue-related anecdote, while we're at it. One of our university colleagues in Singapore is part of a food rescue initiative. Except sometimes, the food rescue team can't distribute all the food in time, so they request me and my friend T to help finish or distribute the food before it spoils.

T and I call ourselves: Team Food Rescue Rescue 😎

Unconditional Love

When I was growing up, it was kind of drilled into me that I shouldn't disturb grown-ups when they are doing something important. In particular, my dad didn't like being disturbed when he was in the middle of something. Now that I'm a grown-up myself, I try to be more flexible. But my grandma is on a different level. 

A couple of years ago, she was knitting in our living-room. I walked in, saying something to her – something quite inconsequential – without realising that she was in the middle of counting stitches. I would have at least finished counting the row before replying, but she immediately looked up from her knitting and replied to me. When our brief conversation was over, she calmly started to count again from the beginning.

This is the level of zen that I aspire to.

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A recent phone conversation with my grandma, about my next visit to India:

Grandma:	বাড়ি কবে আসছো? (When are you coming home?)
me:	৬ তারিখ! (6th December!)
Grandma:	হ্যাঁ, তোমার মা বলছিল... (Yes, your mum was telling me...)
me:	তাহলে আবার আমাকে জিজ্ঞেস করছো কেন? নিজের মেয়েকে বিশ্বাস করো না? (Then why are you asking me? You don't believe your own daughter?)

I sometimes tease her like this, and she laughs or teases back. But this time she gave a straight reply, which hit me in the feels.

Grandma:

হ্যাঁ, বিশ্বাস করি। কিন্তু আবার শুনতে ভালো লাগে। (Yes, I believe her. But it's nice to hear it again.)

The Cooling

Three "quotes" about cold from three different works of art (three different art forms, in fact).

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From One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn:

The signal for the roll call was barely audible through the double-paned, frost-blurred windows. Shukhov heaved a sigh and stood up. He still had that feverish chill but evidently he wouldn't be able to skip work.

Vdovushkin reached for the thermometer and read it.

"H'm, neither one thing nor the other. Ninety-nine point two. If it had been a hundred it would have been clear to anyone. I can't exempt you. Stay behind at your own risk, if you like. The doctor will examine you. If he considers you're ill, he'll exempt you. If he finds you fit, he won't. Then you'll be locked up. You'd better go back to work."

Shukhov said nothing. He didn't even nod. Pulling his hat over his eyes, he walked out.

How can you expect a man who's warm to understand a man who's cold?

I read this book when I was in college, and that last line was one of several that I copied into my notebook. For this post, I was going to quote just that one line, before I realised that without context, it was liable to be misunderstood; 'warm' and 'cold' could also mean warm-hearted and cold-hearted. But here, of course, the 'warm' person is the less sensitive – Vdovushkin in his comfortable office – while Shukhov labours outdoors in the Siberian winter.

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Ice Blocks on the Wazee Lake, a photography by Alessandra Sanguinetti from her Some Say Ice series.

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From The Cooling, a weird and wonderful song by Reina del Cid:

It's the cooling that scares you the most.