My Journey to the East

I love the ocean and even have a masthead* to prove it. An extension of my love for the ocean is my love for the beaches. I sometimes get a feeling that the main reason of this unexplained pull towards the sun and sand is the deprived childhood. Now, do not get me wrong. I had a wonderful childhood – the kind that was full of loving parents with enough money to school me, buy me Barbie dolls, fairytale books, and candy. However, my childhood was deprived in the sense that it was mostly spent in the hills or in tropical areas. Even when I grew up and began to travel on my own, I usually ended up in places that were not surrounded by water. Hence, beach-deprivation continued. So the lone trip to Mumbai where I got to walk on the filthy and highly commercialized Juhu beach remained a sweet memory for a very long time. And when my fiancé brought up the subject of honeymoon (Err…or was it that I never gave him time to bring it up? Maybe I was announcing my choices the minute somebody whispered the M word!), my only condition was “by the sea.” Being a darling that he is, he decided to take me on the sea rather than just by it and won brownie points that shall last him until eternity. And so continued my love affair with the ocean.

Now, that the universe has conspired to make me live on an island, for the last three months I have been living in a joyful delusion that I am surrounded by lavish beaches, white sand, and frothy ocean waves. It was always about finding half-a-day free to visit a beach. This Saturday, we found half-a-day for ourselves and now I am back to the real world.

Let me give you a quick lesson in geography of Singapore. I happen to be living in the North-West of the island and the beach we decided to hit is called the East Coast Park (ECP), which obviously is in the East or rather, South-East of the island. Basically, we traversed the entire island, or the country if you will, to go to the beach. (I remember I once had a cab driver in tears when I asked him to take me home from the ECP. He laughed hysterically and then cribbed all through the way.)

ECP is a happy place with lots to do. It has an array of lively restaurants, a few colorful shops selling you the kind of things you may need at the beach and the kind you may never need anywhere. There are also many stores for bicycles and skates on hire. And if you are a water sport-enthusiast, you have several adventurous options too. The lazy ones fish at the Bedok jetty, or just sleep in their tiny camping tents. Most people walk, skate, or bicycle; some make sand castles and some barbeque in the pits. The only thing conspicuously missing from this cheery place is the sandy beach from where you can see ocean until the end of the world. Instead, what you see is ocean waves lapping onto the muddy/sandy artificial track and ugly ships as far as your sight allows.

On second thoughts, I should have known this! Singapore is one of the biggest ports of Asia and it is a tiny country that is partially built on reclaimed land. But of course its artificial beaches are surrounded by ships. However, once I got over the initial disappointment of being on a fake beach and trained my eyes not to look twenty meters beyond the beach, I had fun cycling around on a twin-cycle and feeling the ocean breeze in my hair.

So, I would still highly recommend ECP to anyone who is in Singapore for more than a week and will rate it higher than the artificial beaches of the Sentosa island, which are primarily built for the tourists and have precious little to offer in comparison with the free fun at the ECP.

*The picture used in the masthead was taken from the Singapore Eye (the observation wheel) and shows the reservoir where the Singapore River meets the ocean.

Life is what happens to you when you are expecting another routine day

 

One wintry evening a few months ago, a colleague of mine had a rather traumatic experience: the ground below her suddenly gave way and she paid a brief but terrifying visit to the Netherworld. The bus stop from which she takes the staff bus back home is, at that hour of evening, as chaotic as the well of the stock exchange. There was an uncovered manhole in that busy area, quietly lurking in a corner, waiting for its prey, not making a sound. A combination of the early winter dusk and insufficient lighting, the prevailing chaos, the city authorities’ callousness, and her own preoccupation conspired to ensure that she stepped into that open manhole. She had a brief free fall; fortunately the manhole was not deep, and when she frantically shouted for help, willing hands pulled her out into safety and God’s clean air. She emerged, shaken but not seriously hurt. Also, because of some oily sludge at the bottom of the manhole, she must have smelled like an oil drum for three days, though she would not admit it.

 

She is none the worse for her brief acquaintanceship with the city’s sewage system. She has had elaborate correspondence with the authorities in the organization, in which she has vented her spleen for their indifference. When one mentions her mishap to people in a group, she achieves instant celebrity status. She will, I am sure, have a good story to tell her grandchildren, years from now. (“Gather round, boys and girls, and listen quietly while Grandma tells you about the evening she fell into a manhole…Bobby, stop picking your nose and listen!”)

 

This incident made me think about some of the near disasters I have had, some of which made me briefly famous (for, I am highly egotistic and would not believe that I lack in any area in comparison with my fellow humans). I have had my share of falls and injuries in my boyhood – after all boys will be boys. I have fallen on my face and broken a few teeth; once the fat kid next door and I got into a fight and he banged a saucepan on my cheek next to my eye; once I fell down the stairs and survived without broken bones; I nearly drowned in a pond during one summer vacation. However, there are two incidents that stand out because they are bizarre.

 

Monkey in a DTC bus: How that monkey got into the bus, I will never know. Why it came toddling up to me – ignoring everyone else – I will never know. I felt someone – or something – holding my right leg and concluding it was a child, bent down to shake it off. It was not a child, it was a monkey and it went berserk. It bit my right arm, quite literally chewing on the thumb. It concluded its performance by biting my ankles; then it let go, glared at me, and then disappeared. Added to the pain and the tetanus shots, was the embarrassment. Tell people that you were bitten by a dog and you get sympathetic looks. Tell ‘em you were bitten by a monkey, and they either become incredulous or try to hide their laughter. When I revealed that the bus was in front of a well known women’s college during the incident, the monkey became a she-monkey in people’s imagination – and the laughter got louder.

 

Dettol Protection: I must have been particularly inquisitive as a kid. This – apart from stupidity – is the only reason to explain why, at the age of six, I drank almost half a bottle of Dettol. Maybe the world seemed new and full of wonderful possibilities and chances for experimentation. I remember seeing the bottle on a window sill, going glug-glug-glug, and then proudly announcing the fact to everyone. I hope my folks have forgiven me for that by now. I survived without harm; I also hope I have life-long Dettol protection now.

 

After all, some good has to come out of life’s misadventures.