The Trip to Singapore

I haven’t written for many days. I have a valid excuse for this. Family holiday at Singapore! The ECDIS conference along with some company training was conveniently thrown in.

It was a rare event for the family. One that happens probably once in five years or something. We realized it. We took in the sights knowing that those cherished images weren’t going to disappear from our memories soon.

A lot of planning went into the trip. A friend of a friend living in Singapore was traced. Isn’t his wife a homely person? How old was the daughter? The age of the daughter of the friend of a friend was a careful bit of information catered for in our meticulous plan.

So there we were at Changi airport. Two sheets of paper containing our itinerary was clutched tightly in my fist. They were already showing signs of wear and tear. Our trip was yet to begun.

‘What is the next step?’ Swipe some Singapore dollars. SGD 500 to be precise.

But where is that limo that the hotel promised?
“Did you ask for confirmation from the hotel?” asked my 22 year old son.
‘No, but I thought it was part of the deal.’

I got some accusing looks. “Nothing forms part of a deal till you confirm it”, he tells me sagely.

I swiped the card. Entered the memorized pin number. Which would soon be forgotten once the travel card got over.

‘Joy, here’s your 50 dollars. Be careful. I want an account before you get the next 25.’
‘I suggest we take a taxi to the hotel. Not the Chrysler one though.’

The family heaved a sigh of relief. Though willing, but lugging the heavy bags on an MRT or a bus was a daunting prospect.

The trip to the hotel was nice. Very nice. The hotel was nicer. Going up to the 32nd floor on a lift through which we could see the Singapore skyline was wonderful.

The week passed like a dream. We had a lovely holiday.

“Dad, when will our country ever become like this?”

I thought hard about it. I listed out a few things which, in my personal opinion, as countrymen we must admit to ourselves honestly and do something about it.

- Sanitation. And by extension plumbing.

Till our country learnt proper hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation we will continue to spoil the countryside with open-air toilets. Similarly we needed good plumbing. We have good plumbers. Unfortunately these guys emigrate to Dubai and probably Singapore where they get a better price for their skills.

We must slot the plumbers and sanitation workers higher up in our social status. This is not so much of an infrastructure problem, more of a social kind.

As long as we tolerated the lôtă and the field toilets we remained doomed to our squalid fate.

- Bureaucracy.

A government servant by definition is exactly what it says - a servant. Available for service to the public and not the other way around. When the government employees are elevated to become masters of the masses, when we give them the highest social status then we pay a price for it. How come these guys enjoy special privileges that a common citizen doesn’t? For example some of them sport different-colored blinking lights which goes with a blaring horn to pierce through the mad traffic. Come to think of it. The traffic got worse only because those administrators who were supposed to address this issue were merrily roaming around with multi-colored contraptions fitted on top of their car. How come we never noticed, albeit in our short stay at Singapore, no such traffic-piercing vehicles?

I despair what damage job-reservations in the government for the under-privileged must have done to the country. It implies that the government jobs are goodies to be shared with the have-nots. Rather than making the entry harder so that the most committed would strive for a government job, it has become a piece of pie which can be manipulated to be obtained for oneself.

It makes me feel we are doomed for a few more centuries till we clear up this particular mess in our country.

- Air Quality (As also Water Purity).

We are prone to burning things. After all it is ordained in our ancient culture. We forget that in the olden days burning was a sort of purifying process against the forest all around and the forest-insects.

Today we have burnt away a good piece of our beautiful country in the name of purification.

Take any ceremony or any rite and we burn wood and ghee. A havan in a marriage is a must. Even cremation by burning logs for that matter. Burning degrades the air around us. I am not even talking about global-warming.

I am concerned about the everyday practice of lighting fires in our cities. Burning a garbage-heap doesn’t make it disappear. Instead of the garbage being gathered in one place it has only spread more effectively around the neighborhood.

Similarly the practice of spoiling the water bodies through visarjan and other such ceremonial acts. It is such an irritating thing to watch people throw a plastic packet containing dead flowers into a river or a pond and then pray for salvation or whatever.