In love with the city

One year ago, exactly on this date, I visited Singapore to collect my Employment Pass to work here. I can't believe it’s been a year already. I can't believe it’s just been a year. This is what Singapore does to me. I feel like I've always lived here, and every once now and then, I am amazed to realize that I am actually here. 1 year yet to be up and I'm still not jaded. Okay, I know, ask me after 5 years, but am guessing my answer will still be the same.

The last time a city made me feel like this (is it love?) was when I moved to Bombay. Bombay was.... tantalizing, alive, more sharply in focus, pulsating, energizing. A city wearing a huge Mona Lisa smile, like it knows so many things you don’t. A teasing, seducing city that was always one step ahead. Ticking to a clock that runs always a little brisker. Where things seemed to happen just a little faster. The city was more alive than anything living (or non) I’d seen and with more personality to boot!

Soon enough my blood started to respond to this pulsating city, my eyes could detect its small, subtle motions just a tad quicker. Life was never slow and ponderous, it was brisk, happening, moving, changing! Oh the exhilaration! I felt like I was in the nerve center of the world! I felt more alive than I’d ever felt before; as if been half alive before I came here. I fell head over heels in love with its heat, beats, energy, pace, whirling, attitude and its totalbindaas-ness.

Its called a city of dreams and rightly so. Of course, the "real" reason is because of "Bollywood" (whoever hates that name, really, you should have done something much earlier, no use crying now ninny!). And it was for me too. (No, I didn't and don't remotely have any thespian aspirations.) It was a city of dreams for me because it felt like everything happened there, like the sun rose and set and decided it course from there. It felt marvellous to know that I lived there! It was (still is mostly) a dream come true place.

On a more pragmatic note, one could go on endlessly about the shopping and eating in the city. What an economic range of eateries and shops it provides - from SST (sasta, sundar aur tikau) to fancy schamsy, you get it all. 

Shopping - Fashion Street, Colaba Causeway, Linking Road, Vama, Colaba Market, Satyams Card Shop, Maker Arcade, Linking Road shops, Benzer, Premsons, Amarsons in Breach Candy, Rustomjee's in Colaba, Cross Words in Pedder Road, and what-was-that-place in Kemps Korner, ... [exausted]

As for food - chat in Kailash Parbat, pani puri in C Road, oh! the most awesome Pav Bhajis EVER from the various Sagar's around town, Yankee Doodle ice cream in Napean Sea Road, the sandwiches in Beach Candy, pizzas from Sunshine Corner(?) in Colaba market, next to the post office, Mongini's, Chetna's, Vada Pavs from G.D. Somani and Nariman Point footpath stalls, home delivery Chinese from a mobile shop on the little road connecting  Prakash Pethe Marg to Nariman point, farsaans during tea time from all Colaba to Santacruz market (and beyond), Bade Miyan's stall, Swati gujrati food in Tardeo, the Goan/Konkani/Manglorean resturants in Fort, Yoko's, Kamat, the losbster masala and paya soup from Khyber, and on and on and on! (Seriously, I’ve not even touched the tip of the iceberg here.)

Readers will excuse my limited coverage of Bombay, I was (still am?) a townie, which, by Bombay lingo, means that I lived in the South Bombay, plus your truly spent only 3 years there, and finally 'cause technically this blog is supposed to be about me in Singapore [wink].

I loved Bombay and now I love Singapore. My stint in Bombay lasted 3 years, and I hope my Singapore stint lasts me longer - or rather may it last as long as I want it to. Cheers!

(Photos belong to others,)

10 days of Singapore

6.30 AM on X'mas morning saw me taking an MRT to Changi Airport. I reached by 7.30 (yes people, that how long it takes to reach the airport if I take an MRT). D had arrived in Singapore. We behaved typically like 2 girl friends meeting each other after 6 months - we screeched, hugged, and hopped around in joy. We dashed back home (not MRT thank you, one way is more than enough) and D pulled out all the goodies she'd ferried for me from Bangalore. 

I am unashamed to say most of it was food, and from Nagarjuna. Food my loving parents had packed for me on my request (am so shameless). I have to list it people, please! 

~ Chicken Biryani 

~ Chicken Sholay Kebab 

~ Chilly Chicken

Joy! Joy! Joy! Joy!  Hapiness! Hapiness! Hapiness! Hapiness! Clap! Clap! Clap! Clap!  This was the BEST X'mas gift I could get! My BFF (Best Friend Forever) in town and my favorite food! (Pays to be a good girl you know.) Quickly packed the food away in the fridge and D away to bed, where she was out like a light, the poor mite. But not for long, for you see, we had plans. 

It was finally X'mas!!! The day Singapore seemed to be waiting for months! I'd got my gift and now I HAD to spread the cheer! We had places to go and parties to attend! Well 2 parties actually. One @ Pari's place and the other @ my cousin Such's place. They both were as awesome as they were different. While D slept, I shopped and packed our goody bags with champagne, chocolate X'mas logs, flowers, and other X'massy goodies for our hosts. Then, a bleary-eyed D and I were off visiting. 

1st stop Pari's place. It was a lovely Indian family X'mas affair, with her parents, and aunts and uncles. I stuffed myself on awesome Chicken Fry and Mutton Biryani, made by her mom and dad, partook of all the X'massy spirit, chatted and got high laughing. Basically had the time of my life. After all this food and bonhomie, I was ready to crash and D was positively asleep in her chair. But, as they say, no rest for the wicked and we dashed home, freshened up, changed into new plumage and flew off to Such's place. 

Such's and Cee's party was all about new friends. None of their usual suspects were in town, i.e. people I'd met when staying with her, it being X'mas and all that. So I met loads of new friends. We all mingled and chatted and debated and laughed along with large glasses of wine, and even larger selection of food. Happy and buzzed, what more can one want? Getting back to the selection of food, it seriously was a cornucopia of food. There were @ least 20 dishes and all made from scratch! Maaaaan! Why does all this food have to come on the same day? I cannot forgive myself if I don't list them, so humor me. There was:

- fresh feta with crackers 

- home-made hummus with pita 

- fresh olives in olive oil 

- baba ganoush

- potato patties stuffed with mince 

- Moroccon meat balls

- chicken satay

- mousakka

- mushrooms in cream sauce 

- salad

- baguette 

- and more

Languidly the evening wore on and night fell. Before D collapsed on me, I got her back home. We settled down and watched a sweet X'massy (ugh!) Singaporean made movie called Delivering Susie  (one of the guests in Such's party played Santa in that movie)  on TV before we surrendered our stuffed bellied, alcohol soaked, satiated selves to gentle Morpheus. 

Next day we woke up laaate, lazed, went to West Coast Plaza for breakfast, came back home and lazzed. Then D ate the dal pulao I made for her and I ate the biryani which she got for me. Happiness! Contentment! Blisss! Post lunch we set out for Singapore darshan. In the evening we met up with a mutual old friend (we were classmates and colleagues), in Clarke Quay. Three girls out to have fun - as you can imagine we had a rocking time! We took the bum-boat cruise along the Singapore river and wore the night out drinking, dancing and chatting @ Rupee Room, Cuba Libre, and Highlanders. (All pics on Facebook).

The rest of our days followed pretty much the same pattern, i.e. wake up late, laze, eat lunch @ home, and set out in the afternoon for loafing. We covered Orchard Road, Takashimaya, Paragon, Plaza Singapura, Asian Civilization Museum, Boat Quay, Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, Sentosa, Aquarium, Vivo City, Botanical Gardens, Bugis, Arab Quarters, Little India, and of course Chinatown. One morning we managed to wake up early and take the The Time Of Empire walk, which was really nice, and concluded most satisfactorily - us getting drunk as skunks on the Singapore Slings at the Raffles Hotel. N i c e... hic! 

Undoubtedly without a doubt, shopping and eating was done in all the aforementioned places. But maximum time was spent  and fun was had in Chinatown. D loved it and we visited it as many times as we could. New Years was spent, predictably, in Clarke Quay - the countdown in Rupee Room, fireworks, courtesy Singapore government, overhead in the Clarke Quay sky (sort of), and dinner @ IndoChine. All too soon it was time for D to leave; our 10 days had whizzed past us, as time usually does when we are having fun.

D's recommendations:

- Foot massage in Chinatown

- Shopping in Chinatown

- Dresses in Chinatown

- Tops from This Fashion

- Spicy Doritos from any supermarket

- Singapore Sling from Raffles Hotel

- Singapore, for being so clean, convenient, and safe

The tenth month in the Roman calendar

I know I have a lot of missing months to blog about, but after much deliberation (and an emergency board meeting) I have decided that I will rewind, for now, to December. Any blanks that come up, I will fill as I go along. The only thing I have to tell you is I have moved into a house (I share it with a couple) and it's in West Singapore (but that's not crucial to the story).

Singapore was geared up for X'mas by October end - light festooned streets, giant X'mas trees in shopping malls, extended hours of shopping, Christmassy knick-knacks all over, piped-in carols, caskets of red wine, white wine in green bottles, basically all the what-have-yous. Swirling in Boy George's 'red, gold and green' December came twirling.

A pictorial example of Christmassy knick- knack is given here. Rather cute I thought! (The snap is technically early November).

The first three weeks of December whizzed past. And the other 2 weeks even faster. The first three because there was lots and lots of work. And thanks to the slow economy my company gave us 2 weeks shut down instead of 1, so stop work from Dec 20! Can you imagine the tension?! But of course it had its good side - I was deliriously happy to have a full proper winter vacation like in school! Yippee!!

Weekends in the first three weeks were the only party time and were spent mainly:

• hanging out with Laksh (in photo) in Orchard
• reading, of course (found a lending library somewhat close by, not really happy with it but it's better than nothing)
• eating Pepper Chicken in Anandam, (Upper Dickson Road, Singapore)
• chicken tikka in Samy's Curry, Dempsi
• dimsumming in Din Tai Fung
• cooking (we cooked dinner one full week!), shopping (Vivo City) and Clark Quaying with flatmate
• buying dresses from Qoosh, Vivo City and This Fashion, Dhoby Ghaut
• attending Monu's birthday party @ New Asia Bar (very hip!)
• and thanks to Monu, my first time ever in a dance bar! (Yes, this was in Singapore. And my HP friends, I know exactly what you are reminded of, so was I and it didn't help).

Dec 18 mid-night was a red-letter day. I was the bearer of bad news. The fact that I live to tell the tale shows how thoroughly civilized my colleagues are by not shooting the messenger (it also helps that I used SMS to convey the message heh).

So here's how the story unfolded.

18 Dec, Thursday night, 11.58+ P.M. Singapore time.

It is one day before shutdown. I was working - fast and furious - late into the night, fixing as many defects as I could before the time ran out (darn it, am an adrenalin junkie?). I am at home, the only sounds I can hear is the clicking of the keyboard and mouse, all else is dead quite. Ping! a new email. I go to open it and I get this horrible tingling sensation at the back of my neck. I take a deep breath and open the email - I forget to breathe out. Retrenchment announcement in email from the CEO!

Aaaaaaaaaaa! Waaaaaaaaan!!! Aaaargh!!! I fished out my mobile and SMS-ed all my colleagues to check their email (I was too chicken to tell them myself). Slowly everyone came awake, and then started the frantic calling, messaging, chatting. We consoled each other, had multi-way conference calls and popping chat windows, reassured each other and make up reasons why they could not be fired, all with a churning stomach. The whole team was up all night oscillating between calm acceptance and nerve racking tension. One hour later, another email - meeting request for the whole team, U.S. and Singapore, at 2 A.M. Singapore time. This time we could not keep the dread at bay. At 2 A.M. we all gave attendance. The first thing our manager said, "We are all safe" and then she burst into tears.

It was a close call. She asked us all to take the next day off to restore our nerves. Which, naturally,  we all did. By the weekend I was back to normal.

By Monday, I was back to being tickled silly in happiness of my first long winter vacation since 1999!

A new mall West Coast Plaza has (apparently re-) opened opposite to my humble abode and I boosted the economy in my own small way by spending my hard earned there. Bought a Van Gogh in the passing among other inconsequential junk.

Got a few decent eateries opened up there, including Coffee Bean and Subway. The weather was unusually chilly for Singapore and the next 3 days whizzed past in acquainting myself with the new mall, reading books from the library, and chilling @ home.

Then bright and early on X'mas morning D arrived on! And that, my dears, needs a post all on it own! Watch this space and I promise the next post will next Friday.