Life, Laughter and Everything Else

“Gayyst du?” It seemed to have been directed at me. I slowed down to take a note of where it was coming from. There on the side sat a young German lady with her bag, looking directly at me. “Huh?” “Gehst du?”. I had never seen her before and I was convinced that I was not in the league which convinced a woman that she should start a conversation with me. If then, the only possibility was that she probably knows me. I desperately tried to recall when while trying to make sense of connecting what she was saying with some distant memory. “Wie bitte?”. “GEHST DU?” “Are you going?”. Yes that was it! But to where? And why? Fuck, did I know her? The confusion spread all over my face. “Are you leaving?”, she stammered seeing that her attempts were going nowhere. Oh, leaving. Not going. that was it. She just wanted to know if I was leaving so that she could take the locker that I was going to empty. Half embarrassed, I directed her towards my locker that I ...

He was the typical American. He was the atypical American. Beyond sports, the weather and his dog, he was able to narrate the story of how he journeyed out of the greatest country on Earth into a small town in Germany to learn German. Confident and cocksure, he was a refreshing change from the earlier conversation I had struggled to maintain with the nerdy German lady. Despite our common interests, a chemistry was missing, something despite both our best intentions, punctuated the conversation with awkward silences. While she excused herself to escape the tedium that was me, he came over and sat at her chair. I mentioned to him that the book that I had bought to the book swap event was a prized catch. ‘The Subtle Art of Not giving a F***’, the black bold and capitalised characters screamed against the bright orange background. The colour accentuated the vulgarity of the title, which was now covered with the yellow sticky notes with the names of the four or five people who wan...

“I was not allowed to fly, so I had to cancel the trip back home”, she said with a tinge of disappointment in her voice. “Why were you not allowed to fly?”, I asked, though I half knew the truth. It would be better to hear it straight from her before I jumped to any conclusions. She smiled and did not reply, and me being me, felt the urge to remove the elephant from the room. “Is it coz of this?”, I questioned while using my hands to carve out a belly bump in the air, though on hindsight it was perhaps not necessary given pointing to my beer belly would have been enough. She quietly acknowledged. Then there was no stopping me. I dug around to find out more details. Here was a woman who was not married and not in a serious relationship who was about to have a kid (not mine). A week earlier I had came across an article about single mothers in Korea who were discriminated against and shunted by the whole family, a situation I would quite associate with all Asian coun...

I have always been a proponent of spending time alone, far from the security and comfort provided by one’s close family and friends. This time alone was a statement of independence, that of self-sufficiency, a statement that screamed I am strong enough to survive on my own. In addition, time alone meant one was not subject to the whim of one’s companions. I did what I wanted, how I wanted and when I wanted. That was freedom. And so I often traveled alone, planning the itinerary according to my taste and changing it according to my whims. I neither had to wait for the friend who wanted to snap pictures of every other thing neither did I have to inconvenience my budget to his taste. It was great, at least at first. Then it got to the point when the loneliness caught up with me, when as I stared at the majestic monument or scenery in awe, I looked to my right and left and realized there was none to share it with. When I had to use the loo, there was no one to watch over my bag, nei...

At the heyday of xenophobia in Singapore, foreigners who neither spoke English or spoke it not very fluently were often the target of snide remarks and jokes among the local population. As the service industry occupations started being filled more and more by foreigners, one could frequently hear complaints about the difficulty in communication with the foreigners. One common scenario was for example me buying some mixed rice at the food court and the China born sever would state the cost in Chinese. It would irk me. "Do I look Chinese to you". Or if he caught me on a bad day, "Don't know English, why come here?" Of course I would not say it out, but that would be the chain of thoughts in my head, something I would follow up with my friends when I joined them later at the canteen. Now that I am in Germany, the role has been reversed. My German is elementary at best and my efforts at speaking it out has been hindered by almost total incomprehension of w...

While driving on the roads surrounded by the vast ranches of Texas, I would be awed by the brilliant hues of the sky. Vast and staring down on the man curated landscapes, these skies would take on shades of different colour depending on the time of day, weather or seasons. I remember the brilliant blues of the winter evenings and the bright oranges of the summer morning. When people asked me what I liked about Houston, I would tell them, "The sky. There's something about the sky here that is different from that the one home". A year back home, I realised the sky here was no different. Just that it was often hidden and lost behind the high rise buildings and skyscrapers that dotted the Singapore landscape.  Pity indeed, to have but the occasional opportunity to stare up and get lost in the awesomeness of the universe.  

This is the story of what the meditation retreat I went to in the South of Thailand in a Buddhist monastery ( I don’t want to name them in case they find out I killed mosquitoes while I was there) was like. There were about 136 of us of which about 130 were Caucasians with about a 60:40 guy to girl ratio. Most of them were, I suspect, between 20-30 years, with a handful of seniors and some who seemed to be going through a mid-life crisis. About 20% of them would drop out over time before the course was over. On Day 0, we were told to surrender all our electronic devices, watches, books and writing material and warned not to talk to each other or risk getting expelled from the monastery. I sneaked some writing material in but, like most others, adhered to the other demands to embark on a journey when every day was pretty much like the other. This is my story. Waking up The bell at the 2 storey bell tower ran punctually at 4 am every morning and the ringing went on for a...

I lost $124 gambling. Statistically speaking, it was not meant to work that way. The first time I came across the game, roulette, was at casino in New Orleans when my friend explained it to me. One simply bet on which color the dice would fall on, red or black. If the bet was in my favour, the winnings would double. If not, I lost everything. I theorised, based on my years of probability education, that it was possible to win the game, as long as the stake was raised by double every time I lost.  Therefore, if the game had worked out the way I predicated, when I bet $4 for the first throw on red and lost, I had to bet $8 on the next. If I lost that, next bet would be $16. Do the math and eventually when one wins, which was a guarantee at some point because one always had a 50% chance of winning, one would have made $4.  Just that I lost every single round from $4 all the way to $64.  Call it sheer rotten luck. I bet on red and it did not turn up the 5 rou...

"Sweeeeeet Caroline.......Ba Ba Ba", the crowd chanted in unison. I could not help in but join in the catchy chorus though it was the first ever time I had heard it and when it came to that part again, I sang even more heartily with the rest of the crowd. Thanks to that piece alone, the rather drab patriotic performance by the orchestra on the night of July 4th was saved. And as I stared into the sky in wonder as the fireworks started, I recalled that it had been half a year since I shifted residence to the 'greatest country on Earth'. I knew what to expect when I landed, for American soft power had been extremely successful in reaching every nook and corner of the globe, to the frustration of most intellectuals. Materialistic, superficial, know-nothings, paternalistic, endlessly interested either in the weather or the lives of their dogs and the list does not end (especially if you ask the French). Most of these cultural nuances, as I found out, were pretty spot...

The videographer slid open the transparent door. The air blew in, fresh and cold. The pressure in my ears continued to build up and the twin propeller plane continued to rise in a steep ascent. The instructors and the amateurs shared fist bumps and high 5's to build some courage. "We will go third", she shouted in my ears behind me and I nodded in agreement. First went the videographer. Then the first pair went up to the door and they steadied themselves. The instructor asked the girl, locked to the contraption on his chest using a series of safety locks, to put her feet at the narrow edge of the plane while he placed both his arms on the two ends of the doors to hold them inside. Then after about 4 seconds he let go and they were gone, out of sight. The second pair did the same and my instructor pushed me up to go to the door. I moved up and placed my feet unsteadily on that thin stair at the edge of the plane. The wind was stronger. Before I had any time to think,...

Having temporarily being resettled in Houston, where pedestrian paths are either absent or empty enough to make you wonder why you are walking, I have had no choice but to hop on a car rental program. Interestingly, the program requires that the car be returned every month for a new one, a practise while seemingly troublesome, is a joy in experimentation, with every car bringing with her, her own unique character. Here are their stories... Mitsubishi Lancer The very first one. She eased me into the American life, their left handed habits and showed me the freedom of America's big highways. Rarely demanding and quietly efficient, I had no complaints, except one.  She came with a smell.  I tried what I could. Perfumes, air fresheners, all, but the smell wouldn't go. At first uncomfortable, I got used to it after a while, but every time one of my friends met her, they would ask, "Oh, whats that smell?" or "Waah! The smell still there?" and ...

This is about a girl. The one who sat on the couch, lost in the digital world of her Mac. She caught my eye, partly because no one else did and partly because her black coat and scarf exuded a certain sense of style in contrast to the homeliness of the hostel. When Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment bored me, I stole the occasional glance at her, for nothing awakens the mind like physical beauty. She would still be intently staring at the screen, but that sight was enough, to satisfy and not to excite. Between then and the dinner, I only recall once when she sat the the table next to mine and munched through her lunch, though this time, at close proximity, I dared not turn my face in her direction and be caught stealing glances at her. "The chicken is too big for me." she stated, poking the roasted chicken thigh under the aluminium foil. I used the forceps to lift it and affirm her observation, though devoid of any solution, I helped myself to it. I grabbed a healthy...