Life, Laughter and Everything Else

“I err, and therefore I am”. The number of days left in this city has whittled down to a number I can count on my fingers. A couple of days ago I asked my friend if he regretted choosing Stockholm for his exchange. “Now that you asked, actually I do”, he replied. During the long bleak winter, so did I. It was cold, people you knew travelled and those, whom you gave up the people you knew for, hibernated at home. The atmosphere at school was different. The American-Pie-like craziness I expected, I got, but then I realised that it was not really what I wanted. I left Singapore in search for people whom I thought might appreciate life more. Instead I saw scores that drank and partied, only to complain of headaches and hangover the next day. So I avoided the parties, the drinks and rejected invitation after invitation. I stayed in my comfort zone and ventured out along tracks that I knew was safe, that I knew had something in the end for me. I was convinced that actions ha...

If there is something I really enjoy in life, it is meeting like-minded people. If there is anything I enjoy even more, it is meeting someone who has a set of beliefs completely opposed to mine, but whom I can’t prove wrong by reason. Now that is someone with a refreshingly new perspective. He was one such person. Tall, respectably well built and bearded with hair uncut in months, he resembled more of a hitchhiker than a playboy. I was not aware of his little hobby when I had decided to to host him at my place for a night. The truth came to light from his own mouth, and while there was all the possibility he could have been making up these stories, I saw firsthand the way he dealt with the girls, and I could see they loved him, his boyish charm, his jokes and his attention. Expectedly, my first question to him was, “ So can you give me any tips? ” What he revealed is probably what you already know. The art of picking up is essentially the art of marketing, except this tim...

"So how has exchange changed you?" I might be one of the rare few who will respond to that question with an "I don't know". But honestly, I do not know and I am myself stupefied by this lack of an answer when the question was directed towards me, especially considering how much I preach about the pursuit of a meaningful life and the dare to take up life changing experiences.  And while it a month too early, I think this is a good time as any to look back and reflect on a period where I was far away from the warmth and comfort of family and friends, in a strange land that is both Antarctica and Spain in the same year. It has been a period which I had earmarked as a time to do some soul searching, but that has instead left me critcising the often over-maturity and sometime immaturity of my decisions.  I still feel that I am very much the same person I was before, though perhaps I have picked up some new pleasures in the form of grocery shopping and (v...

People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination,  the kind of people they ignore at home.                                                                                                             -Dagobert D. Runes Much has been said about travelling, about how it exposes us to a new culture, reveals endlessly a series of bright and beautiful sights that one could never find at home, how it reawakens in us a sense of childish curiosity and awe and reignites the explorer in our soul. And so it goes on and on. The atmosphere these thoughts create is in itself extremely exciting. One can probably go delirious deciding where to go and what to do there, even before one has already been ther...

One of the greatest joys of this exchange are dinners in a cross cultural setting that brings forth current day issues and culturally diverse opinions on it. Recently I had the privilege of being part of one, which began when one of the girls, who was doing her phD in Sweden, expressed her concern of how difficult it would be for her to find a husband in China given her superior educational background. The issue she said, would not be raised by her potential husband, but by his parents stuck in an outdated attitude towards marriage. Her situation received a lot of support from the table and the discussion went onto include how the girl, if she was better educated and older would be at the receiving ending of much criticism from the elders. We talked about how education was changing attitudes towards these ways of thought, how today, what mattered was the person and not society’s measure of him or her and how we were all becoming more humane. In this mood of openness, I decided...

Somebody up there do not want me to club. It has been one experience that has eluded me despite my multiple visits, that has brought as much excitement as me sitting in a meditative pose.  This is all the more interesting because my intention was simply to get a feel of it, and not kickstart a career as a party animal, that would either way not work for a person who dared not even to dance in the shower. Perhaps  though, it is not the circumstances, but the person to blame. I should have known I was not the party kind the very first time I set off. As I was tying my shoe laces, my father would politely enquire where I was going to. “Going to club”, I responded. “What? Like a community club?”, he carried on. I am not the most superstitious of persons, but when you are about to do something, it has to start off on the right tone. There and then, my father set the expectations of me, and all the stamps I received on my waist before entering the club became but so...

One of the most remarkable thing about being an exchange student and going out to see the rest of the world is that you are hit by the sudden realisation that there is a lot, as in really a lot of people with whom we are sharing this planet with, about whom we never really bothered to know more about and compared to whom we share as many similarities as differences. As a Singaporean, these circumstances have put to the test, the strength of my identity and how proud I am of my life back home, especially when one my European friends ask me, “So tell me more about Singapore”. And to describe my life back there, I have no need to look further than the group of friends who followed me here, and it is with some pride, some amusement and some could-do-better feeling that I write this article. A Swedish guy I once met at a bar told me how his Singaporean friend described Singaporeans and Swedes as the most emotionally private people on this planet. The Swedes I have noticed thus far, ...