The Musical

The return of course presented immediate contrasts. The airport and then the bus chewing up the suburbs in the half hour ride back to Geylang Serai processed slowly through the brain. Strange, a little eerie and ghostly. Stronger than anything in the next day or two was the Mall factor. It seemed the streets simply funneled between the malls. Unlike in Indonesia, there was nothing on the street, no life, nothing of consequence independent of the malls and housing. People moved from one to the other, sucked by the powerful aircon that often spilled onto the footpath enticingly. 
         In Jogja the majority, the vast majority still, lived entirely without the mall, without the supermarket and all the branded chains. Untainted in any way the great majority. They bore the heat. Most of them in fact were denied entry at the malls; muscled Security Guards uniformed and armed saw to that. Contrast Singapore; contrast the humanity. Note the transformation. On each return a more and more sharp contrast.
         Another kind of stab was received from the street on the Monday, day two of the return.

         Har Yassin had remained unchanged. The cheap, warm and friendly Indian labour; warm and friendly remnant kampung clientele. All very tolerable when the money-hungry Dragon was hidden in his office-lair. Opposite the market at peak busyness in the rundown to Hari Raya, El Eid, Lebaran in Indonesia. Traffic on Changi Road threatened fatalities by the minute: the volume created safety for the elderly raising their hands in plea to the hurrying drivers. (The pedestrian overpass was used by ten percent of shoppers; road engineering totally inadequate.)
         Husbands and sons picking up women over-laden with plastic bags. Delivery trucks. Shiny late-model cars and taxis. All double-parked. Horns blaring. The heat seemed to churn more strongly beneath the aural assault. (A recent commentator in Yogyakarta had made the point: never a horn honked in anger or frustration on the roads of Central Java. Outstanding fact with which to be reckoned.)
         White cab. Virgin driven-snow pure was unusual here. (Was it the colour of mourning for both the Buddhists and Muslims, strictly to be avoided?) Parked directly across the road near the delivery entry-way. There might have been an irrelevant sky-blue on the roof. What was relevant was red., bold blood-red. (Chin colour of fortune and prosperity of course.) Red upper-case lettering fourteen-sixteen inches high on the rear door, tailored to fit.
         LKY
         It may have even been eighteen inches; eight or nine wide. Caught a couple of seconds later below in smaller font — THE MUSICAL.
         A canon-shot across the bows of the traffic the width of the boulevard. Bang! Knockout.

         Took down the three front pillars of Har Yas., leaving the roof and the upper storey tottering. Dust and glass fragments. 
         The former great leader had been lost to the nation in what, April was it? Was it fully three months. (Googling later: last week of March; four months.) A big commemorative song and dance up and going already at one of the big theatres? Was it really possible? Could it truly be? The costuming and all the logistics?

         (One recalled later the recently elected PM's reported visit to HK, where a suit was ordered at a tailor’s and collected same afternoon. Example set.)
         A green and gold silhouette in profile flashed the well-known form from the side of the cab. The old Hakka master manipulator with the great golf game that none of his contemporary national leaders could best; son of a watch-seller outside the Capitol building. In many other countries, certainly of the region, the image of the figure in this graphic transmogrification needed no labeling.
         In the month or so of mourning it might have been following the great man’s passing, the local architects, designers, engineers and the rest here had delivered to the authorities in South India, former Andhra Pradesh State, a fully complete new capital city that could be plonked on a virgin site PLOP! no trouble at all. Delivered before-time in fact. After the initial tender had been accepted under three months it may have been from go to woe. Can-do Sing'. Famously Can-do. (The new Indian PM Modi was a great fan of the transformation wrought in Singapore.) Compared to that what was a musical adaptation of the well-known story familiar to all?
         
NB. Today in the newspaper a sketch of a new city in China somewhere from the same template. Towers, harbour, couple of green patches out front with a couple of trees. This is the global significance of the Little Red Dot, spawning its replicas across the world: China, the Middle East, Africa. The frontier of Northern Australia soon no doubt with the expertise of the Tropics from here. Wednesday 15 July 2015, (Googling: “Raffles City, Chongging”. Chongqing presumably.)

Post-script. In fact “The LKY Musical” opens tonight, Tue. 21 July, at MBS’s Mastercard Theatres. Nineteen songs, 35,000 tickets (70%) pre-sold reported.