The return of course presented the simple reality as it was, through the bus window a little eerie and ghostly. People to-and-fro at the stops in short pants & sandals; labels from far flung global meccas that were accessible from Changi. Out in what they called the heartland, the living was only vaguely hinted by the towers with their blackened windows. Sheltered walkways stretched along much of the route, the streets acting as funnels between the housing blocks and the malls. In Jogja the majority continued to live entirely without the mall; even without supermarkets. Most of the people in fact were denied entry at the malls in Indo; young Sec Guards uniformed & sometimes armed saw to that.
Har Yassin had remained unchanged. The cheap, warm and friendly Indian labour; warm and friendly remnant kampung clientele. All welcoming there when the money-hungry dragon owner was hidden in his office-lair.
Opposite stood the market, at its peak in the rundown to Hari Raya; Lebaran in Indo.
Traffic on Changi Road always threatened fatalities; the volume ensured some safety for the elderly who raised their hands to the drivers. (Only a minority of shoppers used the pedestrian overpass.)
Husbands & sons picked up women laden with plastic bags. Delivery trucks. Shiny late-model cars & taxis. All double-parked, horns blaring. The heat churned more strongly beneath the rampage. (A recent commentator in Yogyakarta had made the point that never was a horn honked in anger or frustration on the roads of Central Java.)
Here now two days after the return was a white cab among the rest of the traffic. Virgin, driven-snow, pure white. (The colour of mourning for both the Buddhists & Muslims.)
Parked directly across the road near the delivery entry of Har Yas. It may have been sky-blue for the roof.
On the blank white canvas, strong blood-red had been overlaid. (Chinese for fortune & prosperity, of course.)
Block lettering 14-16 inches high on the rear door. Snugly fitting.
LKY
Eighteen inches possibly. Eight or nine inch wide.
Caught a couple seconds later beneath in smaller font — THE MUSICAL.
Gulp! Oh! Hmm?...
The former leader had been lost to the nation in what, April? Was it fully three months now? (Googling later found last week of March the demise. Four months.)
A large commemorative song & dance was up and going already at one of the big theatres? Really? Was that possible? Scripted & learnt? Costuming? The logistics?
(One recalled later the man's visit to Hong Kong earlier in his premiership, where a suit was ordered at a tailor’s and collected same afternoon. Inspirational. Setting the example.)
The green and gold silhouette in profile flashed the well-known form from near the wheel. Handsome in some sort.
The old Hakka authoritarian master with the golf game that none of his contemporaries could best. Son of a watch-seller outside the Capitol building, some recalled. (Whether included in the show needed investigation.)
In many other countries, certainly of the region, the image needed no labelling.
In the month or so of mourning it might have been following the man’s passing, local planners, architects, designers, engineers and the rest had delivered to the authorities in South India, former Andhra Pradesh State, a fully complete plan for a new capital city that could be immediately plonked on any 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.
Chop-chop! Can-do Sing'. Famously can-do. (The new Indian PM Modi was a great admirer.)
By comparison, 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, green patches out front with trees.
This was the global significance of the Little Red Dot, spawning replicas across the globe — China, the Middle East, Africa. The frontier of Northern Australia soon to follow, no doubt, with the local expertise of the Tropics.
Straits Times, Wednesday 15 July 2015, (Google: “Raffles City, Chongging” / Chongqing presumably.)
Post-script. In fact The LKY Musical opened Tue. 21 July, MBS’s Mastercard Theatres. Nineteen songs. 35,000 tickets (70%) pre-sold, reported.
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