Once every five or six weeks the Indian gardening detail perfume the pathways of the housing blocks with the scent of freshly cut grass. Upstairs ten floors high the windows shut out their work almost entirely. Emerging from the lift and turning onto the path early school-day athletic sports return first of all, the frosts and fogs banished by the spring that has arrived. On the far side of the void deck a line of beating wings suggested birds larger than pigeons, the flight too rapid to identify; out by the vegetable gardens numbers of mynahs come down hopefully to the ground. A crew of half a dozen lads with whippers breeze through the entire stretch of blocks here in under a day, easy going with good cloud cover like today.
Younger brother Calvin had flown up from Melbourne the night before to be with
the elder Francis during his by-pass operation next week, this morning bed-side
the old Carnegie favourite here sitting face-up on display: How To Stop Worrying and Start Living.
This was a re-reading for Calvin, some reminders being useful for him and other
matter not so much.
More than likely Calvin had progressed from the more famous How to Win Friends.
Teochew family the Yeos. The mother had regularly helped neighbours write back to loved ones on the mainland.
The sister Doreen had opted for the Charis Tabernacle church; elder brother a Japanese sect called the Mahikari with a temple in Geylang, some kind of modernized Shintoism it seems. Where the eldest brother out at Tampines had sought succour was not known as yet.
A highly indicative Singaporean family unit grouping for the Chinese most particularly.
Denaturing in the big bad vertical city was one thing; but followed by the kind of deracination one finds at the same time in the laboratory of ultra-modernism here grievously painful to witness.
By comparison the Indians and Malays have not suffered anything of the same magnitude.
More than likely Calvin had progressed from the more famous How to Win Friends.
Teochew family the Yeos. The mother had regularly helped neighbours write back to loved ones on the mainland.
The sister Doreen had opted for the Charis Tabernacle church; elder brother a Japanese sect called the Mahikari with a temple in Geylang, some kind of modernized Shintoism it seems. Where the eldest brother out at Tampines had sought succour was not known as yet.
A highly indicative Singaporean family unit grouping for the Chinese most particularly.
Denaturing in the big bad vertical city was one thing; but followed by the kind of deracination one finds at the same time in the laboratory of ultra-modernism here grievously painful to witness.
By comparison the Indians and Malays have not suffered anything of the same magnitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment