Back to books

I find it tough nowadays to write for the fun of it. Words overwhelm me. They make my eyes water and my brain shudder.

For the last three months, I have been burning the midnight oil reading and writing. I wonder where I would be if I had spent my five years at university with such dedication.  

With family and a kid, some things become a luxury. For me it is time. And the harder to get it acts, the harder I work - juggling being me, momma, wifey and a museum guide. I never knew it was in me to be interested in history. But here I am, furiously absorbing in the 32 signs by which to identify the Buddha. I love the musty silence of my museum. I am at an age where I accept my failings and my strengths. I am comfortable among the sentients of the past. Their silent demeanour draws me. They stir up my dried-up muse. I could not be a professor, but I am confident of being a history teacher – and a mighty good one.

Back to reading Buddhism’s esoteric form.

Midnight blues

The good comes with the evil. Happiness has sadness lurking in the shadows. My India visits are like these done-to-death sayings. Every year I come back home to my parents looking forward to be a kid again. And every year, I begin my holiday with lots of accusations, harsh words and hate thrown my way.

I am no longer sure about the right way to deal with it. I once believed that no one deserves shit and after slogging for a degree all those years, I was not meant to take shit. I was so wrong. I have been on both sides. I have hit back and I have endured it to the point of losing my sanity. But it has not worked. It hurts. It hurts to the point of losing faith in goodness, in people, in relationships. 

Hong Kong memorabilia - I

5/7/2010

I got into a cab and immediately regretted it. The driver was shouting, errr.. talking on the phone, and could split my delicate eardrums any second. 

I was ready to faint by the time we had snaked through the narrow Lockhart road and Luard road, and on to the Queens Road east. I recovered as we turned into the Magazine Gap road. But I sank back as the driver abandoned the usual way to Pedder Street, and raced again towards Queen Roads east. Making it to Yoga on time was looking impossible.

It was either my sulking face or exclamations of irritation that the driver began to talk to me.

I was caught off guard when he asked me - what were Hong Kongers called who opposed the Chinese government? 

As I debated whether he was an undercover, mainland-CCP agent, trying to deport me on the sly by getting me started onto an anti-commi tirade, he put brakes to my imagination. He inquired what was the correct way to pronounce 'dissident'. Whether it was dissi-dent, dizzi-dent or didd-ent.

I did my best helping him with the pronunciation, and explaining why demanding more electoral reforms was not dissidence. He cut me short as we entered Lan Kwai Fong, and tailed the taxi ahead.

The traffic on Wellington Street meant we still had some time on hand. The driver was now talking about how the French in the city said they were going to rendezvous when they could simply say - I am going to meet so and so. He now wanted to know if I knew what rendezvous meant. I gave a quick nod, asking him to turn into Lyndhurst Tearrace and stop.

As I handed over the fare, he asked me where had I learnt English. There was a line of cabs building behind us and conversation had to be cut short. As I slammed the door behind me with enough correctness, he said aloud - not many people understand these words in this city. You know your English!

Yoga at Joo Chiat

A few plants on the left, and a lone-one to the right, frame the vintage, grill-door to Anna’s white-washed studio. Unassuming like her, it is soaked in her trademark, soulful music and a light fragrance.

It is my first time here. The positive vibes immediately uplift my mood. 

A passionate teacher, and dedicated fellow-practitioners are essential to a group practice. And our yoga group is fortunate to be blessed with both. By the time we finish, I am smiling for no reason. I feel light - lightness of being :-)

Most often, I am soberly focussed in class, but tonight my mind and limbs feel an unusual sprint. If you have seen the grace in Anna’s practice, you may get what I mean. Perhaps, she had rubbed it on to me.

Ye agan

How do you kill the anger in you? You douse it with reason, dissolve it in acceptance, or rise like a phoenix from the ashes of your rage, and turn a new leaf. Three days a week for over a year, I have lied down in shavaasan, and pondered over the embers of my feeling wronged.

The year gone by

I am often overwhelmed by my life moving with the precision of an old clock. Well oiled, yet falling apart without notice. In motion like the gong but peppered with stillness, which comes when the mind drops pace to see the needle turn a minute. The meaning of my ambition has made a tectonic leap. I am just a mom on most days. Once I felt guilty about switching gears. Now I hold on to what I have come to have like rosary beads. Turning it over and over again, as I mediate before my computer screen.

To Ma

I stood as a kid in front of the mirror, and looked for similarities with you. Your smooth, white complexion, the graceful neck, the straight hair – I did not seem to have been blessed with any of it. The sting of the slap when I did not listen to you, further confirmed my fears that I was not your own.

Almost 25 years later, I cannot help but smile at the memory of my childishness. I am smiling again, as I walk by the dressing table. I am certainly beginning to look like you. The smile readily turns into a frown, as babu scampers with my t-shirt to mop the floor. I hear myself muttering some familiar words. Words you muttered when I and sis were up to some mischief. I wait to see if you heard me. To see if you will tell me that Idepend on her even to express my exasperation with my little devil. But you are busy. Busy being mommy.

I want to run to you once again. To tell you how I have waited a year - to come meet you. To touch you. To eat your food. To see you worked up over details. To drink sugary tea. To wear starched clothes. To smell the incense stick you burn every morning.

As babu runs away to lay siege elsewhere, I wonder would she miss me once she is all grown up. Would she wait to come back to me. Would she love her Ma.