Witnessing history as it happens.

Saturday, 3rd September 2016.

A small dot on the world map. It's been a few weeks since I arrived in Singapore. I must have heard about Singapore first time while my history lessons. The place where Subhash Chandra Bose took command of the Indian National Army.
In later years I heard more and more about this small dot. Most of it was from my friends who had been here. Also, my mother visited Singapore a few years ago during her Thai-Malay-Singapore tour.
I knew that Singapore is a garden city and a financial hub of South East Asia.

Yes, all that I have heard is true. It's a beautiful global city. Awe-inspiring skylines, disciplined people, excellent public transport - obvious signs of a developed nation. I wasn't surprised. Perhaps you wouldn't be amazed if it isn't your first time in a developed nation. Thanks to a segment in one of the Marathi dailies, Sakal, I have coined a term for this obvious and rather uninteresting travel experience as "The Muktapeeth Shock".[1]

Singapore - beyond obvious. 

By God's grace, I got a chance to witness two special events in the last few days.

1. Singapore won its first-ever Olympic Gold medal in the Rio Olympics.

2. Haze over Singapore.

and I think I will witness a 3rd special event - The Singapore Formula One Grand Prix.

Singapore has gone mad for their wunderkind - Joseph Schooling who managed to secure a gold medal in Singapore's 51 years of existence as a country and that too by beating the legendary swimmer and his idol- Micheal Phelps.

There are congratulatory posters everywhere, and news segments praising his extraordinary feat. Even our landlord wouldn't stop mentioning his name all the time. The taxis in Singapore carried a marquee - "Our Pride J Schooling" on their boards.

The second one was the Haze.

Image courtesy - The Telegraph. It is similar to this for the last few days. 

On 26th August, when I left the metro station, I noticed that there was considerable smoke in the air. It was uniform and everywhere. So, I suspected that there must be a large fire nearby. It was strange.

At lunchtime, the smoke was still there. One of my colleagues in the office, who is in Singapore for many years told me this - This haze was indeed from a fire. It was smoke spreading over Singapore from the fires of the rain forests in Sumatra - hundreds of kilometers in the east. He said that it's quite common during August and September. Even the government issues statutory warnings and asks people not to leave homes for a few days when the haze is dense.

It immediately connected the dots in my mind. I recalled the Petroleum Engineering lessons in Kapfenberg when he said "Palm Oil". A sudden gush of excitement rushed inside me. Indonesia has been burning their rainforests for palm plantations so that it can supply the ever-increasing demand for palm oil to produce biodiesel.

I am excited by this feeling of experiencing something firsthand after I had heard about it at the other end of the world. This is as close as I can get to my favorite hero - Indiana Jones.

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On a side note. It was a totally freaking experience to see that a totally benign fruit called Durian is banned from public transport. It's a lot like the jackfruit that we see in India but smaller. I could never gather the courage to taste it. Next time Singapore.

_*_

[1] In the segment called Muktapeeth, it had become a trend for oldies to publish their experiences of their first-time travel to Europe or the US which contained unexceptional, insipid comparisons on how they found the foreign country disciplined and clean and how people were friendly and blah blah. Yes, we appreciate you traveled far and beyond borders for the first time, however, someone else had already written what you are trying to tell now. Needless to say, the online comments section was full of brutal and insulting remarks on how the paper urgently needs to stop publishing these frequent "Travel logs".

Mostly I read this segment for the hilarious comments, but I think it did one good thing. It taught me that when I travel, I should try and reach beyond the obvious. I try to do that at times. Okay, at least I won't bore someone with the Muktapeeth Shock.