Masala, Dhal and Rice

After what was months of BRAIN freezing, or just uninspiring days shopping and hanging out in Market St. Meixin Food Court. I found a little breathe of oxygen eating CURRY.

Yesterday, I had my good dose of Masala, Dhal and Rice in little India. It was the eve of Deepavali. We gathered some friends and decided to soak ourselves in the festive mood, by having our fare dose of Indian Thali and Dosas at Madras New Woodlands... (Just opposite Komalas.) They served drinking water on the table. This is one thing I dun get when restaurants require u to buy bottled water or drinks.

I think it is good practice to acknowledge human dignity by serving drinking water with meals.

For those people who only know Komalas for Indian food, I sure hope you look deeper beyond flashy signs and bright colours. After all, the experience of any cuisine, is the full palette of taste, sight, smell, and also traditions and cultures that sink in deeper in ur neurons than "Fast Food".

This is why I HATE FAST FOOD.

It really seems like I am a fanatic about Indian culture, food and Saris. But that is definitely not what all this is about. It's not Indian, or Chinese or Thai or European. It is the richness, the intensity of being somewhere different, and having a mind trippin.

When everything you see and understand is not what it really represents. To a large extent, the order in little India and in my India experience is one that is not easily understood, and some people never get it. ;)

The crowd in what seems like a disorderly fashion, is only what is perceived by me. IT's a big mess. People overflowing from the shops, on the streets, on the roads. IF I was looking for the queue, I would be feeling terribly misplaced. However, when one soon realises that there is actually no order, and that the understood and accepted protocol is simply the mess that is, that our objective is to find a place for ourselves, and not EXPECTING space to be made for you, then you find actually a sense of calmness in it. If we looked around, everybody is pretty much ok with the crowd.

IT's not just being used to it. I can walk everyday in crowded orchard road and complain every single thing about it. "Why the jammed traffic, why people dun cycle instead of driving, why can't we have more places to go!"

IT's about the attitude of embracing.

IT's when Singaporeans start queuing and demanding order then CHAOS become intolerable.

IT's when we think a system is the answer to all our problems, we lose sight of opportunity and real meanings in life.

The point is to beat the system, break down all barriers and meet people face to face. We've set up walls to contain ourselves in righteousness and to separate ourselves from perceived danger. This separation is stifling. This identity needs to be burned.

We turned up at Prince of Wales on Dunlop Street for a quick beer before dinner. As we got nearer, there was an uncomfortable fence separating a small area outside the bar and the streets outside. And "kept" within the fences were beer, "ang-mo" travelers and a pool table.

It look like an animal enclosure to me. To make a sign outside "Protected Mammals Enclosure - Do not Feed" would have been pretty apt.

From the inside, the place is not run by Singaporean locals but white Caucasians. And as a matter of fact, the whole place looked like a concentrated white dot in little India. The sight was appalling. We as customers at the bar was fenced up, while the local residents and ethnic Indian walked along outside and looking inward.

Then I really wonder what all these traveling is about, to come to a new place and then gathering up in pubs and behind fences???

(by saying this, I seriously am not racist, but i dunno how else to put it. It wasn't a pretty sight, and I felt like tearing it all down.)

Each time when I talk about Indians, or visiting little India on Sundays. I get raised eyebrowns, questions about -

"what so fun" "so crowded" "so smelly" "i dun find it interesting to squeeze ard"... "why are you such an indian fanatic?"

OR even commenting "wah, u really into bollywood stuff ah, get an indian boyfriend la!"

guess what, u totally missed the point. :)



Betel Leaves Stand Outside Madras New Woodlands :)

Watching the rain

Watching the rain...

guess i haven't sit to watch the rain in a really long time now... a very long many months, yet the time still passes, and I lose track of myself and the things i've done...

Yesterday a friend send me a text message. It was her birthday. Hah, so fast, birthday again. Next week, my best friend gonna leave town for Israel. To be with her bf... so fast again... she's leaving... it was already 6 months she was back... but all that's left of this 6 months after it has passed.. is this... today.

"Yesterday is History, Tomorrow a Mystery, Today is a Gift, Thats why it's called the Present"

Many people say, live in the present. But i think I am too much in the present, that I sometimes forget to care, that what I did yesterday makes today, and what I make of today gives tomorrow.

Today is Friday, I am sitting by the window, watching the storm that's about to begin, the cold wind beating on my face, giving me a sharp cold touch on my face, yet it is cold because I am warm. An awakening chill that I can feel because I still breath.

I dunno how many people walking on the streets are but empty shells, facing practicalites of live, that u need to do this to get that and to have this. I have chosen an alternative path about things. Chosen to give myself liberty to do things that I like rather than just to be a money making machine, as much as possible.

Self-indulgence, some people call it.

Facing the same practicalities in life, I have also drifted through the crowded with a hollow shell.

But watching the storm, watching the setting sun and walking barefoot on grass, I feel alive.

The Lucky Ones

I wonder if it is because there are lucky people who have simply found the fomula through life, or are able to accept life simply as it is; making me look like a lost philosopher, and somewhat an outcast on this side of the world.

Alienation

I wonder if I could be the only one.

I feel many unhappiness bottled inside, I want to scream! Yet, it's silent, as there is no reason, just bitterness.

I think up so much junk, it looks as if I love torturing myself. Misunderstood, and lack of real connection; the attention now is filled with judgement, critism and distrust.

Junk. Or is it?

Positive attention is very important to me. It is to everybody. yet in this world I am perceiving, there is so much lack of attention, and more like suffering from a deficiency in it. without enough nods affirming what I do, who I am, what I like. Just some signs to tell me I am ok, that I am on the right path, doing the right things, being the right person,... (u know...)

some real loving... plsssss...?

some experiences make me feel all so so good, and some times my closest friends make me fall flat on my face.then everything crushes, like u stepping on the garden snail (accidentally).

Lucky there's Cen.

I like to be part of, not excluded. Or maybe I excluded myself. I don't like to be the extra, odd one. Or maybe, I'm just thinking that. Funny me.

Maybe I am just different, from another planet, and most people dun understand me. I dun understand most people also.

I find no comfort in the silence but fear being abandoned, fear of being left out. It's dark and depressed.

I dun mean to torture myself. but I sometimes doubt if you like who I am, and I dun wish to be deluded.

This is it

this is it, I am going to blog my life away. spending time writing down meaningless thoughts, spending more time thinking about what I should be or could be doing better with this mediocre life of mine.

this is it. this time I am going to be brutally honest with u and with myself.

Yes it's true, with all the good things in the world given to me, a good complete family, good friends that love me, a home where there are surplus in food, money, material, a city where people have money to spend just because they are bored of working; where people have the ability to spend on better things in life to treat themselves better;

- I actually feel dull and depressed in this city "God" dropped my soul upon.

Last night on television was a documentary featuring suicidal tendencies in singapore. I watched intently, and listened to what these people had to confess about their suicidal thoughts, in hope to find a light to my darkness.

No, I do not feel like killing myself, just that not feeling alive can't get me anywhere better. So I listened.

The consistent pattern that ran through each individual, was clear. There was nothing more in life for them, that they believed they could be better off dead than dealing with problems of heart break, abandonment, survival, lack of love.

They also observed that most people whom have escape the thoughts of suicide, upon good guidance and recovery, tend to come back stronger alive than before.

---

there was not direct answer to me after the show had ended, just a bland conclusion that everybody has their problems, and there are millions of starving children in this world; that food is wasted into our trash bins everynight on the contrary. No, dear chinese people, finishing up what you have on ur plate is not helping at all!

The world we live in is surely not a perfect world. It must not me. Man have tried hard enough and sacrificed many in pursuit of idealistic systems and belief of creating a flawless perfect world. This we have seen resulting in wars, cruel regiments, and will never work.

Because one man's ideals, maybe another man's nightmare.

---

I don't know what to do with myself. I've constantly tried to accept and do what would seemingly work best for me. 1 year in a 9-5 job. Everybody told me i'll get use to "working life". Fact is I didn't, I had woken up every morning that year, dreading to wake up. And by the time everything started to flow pass like a normal day, I kept myself alive and preserve my mind from jadedness by asking, can all this get any better?

And when it came down to the ultimatum question, how long more is this going to last? I realise, there's no way i am going to live another day this way.

I took off with the little savings I had, in search of life and in search of my soul. In my travels, I've had many revelations, and beautiful experiences that have done me good. Lessons about love and life and living. Came back recharged, only to have all the inspirations fading into memories.

Somehow, I ended up feeling lost and burnt out, trying to find myself in here. I am here but I feel soul-less. God knows what I should or could be doing better with myself. I don't know what I should be doing with myself.

I am tired of not knowing what to do.

Music... does urs make u mooove? :P

...everytime I listen to trance or techno, my heart never fails to pump. Always, I feel my heart racing to the beat, and the senses overflowing with adrenaline.

Looking forward yet to another music revolution, cool dJ spins, psychedelic trance parties, the next solar eclipse gatherings...

I can hardly explain an experience in these parties... unless u feel it for urself... depicting such a scene would be most unhelpful.

wooohoo... hehe the pure thought of it gives me enough energy to start dancing for hours in my little room now...

this is music for me. what about u?