The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

post national day

National Day is over. But apparently, the festivities are not. I still hear the song ‘There’s no place I’d rather be” playing over and over again at Funan Centre where I was having lunch with a friend. It grated on my nerves. My friend was irritated too and he pointed out a pertinent point in the lyrics of the song. I have reproduced the lyrics for the uninitiated below:

 There’s No Place I’d Rather Be

I’ve walked the streets of Cairo and Bombay

I’ve seen the neon signs on ole Broadway

I’ve climbed the Eiffel Tower

The Great Wall in one hour

Experienced sweet and sour but that’s okay

 

Seen Hollywood, the sunsets in LA.

The London Bridge, Big Ben, the Thames, UK

I’ve crossed the River Kwai

Yet still I don’t know why

I think of you each night and every day.

 

There’s no place I’d rather be

You’ll always be a part of me

And even though I’ve roamed the world

It’s still my home I long to see

 

This is where my family 

And my friends grew up with me

So I’ll cross the skies and sail the seas

To be where I wanna be.

 

Cos there’s no place I’d rather be!

Notice the underlying presumption behind this song. It presumes that most Singaporeans are well-heeled and well-traveled and have seen the sights and sounds of most tourist spots. Personally, I’ve only been to Broadway out of the list of things stated above. I get the point of the song though, that Singapore is our Home with a capital H. I might be wrong, but I don’t think the majority of Singaporeans have been to all these places that they’ve said that we’ve been to. The song presumes wealth.

Maybe it’s because my pay cheque for last month is still pending, but I resent the fact that the song presumes that all Singaporeans are wealthy and we are all world weary travellers. My guess is that the song doesn’t connect with most Singaporeans, and maybe they should have re-sung the song ‘Home’ without changing its lyrics. Cos honestly, most people are still in the same economic strata they were 9 years ago.

On a slightly different note, I wonder when the community centre people are going to take down the flags they hung along the corridor outside my house. My estate is flushed with flags.  There’s a gigantic national day poster about 3 metres high complete with night lighting erected along the road. Very impressive but quite an overkill. I like Singapore as much as the next guy, but this is a little too much.

Oh well, whatever works I guess.

fireworks!

This is an interesting post about fat acceptance : angry, sad and true. One of those gems you find on the dashboard before you log in to wordpress. Read it, and sleep on it.

Happy National Day Singapore! I squeezed with the crowds and managed to catch the fireworks display today! It’s the highlight of my day. My friends and I were making our way through the crushing crowds and eventually settled near fullerton hotel. I think the staff there were properly mortified. Their plants have been completely ruined, the crowds have trampled on the grass, flattened the hedges, and all for a glimpse of that 4 minute fireworks display. Well, it’s Fullerton. In view of the national day spirit, they really shouldn’t begrudge the crowds. You have the more well-heeled ones booking rooms at Fullerton, and I could actually see the hotel guests in their air-conditioned rooms, lying on their beds and looking at the window, while the rest of us commoners throng with the crowds, sweat pouring down our faces. And that my friends, is the Great Divide. But nevermind that, the weather was reasonably cool, there was wind if you could find a good spot and the best thing is, we soaked up the atmosphere entirely. The display was awesome, the crowd oohed and ahhed, children cheered and I clapped. Later the crowds heaved towards the MRT and of course, traffic on the roads came to a standstill. At some point in time, the crowds also broke through the barricade set by the police and since there was only a lone policeman at that juncture, there was nothing much he could do. They have stuck it to the Man successfully.

After that it was home sweet home. 42 years old and going strong. Way to go!

the breakfast cereal family

The breakfast cereal family is a family that you see on TV when they advertise Kellog’s or some other brand of cereal. In the ad everyone gets up early in the morning, the father dons a tie, the mother wears an apron and there’s usually two kids: a boy and a girl, and they are all seated at the family table, having breakfast together in the morning. Of course, the cereal tastes great, and the family is smiling and everyone gets along.

Does the breakfast cereal family exists in the real world? Of course, normal people don’t wake up in the morning feeling estatic about living unless you’ve imbibed something you shouldn’t. But I’m talking about the happy families seen on tv, where family members don’t just love each other, they actually like them. They like their company and they like who they are and so on. This is different from love, which sometimes resemble duty especially where blood ties are concerned. A mother can’t help loving her child even though he / she may be a nasty brat. And parents would have to disappoint their children severely to squander the admiration that children usually have for their parents, especially at a young age.

Are people who come from breakfast cereal families happier and more hopeful about the world? Less jaded and more optimistic in their outlook in life? Are they more secure in society and live better lives? What about those who don’t come from happy families? Will that scar them for life? Paint a tainted perspective of life over their eyes that can’t really be removed?

All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

That was quoted from the first line of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina. I’ve only read one volume of the eight volumes of the tome of a novel, but yeah, that first line caught my attention.

Ultimately, one is not one’s parents.