For one night only.

For one night only.

The dash across the road in the rain had my pant bottoms soaked, but all discomfort was forgotten when I settled down to watch Slumdog Milionaire. I tend to think award sweeping movies are heavy and seldom my cup of tea, but the self-claimed "feel-good movie of the year" did make me want to get up and join the actors in shaking to the Bollywood beats at the end.

It's been over nine months since my return from India, but familiar scenes and phrases from the movie transported me right back to the chaos of the jammed streets, the stifling heat of Mumbai, and the wintry cool of the Ahmedabad nights.

Watching Salim seal a bottle of tap water to pass it off as a new bottle of mineral water made me think of the time we had dinner with our dean who insisted that the bottle be opened at the table. Watching Jamal serving chai made me think of the classes we attended at MICA, and the boy from MiCafe who often brought the drink to the lecturers. Seeing the grown-up Salim reminded me of Rishit, and the night I hung out with the guys at Champa until the sun rose. And watching them dance at the end made me think of the MICA alumni party where I boogied the night away with people I barely knew. (On hindsight, I don't know where I got the guts!)

And in the darkened cinema, I wished for this one night to be back in the isolated MICA campus, drinking chai under the huge tree at Chotta or in the easy company and cigarette swirls of the guys in the Champa courtyard.

Tripping on a fallen fruit!

Sneeze, sneeze go away.

Sneeze, sneeze go away.

I woke up to B's message at 5ish this morning, and proceeded to spend the next 10 minutes sneezing my nose blue. Sniffling, I fell back asleep to unsettling dreams, and awoke to a few red mosquito-like bumps on the weirdest places.

I wasn't quite myself while teaching piano this morning, and after fixing myself a chicken sandwich lunch, I fell back to more unsettling dreams till the late evening. I don't feel rested at all, and my arms feel kinda achy.

I'm hoping the aches are from yesterday's yoga or the dormant effects of Friday's swim with Lanxi, and not some weird allergy that rears its ugly head in sneezes and bumps. The bumps, very thankfully, have not multiplied.

School starts tomorrow. Maybe that's what I'm allergic to. Haha.

On a different note, Hui Hui and I finally made it down to The French Stall at Serangoon Road last night. The food is nothing to rave about really, but it was a good catch-up nonetheless.

Strolling amidst the many tandoori and naan restaurants in Little India, with its incense-perfumed air and the devil-may-care attitude of Indian nationals maneuvering our roads had me feeling like I was back in Ahmedabad all over again.

The crazy crossroads from Reliance Mart over to our favourite roadside tandoori stall, the mix of incense, food and sweat that hangs in the still air, and the crowds of people everywhere. All's that missing is the autos.

BCB's last French Rendezvous.

BCB's last French Rendezvous.






On Monday night, Marine, Romain, B and I gathered at Chào Bà Café in Pigalle for our last rendezvous in France. We shared food and cocktails (the publicized 'bowl-sized' glasses were a huge exaggeration), while fighting to get ourselves heard over the "1 and 2 and 3" instructions from the on-going salsa class.

After, we made the impromptu decision to come back to the flat to chat and drink some more. Over drinks, cacahuètes (my favourite French word: peanuts)and lavender chocolate, we watched snippets of the famed Go to Goa video, reminiscing the boring but carefree days and oddly, missing MICA just a little.

Inspired, we made great plans to meet in a secret location some time in September. I'm not sure if it would eventually materialize, but it is something to hold on to, for I don't know when I would see them again if not this September. Unless of course Marine's plan to visit Indonesia and Romain's plan to get an internship in Singapore both materialize!


I've spoken about this countless times, but I am always a little surprised that these friendships fostered over endless cups of midnight chai in MICA have lasted the time and the distance. When we said goodbye in India in March, I was all teary when I hugged Marine and Romain, for I thought that it was the last time I was going to see them in a long while. Yet here I am in their country three months later, seeing them on a regular basis. It's surreal.


One last group hug. I wasn't teary at all this time for I knew deep down inside that I would see them again in a not so distant future. And remember, it's not au revoir, but à bientôt.

One last chicken cheese frankie.

One last chicken cheese frankie.


Our last lunch at MiCafe: The picture on the left is the renowned chicken cheese frankie Berty and Erwin are fans of. It is essentially marinated chicken and cheese wrapped inside a prata. The uninteresting sandwich is my lunch staple - mushroom and cheese if I'm having veg that day, chicken mayo if it is a non-veg day.



Clockwise from top left: Mehul, Anjalee, Niraj and Deepak.



The sweet girl's Taranum, the guy in black's Pranjal, and the other guy's Sumanyu the quiet giant.



Almost seems like yesterday
that we were flying paper planes
unleasing inner divas at drama class
and at Chhota molding clay.

Almost seems like yesterday
that we watched the sunrise from the Champa yard
sharing laughs and obscene jokes
amidst Ben Harper and cigarette smoke.

Almost seems like yesterday
that you taught me how to dance
throwing chapattis and tons more silly moves
drunken prancing was never such a hoot.

Alas yesterday has come and gone
And many tomorrows await
Thank you for the wonderful memories
Perhaps we'll meet again someday.



So my bags are almost packed, and we will drag our lazy asses down to the mess at 8:30 a.m. for one last authentic MICA breakfast - butter toast and chai.

And come 10 a.m., it's goodbye Silveroak, goodbye CCC buddies, goodbye MICA, and hello Mumbai.

Just for the record, I have shipped back an astounding 42kg worth of stuff (of which Erwin's books probably made up 8kg). Cost us a total of S$380, which really ain't that bad!

Sunshine between our toes.

Sunshine between our toes.


picture from inmagine.com

"I plopped face down
maybe the bliss won't fade away so soon
if I trapped my heart between my body and the bed."

Offbeat humor and the sweetest silly e-cards. Quite a few times now I've experienced bouts of pure happiness. Sparkling sunshine I wish I could capture and store in a bottle.

Time after time I've struggled to pen down the exact feeling, but words escape me.

I still don't quite know where we're driving towards, but I'm enjoying the ride with the wind in our hair and the sunshine between our toes.

P.s. To my many concerned friends, I am 3/4 done with my packing!
P.p.s. Facebook has been inaccessible from this campus of late, so I'll get back into the facebooking groove when I'm back in Singapore.

Packing woes.

Packing woes.



There are about a thousand jittery butterflies flitting about in my stomach, and I've awoken and tossed and turned too many times throughout the night to slip into proper slumber.

I can't figure out if it's the excitement of finally leaving MICA or the anxiety of all the packing that awaits that's keeping me awake. Perhaps a combination of both, in which case I'm gonna give the espresso industry a run for their caffeine-tinged money.

Three days till we leave the campus for good, and my room still looks very much inhabited. Clothes are still strewn across the chairs, my wardrobe's still stuffed to the brim, and my toiletries and knick knacks are still spilling over the dresser. Here, I should probably confess that I have acquired more barang barang than my other Singaporean counterparts.

What am I gonna do?

Okay, one step at a time. First, back to my morning routine to regain some balance. Off I go to the gym to do some thinking on the stationary bike.

Getting my groove back.

Getting my groove back.
music: kt tunstall - suddenly i see


picture from Roxy

It wasn't till B mentioned it in his email that it dawned on me that I had only 10 days left in MICA. 10 days before I bid this campus - so full of sunshine yet with so bleak a soul - goodbye. The weather's getting hotter with each passing day, and Erwin's speculating that the increasing heat could be the cause of our nasty moods. I'm not sure I agree with him, but my mood's improved significantly since my second-last post.

I must admit that I could have done a lot more with the insane amount of free time I had these few weeks. Like finishing up my many novels (less to lug home = less overweight luggage charges), watching the many movies on my hard drive, packing my luggage, and religiously practising yoga. I'd actually thought I'd be able to further my practice by coming to the land of yoga itself, but apart from a few downward dog poses a day, I've been embarrassingly undisciplined.

I would unroll my mat now if my stomach wasn't so full of oily fries and I weren't feeling so sleepy. For two nights now I've attempted sleeping at a more decent hour than the unearthly 4 or 5 a.m., but I've only succeeded in tossing around and tangling my sheets till past 3 a.m. And for two mornings now I've awoken before 9 a.m., and that leaves me very very sleep-deprived.

I've replied my emails, and gotten a firmer grasp of my Paris/Italy plans. I'm psyched, but the lethargy is kicking in. Time for a nap in the air-conditioned comforts of my room. A good respite from the scorching hot Indian summer.

Craving the pulse.

Craving the pulse.
feeling: bored, restless



The monotony is getting to me, and I fear I may go crazy keeping up with the art of doing nothing at all.

I know that I was waxing lyrical about the simple life just two months back, but that was when normal semester classes were on-going, the campus was filled with students, and our favourite Frenchies were still around.

Having spent the past two weeks since my return from Goa stuck on a campus that is starting to resemble a graveyard, and the fact that this graveyard is right smack in a city where there's nothing remotely interesting to do, I concede defeat. Doing nothing at all is damn hard work!

My timeless days have jelled into a mass of routine activities.

I wake up at 11:30 a.m. and head downstairs to the gym. After my shower at about 1:45 p.m., I flip flop my way over to Erwin's room and off we go to MiCafe (one of the independent stalls on campus, because we can't stand eating the slush they serve in the mess) where lunch is almost always a chicken cheese frankie for him. I'm a little less loyal in my choices, but I've been eating the mushroom cheese sandwich for a few days now.

At 2:30 p.m., we drag our bodies to the CCC lab for class. While it sometimes involves vaguely interesting activities like writing limericks or haikus, more often than not we are slumped in the back row, discretely surfing unrelated websites.

Class usually ends by 6:30p.m. (earlier if we're lucky or if the instructor's lazy), and we'll head to the mess for snacks. Snack-time usually involves butter toast (eaten Singaporean style - sprinkled with sugar) and a cup of milky chai, after which we'll head back to our rooms for more internet surfing/movie watching/reading.

At about 9:45 or 10 p.m., Nuria would tap on my door and we'd head down to dinner. On nights when we're feeling particularly adventurous, we'd head to the mess. Most nights however, we bypass the route to the mess and head straight to MiCafe. Dinner is almost always a bowl of chicken chilli garlic noodles for Erwin. For me, I alternate between the mushroom cheese omelette and vegetarian Manchurian fried rice, or if I am eating meat that day, Erwin's dinner choice. Nuria almost always chooses to torture her tastebuds with the mess food.

Post dinner, we head back to our rooms to resume our post-snack activities. And on nights where the monotony threatens to kill (almost daily), one of us caves in and gathers the others for chai at Chhota (this other independent stall that really doesn't rank high on hygiene, but it's open 24 hours unlike MiCafe, which closes by midnight these days).

The above routine may sound like heaven to stressed-out souls, especially those scrambling to meet deadlines and ace the upcoming exams, but I'm ready to leave this dome and come back to civilization and reality.

I'm 13 days from Mumbai and 19 days from home. I can't wait for Mumbai. All the negative comments about the place the locals have told me about - crawling traffic, bustling streets, crowds of people - sound like the perfect remedy for my case of monotony. Toss me back into the pulsating city life. I need to be around people again, before I morph into a social recluse.

Leaving the sunshine for fluorescent lights.

Leaving the sunshine for fluorescent lights.



The flights are booked, and I have had the very gratifying experience of delivering the news to the exchange coordinator's office. Erwin and I will leave MICA for Mumbai on 24 April, and we'll touchdown in Singapore sometime in the night on 30 April.

So this is it. After months of planning a revolution while silently fearing that we would be caged in this timeless prison until June, our homecoming plans are finally concrete.

The relief and exhilaration I had anticipated has yet to hit. Perhaps spending the past months in a limbo has desensitized me.

Each passing day in this now-quiet campus is a day closer to returning to the civilization of my memories.

Where sidewalks are properly paved, and there's no reason to fear having one's toes rolled over by passing vehicles.
Where the air (though not necessarily the freshest) does not contain lung-choking dust, and cars do not drive against the traffic flow.
Where breakfast choices extend beyond eggs and butter toast, and beef and alcohol are not sacred rarities.
Where Fridays are usually dinner-and-chick-flick-night, and weekends are actually a time for leisure.

I can think of the many other routines of my pre-Indian life, but if there's anything being in MICA and India has taught me, it would be getting stripped down to the bare basics and, as I reiterated several times in a lengthy email to my dad, growing up.

Unlikely as it may seem, there is something so wholesomely addictive about this simple life. Grand and dandy it may be, life in Singapore often constitutes too many choices. Cityhall or Orchard Road? Western or Thai? Swimming or beaching? Bus or taxi?

I'm looking forward to coming home, yet I can't say I really look forward to leaving. Oh the irony.

Road trippin' and intoxicated teetotallers.

Road trippin' and intoxicated teetotallers.

Raghu took me out on his bike yesterday to Gandhinagar, the capital city of Gujarat, to see the stepwells of Gujarat and the famed Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple. We set off at 4 p.m. with the sun on our faces and the wind in our hair, and of course the infamous Ahmedabad dust clogging our pores.



After I got used to the momentum of riding out the many humps and potholes on the road, I stopped hanging onto the seat/his shoulders (whichever instinct had me grabbing onto first) for dear life and got a little trigger happy capturing our shadows.


After about an hour, we left dusty Ahmedabad behind and arrived at the stepwells of Gujarat, a seven-storey architectural beauty.


Exploring the damp and musty depths required nimble maneuvering. One of the well-watchers told Raghu that someone had fallen to his death a few days earlier. It sounds a little implausible, but the structure does have several potentially treacherous nooks and crannies.





Perilous conditions aside, the stepwells were indeed awe-inspiring. The filtering sunlight had shadows dancing around the columns, and navigating the narrow steps had me feeling a little like Lara Croft in Tomb Raider (yes yes minus the double-D boobs).


Shadow and light. Spot us?


We made an impromptu stop at a wildlife sanctuary/zoo, where I saw Bambi-like deers.


We arrived at the Swaminarayan Akshardham Temple at twilight, and I was astounded by its beauty. Photography is prohibited, so here's an official picture from Getty Images. My first thought upon seeing the lighted-up temple was - sheesh, this looks like Disneyland.




Dinner was at Hyderabadi Biryani, one of the only two restaurants Raghu actually patronizes in Ahmedabad. Over the faultless chicken dum biryani, eaten with raita (the white sauce) and gravy (the orange sauce); we exchanged recipes, and I think I should be able to whip up a dish of dhal and lemon fried rice when I return to Singapore.

I can't fathom how we managed the space after our biryani dinner, but we stopped at a street stall for pretty excellent kulfi-tasting ice-cream. That was also when the rain started, and we rode the 20-minute road back to MICA in bone-chilling winds and icy pelts of rain.


After a hot shower to chase away the chills, I headed over to the Champa hostel with Erwin and Nuria, where the CCC and RCM peeps were celebrating Himanshu's birthday. That's the birthday boy in red and grey.


A semi-sober Niraj, just a few drinks away from going topless and pawing Erwin.


People in various states of intoxication.

With alcohol, the quiet became chatty, the chatty became chattier, and the irritating became amusing. There was quite a bit of pawing, fighting and kissing going on, and some were caught in hilariously compromising positions. All in good fun, all in good fun. Happy birthday Himanshu!