'All the time you're laughing'

It's true what they say about unrequited love. I would know. It definitely wasn't 'love at first sight'. But it was something. There were sparks. We hardly knew each other. Well, ok that’s not true but like star-crossed lovers in every high school movie, we existed in two completely separate worlds; one the prom queen and the other, a hopeless dreamer, nowhere near her league.

What nobody tells you about working in the public sector is that it is a tonic for creative output, of the imaginative kind. After I had spent countless hours pouring over every inch of Cracked’s articles, arming myself with crucial knowledge about how animals are smarter than us and how 7 famous people gave it to Harvey Weinstein, I decided to channel my boundless energies towards my growth. I felt the world could do with another Will Hunting, Pakistan-style.

I was going back to school.

The last half of 2016 was a blur as I juggled time between my nine to five public sector job and applications. During that time, Pakistan Post probably recorded a spike in activity as Professors and ex-bosses were bludgeoned over the head through a hailstorm of letters until they finally remembered the backbencher/ slacker in their class/organization as something of a ‘misunderstood genius, who had great potential’ in their letters of reference.

I had categorized my applications into three categories; dream, decent, and duh. On a whim I decided to put in a fourth category; Dream on. Guess who went under there, yup, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

It was a non-descript March evening, I was contemplating ‘killing off one of my imaginary relatives with a rare disease/tragedy’ that would be shocking/believable enough to get my leave application approved, while drowning in file work, that I noticed an email from NUS explaining about the video interview stage that I had qualified for.

I have it on good authority that it was the first time government officials were treated to an impromptu break-dance session on the 6th floor of the Ministry of Commerce building that Michael would’ve been proud of.

Shamon!

And the rest was a blur; it seemed destiny had finally decided to bare it’s fangs into something other than a snarl. All roads were finally pointing to the ‘Red Dot’. On the day of the interview, the mic on my prehistoric official laptop that had grown up thinking it was deaf and mute and only spoke in sentences ending with ‘Your kind perusal is requested’ and ‘Vide para 435 on page 982’, decided to kick the bucket when asked to emit sound. The autopsy confirmed it as a massive stroke, stage fright most likely, but I digress. Just as I was about to give up my dreams of Singapore Slinging (full disclosure: I have no idea what that means, but, it was the only cool-sounding Singapore related phrase I knew at that time) , I got a call, telling me that under the circumstances, my interview would be conducted over the phone.

Destiny baby!

The next few days zoomed by in a blur of Samosa chaat orgies with my colleagues as we danced around tie-burning bonfires and shouted Jiye Bhutto and Aik Jaleby tael mein Nawaz Shareef jail mein slogans. For research purposes, I poured over the Varun Dhawan, Aalia Bhatt starrer Badrinath ki Dulhania multiple times to get first-hand and reliable information about life in Singapore. By the time I was done the CD looked less like a light-hearted rom-com and more like an abused slasher victim. But it all seemed worth it as I landed in Changi Airport-which was exactly the way it sounded in Punjabi. After a 36 hour no-sleep cycle, in the cheapest flight money could buy, I got off the plane hopped up on caffeine. It was with bloodshot eyes and the worst of expectations that I approached the immigration and customs checkpoint. Before I could blink twice, I was done.

Sensing some sort of mistake, I hung back and tried to reason with the police officer that there had to be some sort of a mistake. I hadn’t been harassed yet, or thought about cutting in line or had an argument with the guy in front about whether plants cried too when you ate them or entertained any thought of intimidating the inspector by threatening to call one of my contacts. They hadn’t even strip-searched me, damnit. I had bought brand new Jockeys for the occasion. All I got was another nod and a smile.

Geez.

On the topic of accommodation, me and my family (they would be joining me after a week) had decided to live off-campus so that we could fully experience life in Singapore. We had tried looking at apartments and rooms off the internet but did not want to seal the deal until we had physically verified the place. As a short-term arrangement, we had Airbnb’ed (is that word?) a room for the first month. The owner remarked in passing that if anyone asked, I should say that I was a cousin of her husband's. Finally, something bordering illegal, noiiiice.

The next morning, I woke up in a huff to find a way to get to Bukit Timah for the first day of orientation. As I still didn’t possess an MRT card yet, I called for a cab (knowing fully well my wife would kill me for this extravagancy; we were on a strict budget having sold off everything not nailed or tied to the floor, but extreme measures called for some splurging) via the Grab app, which in an ironic twist, was later grabbed by Uber, but I digress.

My driver was a young engineering student named Leo who told me that the job market was due for a rebound and wished me luck. One thing everyone had told me that Singapore was spotless. That you were banned from eating chewing gum. One person, who had a one hour transit stop in Singapore, which made him the authority on the history of the place, had challenged me to find a speck of dust anywhere.

So, I looked, scanning my roads and buildings as they whooshed by for a Yahan peshab karna manna hai (It is illegal to piss here) or the more direct Dekho Kuttay ka bacha peshab kar raha hai (Look at the son of a b@#$% peeing) or even the more artsy Paki-Banksy, Jackson Pollock paan spit.

Nothing.

Looking outside the window for the first time properly, I was instead taken aback by the thick foliage and the abundance of trees. They kept reminding me of the jungle scenes in the Disney cartoon Tarzan and I constantly had to peer closely, hoping to see a half-naked man swinging from the trees, until vanity kicked in and convinced me that Tarzan had just stepped off the plane from Pakistan and was on his way to meet college. It was first day of orientation at LKYSPP.

On my fifth day in Singapore, proudly holding my newly acquired card, I got on at the Woodlands MRT with Queen’s Under Pressure blaring in my headphones and joined the teeming hundreds in the morning rush hour.

I was living the dream.

The place I had rented out for the first month was at Woodlands which turned out to be an almost ninety-minute, two-train commute during the morning rush hour. In the coming days, I grew to appreciate the pain and fatigue as it taught me a lot of things that I needed to learn. With each day I would incorporate a new lesson into my daily routine.

First and foremost, I learned to wear shorts and slippers for most occasions, first impressions be damned. If I wasn’t sloshing in my clothes, watering the plants with each step by the time I got to where I was going, that was good enough for me. Then I learned to carry only the most essential items in my bag; my foray into minimalism. I had realized from watching my fellow commuters that distraction helped. So, I needed a good playlist, or some gaming app or something to read, although keeping track of the line while being jostled and shoved and sometimes accidentally shoving your phone in someone else’s Mount Mordor, had its own complications.

In the spirit of ‘passing it forward’ , here then, in no particular order, are some thoughts on my first impression of coming to Singapore and LKYSPP:

Diversity thy name is LKYSPP

Group discussion was an activity greatly encouraged in all classes. It seemed almost like a phobia with my hosts, dealing with the multiple ethnicities residing within. They even had a restriction on the number of residents of any specific ethnicity in a specified locality, which seemed a bit Big Brother-ish but hey, to each their own. Coming to a different country and not knowing anyone, I was lucky enough to find camaraderie amongst like-minded individuals hailing from Mongolia, Ghana, Germany, Switzerland, Azerbaijan, China, Thailand, Zimbabwe, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Canada, Bangladesh, and India. Never could I have imagined that one day I would be able to name so many nationalities in one sentence without one of them accusing the other of inciting violence, stealing water, minerals, oil, sponsoring terror, or encroachment. Well yeah, there was the time when Richard decided to cook naked and the food dripped off the ceiling for the next few days, and others but let’s not get into that. On the whole, I took that as a sign of great things to come. And it has not betrayed me so far.

Commute like a local

There is a science to commuting, and it goes something like this:

1. Perfection is relative. Even the MRT can get congested from time to time. Plan accordingly and set out on your journey with a cushion period for Plan B.
2. Always have a good playlist, nice headphones and plenty of life in your smartphone.
3. Less is more unless you’re going for a job interview, a T-shirt, shorts, and sandals will do and keep you cool and cheerful.
4. Rain is a fact of life. Accept it and move on. An umbrella is the difference between making it to class dry and getting soaked to your bones.
5. There is no need to unleash your inner Ultimate Warrior to get a seat on the MRT. As long as there are no old people, children, pregnant ladies standing, you can sit on an empty seat. Just make sure no one had choped (reserved) it. It’s the Singapore version of calling Shotgun and simply placing any personal item such as a box of tissues gives you first chop-ing
6. Don’t try to be a Yaya Papaya and eat at the fancy Michellin starred places or pretty soon you’ll be calling home for money or making border runs to nearby Malaysia for grocery. Contrary to popular opinion, economical and budget-friendly living is not a myth on the ‘Red Dot’. You just have to kowtow to the Missus and not pout and sulk when she doesn’t let you order a second round of Ben and Jerry’s.

It doesn’t look odd to be carrying a tripod or a selfie stick, get used to it. Singapore is filled with nooks and crannies that are a photog’s delight. As I got a crash course in photography, learning about the ‘rule of thirds’ from my irate Missus as she posed beside murals and water-sprouting lions and pristine beaches, I noticed a barefoot, matted hair bearded, tie and dyed t-shirt wearing hippie checking his pictures on his latest Mac and realized that I wasn’t the only one on Orchard Road jostling to get a decent snap for memory.

Do not bother to dress according to weather forecasts. Always keep something warm along. Even if it’s sunny and warm outside, the classrooms have their own mood swings and they go from freezing to chilly. A sweater in your campus locker is the difference between good class participation and senseless chattering.

Steve- My brother-from-another-mother

I met Steve, who works in the drinks counter at The Summit Canteen when I was still homesick and missed talking in Urdu. As my turn came at the counter, he looked at me and said in perfect Urdu Tum kesay ho? (‘How are you?’). I don’t think I could have grinned any wider had I just won the Nobel Prize for Game Theory. Over the ensuing days, weeks and months, Steve and I got to catch up daily, in Urdu. Incredibly, he had picked up the language simply through daily interactions with the students during meal timings. Through Steve, I was able to find a way to get over my homesickness and maintain a link with my mother tongue. On a separate note, if you happen to catch Steve in a bad mood and hear him say Teri maan di @#$%  I’m going to deny any knowledge and plead the fifth.

Food was another concern. After one of my study group partners saw me hurriedly munching on an overpriced muffin in between lectures, she opened a whole new world of economic foods; the hawker center. Now that was shiok at first bite. My first munch of the murtabak and I knew this was love. Cappuccino came to be replaced by Kopi or, when there was a lot of reading to be done, Milo Dinosaur.

While we’re on the topic of food though. I don’t think I ever got used to the ease with which people could bring their lunch during lectures. Call it the multiple ass-whooping’s or the ear-pinches or the hours spent outside the Principal’s office for munching in class, but I never got comfortable with eating in class, preferring instead to regale my classmates with the Monty Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra as it played in my stomach during the back to back three-hour lectures.

The first time I got off at the Botanic Garden MRT station, I did not know how to get to the Bukit Timah campus. Someone had told me of a path through the Garden but they might as well have told me to forage through the Amazon Rainforest. As I dodged angry black Swans, jumped over basking turtles, sidestepped joggers and dogs on leashes, I heard someone calling out to me. I turned and saw a gentleman who, by his looks and complexion seemed to remind me of home. As it turned out, he was from India and in the MPM program. Sensing in my hunched shoulders and confused look a fellow newbie, he guided me through the garden to campus entrance via the Jacob Ballas Children’s garden. In the coming days, I would be amazed at these random acts of kindnesses off and on. It never ceased to amaze me as to how given the current global scenario, here in Singapore people still are blind to racial and religious prejudices, for the most part. As the initial euphoria lifted from my eyes, I did get conscious of the sullen looks and mutterings from some of my fellow commuters who seemed to resent us, foreigners, for clogging up their public transport system and other facilities. But hey, we’re all humans, everyone is flawed if you look deep and long enough, so stop staring!

We finally moved into a one-room portion in an HDB in Ang Mo Kio which was owned by Raj who seemed a decent guy who espoused spiritualism and generosity of mind and spirit. Over the next ten months, Raj exposed more of his true nature, literally-by parading around the apartment in his neon-colored spandex, hairy arms standing on tiptoes trying to catch a whiff of non-existent breeze- and figuratively, as he brought in more tenants, restricted our movements outside in the lounge, monitored our electricity usage and made us sweep and clean every single part of his three-bedroom apartment that seemed to contain items from the start of the Great Mutiny of 1857. It was a wake-up call for me and my wife, well me mostly, since I had okayed the apartment without her consent. But we learned important lessons even during such trying and testing times. Through our co-tenants, a South Indian couple, we learned humility and love as they cooked, cleaned and looked after us time and time again inspite of their multiple jobs and hectic schedules. At the end of the year, when Raj refused to hand over the security deposit, coming up with some fictitious scratches on his kitchen utensils which his wife had brought with her in marriage as dowry (how do I know? I read the engraving, that’s how) and demanded that I pay him in damages, I chalked it up to one bad seed and vowed not to let it mar our overall experience. The moment when I finally knew I had accepted Singapore into my heart came one night when my wife and I were watching a movie on my laptop in the lounge. When our co-tenant, who had just returned from work and was trying to sleep in his stuffy room, came storming out and said ‘All the time you’re laughing, I need to sleep’, I found myself replying in perfect Singlish, Can Lah!