Rainbow Cake, Nov. 19 Special for Us!

I have been eyeing the Rainbow Cake for quite a while – since I joined Genesys in May 2015, as a shop near my office in Raffles Place was enticingly showcasing it. Anything colourful tends to catch my fancy!

It was only yesterday I could leave all self-induced resistance aside and get my hand on it, testing my palate. Yesterday was my mother-in-law’s (Mary Nizzie Bai – photo below that of the cake)  birth anniversary and that served as a perfect excuse for it. I never got to see her as she had passed away young even when my wife was a kid.

Hardly the sentimental type, her own memories of my MIL are faint. But who wouldn’t miss a loving mom!

Beginning of Indira Gandhi’s Birth Centenary

November 19 is thus a special day for us and yesterday also marked the start of the year-long centenary celebrations of late Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

Possibly the finest PM the country has ever had, despite the Emergency scar!

Yesterday was also the birthday of a close friend.

Back to the Rainbow Cake, we supplemented it with a Christmas Plum Cake, made in Australia.

My elder daughter is firm that a product from an Australian company tastes better when it is made Down Under than anywhere else. That’s borne out of her experience living there for three years during her graduation.

G Joslin Vethakumar

Emotionally Unavailable..!!

Nonsense or a Generation Gap?

 

I had some room for a sprinkling of nostalgia and a little bit of amusement today, though I didn’t have to reflect on something too far back. To be precise, I harked back to 1994, the year that I took up a job in Singapore soon after my second daughter was born.

 

To be even more precise, I attended the 80th birthday celebrations of aunty Margaret, mother-in-law of a friend, N S Kumar, who is a senior management consultant here. But for him and his family, my early days in Singapore could have been a nightmare. I was virtually camping at his place the first four months of my stay in Singapore — until my wfe and kids joined me.

 

I was for all practical reasons just like another member of his family as I tagged along with them wherever they went. All my weekends were spent with them and during the weekdays, almost every night I had dinner there. This family has been a great source of strength for me and my family here.

 

Girl Raises Eyebrows: Naturally, the occasion offered some fond recollections of my early days here. We still do keep in close touch but my travels and his own busy schedules often come into conflict. By an interesting coincidence, Kumar and I were both born on May 26, with him being 11 years older.

 

Going back to the party, I noticed something amusing there. I caught a girl (probably in her early teens) sporting a T-shirt with the words —  "EMOTIONALLY UNAVAILABLE." I wondered what message she was trying to convey with that. Maybe she was just trying to say: "Keep away from me guys, I am attached!"

 

But then there are bound to be some naughty guys who may be tempted to ask: "So, if you are emotionally unavailable, are you available otherwise?" I don’t think the message was provocative, just inane for someone so young.

 

She was there with her parents. Honestly, parents need to draw a line somewhere and refrain from giving their children unbridled freedom. It is apt to quote Poet Gurudev here: "Emancipation from the bondage of the soil is no freedom for the tree.’

 I refuse to accept any generation gap here, this was downright silly. Maybe she was just trying to ape Sania Mirza who also raises eyebrows with her frivolous messages across the chest! 

 

–G Joslin Vethakumar

 

 

Celebrations that Transcend Faiths — Happy Father’s Day

If the only celebrations the world knew were those associated with special days such as Mother’s Day (and not Christmas, Hari Raya/Ramzan, Deepavali, etc) we will have been living in a far less violent world than what we have to contend with now. I don’t wish to waste my time by dipping into Utopian thinking but I can hardly resist pointing out the irony in religion being the bane of society at large.

Well, today is Father’s Day, a day that began well when I woke up to warm greetings from my two daughters who also gave me cute little gifts. Churches in Singapore and in the West have this nice tradition of handing out little goodies on such special days but I skipped service today as my mother is returning to India this evening.

In India, until I moved out of the country in 1994, the only day dedicated to a special bunch of people was Children’s Day. It falls on November 14, commemorating the birth anniversary of India’s first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, who had a special fondness for children.

But in Singapore I was exposed to a different set of days – Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Teacher’s Day. But Children’s Day celebrations, strangely though, were muted compared to the rest.

Even in India now, while all of these celebrations are pursued rather aggressively Children’s Day appears to have been shoved to the background. It is Valentine’s Day that is hogging the limelight, something that is being frowned upon by some outfits such as the Shiv Sena who feel that it represents an erosion in the values of the country.

Holi and Raksha Bandhan: However, some traditionally Indian events such as Raksha Bandhan, a day when young girls tie bands around the wrists of their brothers to celebrate the abiding ties among siblings. But they also do it for guys they consider brothers. Understandably, that is a day some guys dread since they will not like to slip into brotherly mode with girls whose hearts they are after! Then there is Holi, a Harvest festival that is particularly a North Indian tradition where revelry centres on splashing coloured water on all and sundry.

Different Days, Different Countries: But some special days are observed on different days in different countries. Children’s Day, for instance, is universally observed on November 20, but in India it is on November 14 and in Japan on May 5. But a lack of universality or consensus on such innocuous issues is not because of any insular reflections, rather some such observances are intrinsically woven around some cultural considerations.

Generally, I tended to agree with critics that all these days were invented by companies in the gifts and greeting cards business. However, in reality every such day has an avowed purpose and an interesting story behind it. I just realized that Father’s Day, too, has its roots to a little story, emanating from the U.S., as you will see in the following link: http://www.holidays.net/father/story.htm

–G Joslin Vethakumar

One more year rolls by…

Fickle, vacillating to the point of nitpicking, sensitive, impulsive and a wild appetite for risk-taking. These are not necessarily positive traits one will like to be associated with, but the Geminian that I am (not that I believe in the Zodiacal character) they have coiled around me with an unyielding python-like grip. Just as openness and broadmindedness in an increasingly jingoistic and fanatical world and a thirst for knowledge have!

While whether I believe in the Zodiacal character or not is immaterial, it can be fun to know what the stars foretell. Just check out http://www.novareinna.com/constellation/gemini.html and http://www.astrologycom.com/gemini.html for some interesting insights into the Geminian psyche.

Am I nuts today to be talking about myself and about my zodiac sign? Perhaps, I always am, but today I guess it makes sense for me to go on an ego trip. After all, today is my birthday. The day began well, with an SMS and a call from two of my very good, globetrotting friends, Grace and Solomon, from Bangalore.

My mother also reached Singapore yesterday to be with me and my family here for a few weeks, this being vacation time for my children. Then, there were a few surprise greeting messages from friends in India, Singapore, Mexico, New Zealand and the U.S., thanks to services from www.birthdayalarm.com and a few other sites. May 26, coincidentally, also marks the birthday of another good friend of mine in Singapore, N S Kumar, an academic and management consultant. Wound up the day with a Webcam-chat with my dad, brother and his family in India.

Summer is when I love to give myself and the family a refreshing break from the mundane routine of monotony and stress. Summer in Singapore is winter in Australia, which is exactly where we went last June. But this June I am not sure if we will be able to get some such luxury. Perhaps a weekend trip to an Indonesian island!

The digression aside, I guess birthdays serve no other purpose than reminding us that we are getting older – though not necessarily wiser. As time flies (couldn’t help the cliché!), we may just be dumped aside as a fossil! But then the Gemini sign is said to be associated with communicators and, more interestingly, youth!

For the record, Queen Victoria, English poet Ben Jonson, American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, American poet Walt Whitman, English novelists Thomas Hardy and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Irish writer W B Yeats, John F Kennedy, Henry Kissinger, Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Bob Dylan, Clint Eastwood, Saul Bellow, Ian Fleming and Angeline Jolie are among the prominent Geminians.

— and Joslin Vethakumar — so much for my silly ego trip! Hopefully, this is not my only trip this summer! 

–Joslin Vethakumar