musings

It was Monday. She dined at Marche with three friends and mrs naidu. They saw each other maybe twice a year.

What to say?

He had just came back from trips around the world. She was a scholar studying in norway, the other had been a president of a student council. High fliers, good in what they did. Herself, she had just been a netballer in school.
Listen to their ambitions. He wants to major in economics or business; probably earn lots of money. She wants to be a doctor. The other, a speech pathologist. As for herself, all she wanted right now was to go back to chiang mai and see the children. hah. She had no career ambitions. Find a good guy, settle down and live happily ever after. Lovey dovey and all that.
It was easy to feel inferior. Sitting around the table next to the humungous fake tree with autumn leaves [notwithstanding the fact that it was January and that Singapore has no seasonal changes anyway], the entire place bathed with soft lights… To look at them and compare. Them, she, Them, she. Two of them would honestly have been admired by the Singapore government. The other was less spectacular, but even he knew the ways of the world.

They hadn’t talked very much this time. Conversation was at the beginning limited to gossip around their old friends whom they haven’t seen for years, and common grouses about how old they were getting. This guy turned gay, the other bisexual; could Muslims be gay? What? He’d converted to Christianity? Oh. Then mrs naidu’s husband dropped in, and they started talking about shah rhul khan and legolas- she naturally got rather high at that and consequently sprouted truckloads of nonsense which kept the rest extremely entertained.
But nothing deep, nothing real. Maybe it might have been, but no one would have allowed the personal to be aired. So it was touch and go, touch and go. Knives waving about dangerously here and there, forks enthusiastically brandished every now and then, mostly in mock anger. But fingers did point once for real while accusations rose. About who hadn’t kept in touch with whom, and whose fault it was. Their accusations. Not hers. She hadn’t been part of that. Neither had he and mrs naidu, actually. Except that he had to open his mouth. She had cringed in disgust at his cocksure ways. She thought that had been a real betrayal of friendship. She had wanted to slap him for the other’s sake.

So there it was, touch and go, make the flow. Be nice, be adult, be nostalgic, be fun. Act serious, play real.

On the way home she mused some more. One of them was fretful because she’d broken curfew. How bad could it get? Don’t worry. You don’t want to know, she’d muttered back. And her mom didn’t wait ten minutes at the interchange for her daughter who had broken curfew; the former called to say she was going home first. The significance? Now the daughter had to face her father’s wrath alone, unalleviated as it might have been with the presence of the other parent. She’d wanted to ask why the parent couldn’t wait. It was just ten minutes. And surely the mother would have realised that the daughter’s arriving home with or without her would make a difference. That she had the power to ease some of her daughter’s worry and fear? Or was there a good reason for it? She couldn’t think of any, but maybe there was. After all, families function differently. Her mom would have waited two hours if she had to, she knew. But no one would have asked that. She was just thinking too much, and too personally to intrude.

But what if you’re a high flyer in school? Why do your parents insist on science? On medicine? Why can’t you be a speech pathologist to help your niece who has difficulties? Aren’t your parents proud of you? Won’t they trust you enough to know?

But she didn’t ask. It wouldn’t have been of any use anyway.
More questions.

But what if you are a scholar? Why does your family insist on science? On medicine? Why is it that whatever you do is never enough for them? You have done so much. And what you have gone through all these years…
It’s okay. You can always stay over. Both daddy and mommy said it was okay. (: But you must be a good girl. heh.



Sometimes one reaches out to the other, and in spite of the gulf in between that separates by reason of experience, of situation, of consequence, one connects.