Singapore Singapore !!!!!

sometimes the cue is just a word ....for me it was Singapore ....read the name of this country on a post ...from a page I follow .....and it made me go on thinking about the myriad Singapore connections and stories related to Singapore for me ....

first and foremost it's blood relations .... two of my maternal aunts used to stay in that part of the world ....they were married to Chartered Accountants who were working in Malaysia and then one shifted to Singapore ... in fact some of my cousins born there have dual citizenship ....some part of the gold jewellery for my mother's wedding came from Singapore and I used to wear it once I was going to college ....it was unique and got me questions from friends and faculty too... one maternal Aunt shifted her kids to a Boarding School in the city my parents are from...when they shifted from Malaysia to Singapore ...my uncle was a part of the committee that was heading  the Malayalee community there 

since the school my cousins were going to had a convent too ....my cousin sister wanted to become a Nun ...she went to the extent of taking a steel rounder and marking a cross on her palm ...which led to a lot of worrying by family and needed medical care for quite some time ...she was teased quite a bit ...when she fell in love and got married soon after graduation ...the standard dialogue was a pun on the word ''Mother''

sadly however ....her brother hated being in hostel ...felt abandoned and got into drug addiction ....a very good looking person who not only ruined himself .... he was also the reason his parent passed away before their time ...his example made me very focused in my youth ....plus during my first pregnancy when I started getting a huge craving for liquor ...I used to think of him and the alcoholic uncle in my Dad's house and even later ...when tempted to drink ...during my lows in the last place I stayed in Assam ....I would read or write to get a hold on myself...substance abuse and how horrendous they are I had seen up close

that cousin who took to drugs... is the reason I decided to quit Tea Life and leave Assam and come to Pune ....I knew for Certain ....my children would Never be put in a hostel ...

I had cousins who were in Singapore from the paternal side too ...once they had come home on their way to Mumbai and I got to know a bit about the education system there ....as my distant relative was teaching in a college there and she would get called for paper correction even after shifting back to India ...

then thanks to Parry Agro ....I got to go see Singapore and I found that Malaysia is even more cleaner than Singapore

here in India people are always citing the cleanliness standards of Singapore ...when I went there I found Malaysia a tad better ...specially since no one ever spoke of how things were in Malaysia

the next time I got to hear the word Singapore was when I was teaching in a pvt college near my house ....I had to teach the students of Nanyang Technical University ...NTU ....I was given to take the very first lecture in economics for them ....and I was told the Importance of the Pvt University getting into a Tie Up with NTU Singapore ...scary that so much of hype gets added to the pressure of taking a lecture for foreign students ...

I took the first lecture on Indian Economy in my style ....with facts and theory and Bollywood !!!! got to know quite a few details about the Singaporean way of life from those students on an exchange program as I had 11 lectures with them ....each was of 1 and a 1/2 hour duration ....I got to know that there is compulsory defence training for boys there ....I got to know this as I was soooooo very impressed by the Total and Complete Discipline in class .....whereas the kids I was teaching in the private college were a Mad lot ...who never stopped fidgeting !!!!

that is when the Singapore kids told me how the military training gave them the capacity to sit quietly and that they could be thinking of XYZ and MRF ...however they knew how to Look Attentive ....I remember throwing my head back and Laughing Out Really Loudly at their honesty ....

however when we were discussing money and avenues of investment ....they told me how unlike in India ....the Post Office Savings were a risk free and lucrative place to park excess funds ...which was a quite a new thing for me ....we rarely sit and teach students a parallel or comparative study of Post Office Savings in countries in the ASEAN region ....we only do a comparative study of banking in the UK and USA ...so I got to know of that one snippet life that was different ...along with the way the govt functioned was discussed by me and those kids ...

a very important thing those students told me was about Style of teaching ...we Profs in India would teach a lot more as compared to the style of teaching in Singapore ...we tend to spoon feed a huge amount ....this was reiterated by students back from higher studies abroad too ...however we never changed our style to teaching here in India ...spoon feeding is a way of life ....
surprisingly those kids liked the biscuits in India as compared to what was available in Singapore ...which made me smile because ...when Parry Agro had taken it's executives to Singapore and Malaysia ....the executives ended up having to pay for items consumed from the fridge in the room .....as people went overboard ...and finishing Everything as far as food was concerned in the rooms in Malaysia....which prompted the management to change it's policy in Singapore .... earlier the company had a policy of allowing people to order food in their rooms and executives went overboard and had one too many drinks and food too was wasted ....ergo ....from the time I was travelling with the executives for a conference ....food was always served in a buffet in a common area ....no more wasting of food and overindulgence of food ... when we get liberties ...we take them for granted and then Rules change ...

and that brings me to the last time I was in touch with Singapore ....in July 2017 my elder kid competed to get a chance to go to Germany ....this was after the Hoffenhiem thing was totally over ....thanks to Radio Mirchi and Bajaj Allianz ...my elder kid tried for a week long session with Bayen Munich ... he was among the Top 60 footballers in India who were selected after numerous rounds of elimination ....my child was selected on the basis of a video and votes his video got and also for the content of the video ...

he did not play well on selection day though .....his team was the last one to play and he had honey with his sandwiches and got cramps by the time he got to play ...Big learning experience and we swore off honey before matches ....however he loved the exposure and learning ...then started the prodding to call up football clubs around the world ....

I called PSG in Bangalore and a few other clubs in India and abroad ... we knew that their favourite club has a coaching centre in Dubai ...however they had to be residing in Dubai to get to train .... then the 'Imports from Mars' saw Singapore as the nearest place their favourite club has a coaching centre ....and I had to make calls ....IOH ...I said now that you have seen me make calls ...why don't the two of you call ....I will top up your talk time .... after a lot of prodding and them not hearing a word I said ....I only called up the coaching centre of the club in Singapore and the rules were the Same !!!!

one had to be residing in Singapore to apply ....and both the boys got down to studying and finishing their academic year and counting the days left to shift base to Bahrain ....

just one word and so many things come to mind ... no :)