Friday, October 23, 2015

Brightening Up

Serangoon Road and environs can generally be relied upon to add more than a splash of colour to life, and in the run-up to Deepavali you can multiply that by ten. Noi and I were down there this evening to buy some cards for Hindu friends celebrating the festival of light, coming away with a wonderfully garish one for our favourite gardener Devan. As soon as we set eyes on it we both knew it was for him.

Then it was off to the Mustapha Centre where Noi was looking for various sundries in a place that offers just about every sundry you can think of plus a few more in at least ten varieties of each. I heard one Chinese guy expostulate to his lady friend, This is sooo Asian... I love it. I knew exactly what he meant.

Surprisingly the crowds we half expected didn't show up, so for once we weren't pushing our way through to get to the check-out. My guess is that the haze was keeping sensible people indoors, the air quality having moved into the distinctly unhealthy. It's been particularly worrying seeing pictures of how bad the situation is in Indonesia, whence the foul air originates. They're now evacuating those at risk, children and the like, from the worst areas - and about time too. Perhaps those companies responsible for the land clearances might now consider refraining from setting their country on fire.

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