A-Z of Singapore - H for Haze

This is perhaps the most apt entry for this post, something live, something concurrent

Every year, around the dry season (June - October), farmlands in neighbouring Indonesia are burnt down to pave way for palm oil planting. Around this time, the farmers practice the traditional slash and burn way of clearing the farmlands and this causes a rise in pollution levels in Singapore

Over the past few days, the whole of Singapore has been covered in smog and last two days since, it has risen to intolerable, like there's a mass Ganapathi Homam going on, as someone joked

All around, you can see people sporting swanky masks, with fancy names like N95 and so on, that I really got to wondering if this was the case when SARS hit the island big time ten years back.Almost every person on the streets has been wearing one and when you don't wear one, you feel a little out of place. No, seriously

While diplomatic tensions between both countries has escalated and some sort of a blame game is being played, the lovely Singaporeans go out of their way to help one another, distributing free masks being one of the many ways

The Pollution Index soared up to its highest ever (401) yesterday, with that being categorized as hazardous to live in, if sustained. But thankfully, it has been coming down and right now, as I am typing this, everything seems clear outside.

Lets hope the problem doesn't last long

CBC : Six Word Memoir

The following is a part of Chennai Bloggers Club Six word memoir tag where one runs a quick rewind on his/her life and comes up with a simple yet totipotent sentence having just six words that reflects on his/her journey

After much deliberation, I come up with this, something that I firmly believe in.

A choosy pessimist with perennial optimism

I thank Sriram Acharya for passing the baton on to me. Sriram blogs here and calls himself a "A Son, a brother, a friend, a HR professional , a science aficionado. In their respective order of importance !"

I now pass on the journey to dear friend Vid who blogs here. Vid is an amazing singer, I vouch for that. In fact, her dad is a great singer too. You should definitely hear her sing classical music. What a mesmerizing voice the girl has. I also like her blog's theme and design. She calls it the Pensieve, I am sure she was inspired by Dumbledore using it. But why don't you check out for yourself?

55 fiction - The One Night Stand

Two bodies became one, entwined. As we passionately made love, the whole night seemed eternal. Positions interchanged, over and over again. We never seemed to wear out. Six months apart can do wonders. One final time, we came together. For, he had to go away again. "Happy birthday, love", he said, drifting off to sleep.

A-Z of Singapore - G for Geylang

When I decided to take up the A-Z, I knew what I was going to write up for G. The choice was pretty obvious. G for Geylang - the red light district of Singapore.

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Initially built on reclaimed land to build a commercial airport during the British days, Geylang has seen much transformation since. Current day Geylang road has been built in a strategic manner. The main road is divided into North and South sections (called Lorong, in Malay). The beauty of this road is it retains the colonial style buildings, cramped one right next to another

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While during the day time, Geylang looks like any other place, with people carrying on with their usual day jobs, come night (more specifically post 10 PM), the area completely transforms itself to what some may term paradise.

Although prostitution is legal, related activities including public solicitation are not. Various spas and massage centres do exist, that cater to various needs.

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That said, people here sure do know how to enjoy life - something we really must learn from Singaporeans, how exactly to enjoy