A dear colleague is off to work in Singapore for a few months and yours truly, who has lived in Singapore for more than her fair share of time, was duly called upon to impart her wisdom on how to make a great impression on Singaporean business associates. After my attempts to convince him that adding a lah to every other sentence would make him an immediate darling of the Singapore office fell flat, I was forced to oil a certain part of my brain that had begun to rust (my last post on Singapore was quite some time back) and give some decent sounding advice on how to navigate the landmine that is the Singapore and the Singapore business landscape (ok, I admit, I love to exaggerate and terrify people on that front - it works so beautifully every time, especially when you mention capital punishment and caning).

Since I had to rack my brains anyway, I thought I might as well put it down in here, so that the poor souls who google for Singapore business etiquette would have something real to read (the one that you get now tells you that you should always be punctual in Singapore! Maybe my expectations have been raised by Germans, but if you are going to heed the be punctual advice for Singapore, you should also carry a book with you forever, so that you have something to read when you wait for your Singaporean friends to arrive. (Don’t be too late either - following the IST (Indian Stretchable Time) will get you into trouble in Leoland. There is just the right amount of lateness that you should follow in Singapore (which varies depending on the situation and the impression you want to make), and that, I am afraid, you will learn only with time spent in the landmine field.

But heres some good advice I can give you:

The way to a Singaporean’s heart is through his stomach. Take your colleagues or staff to a wonderful lunch, where they can eat well and they will love you. I don’t mean this in a bad way, they have a good taste for food - numerous are the times when we have hunted down the most remote hawker center to have that one special char kway teow, while I would have gladly grabbed a sandwich and returned to my desk. But don’t mistake good food for expensive food - no, its the taste and only the taste that matters. Ambience could well go for a toss, unless you are organising a fancy dinner, in which case, be careful to pick the “right” place.Singaporeans are “materialistically aware” - they know which places are hard to get a booking in, how much they cost etc - and before you know they would have judged how much you are willing to spend on that relationship and how much effort you put into it, based on just the location selection.

Be nice. Singaporeans are nice, most of the time. At least ,outwardly. Could be because of the courtsey campaigns, but there aren’t many times I can remember when a complete stranger was rude to me. That is, if they had deigned to talk to me in the first place. Indifference - that’s a different ball game altogether. If you consider not talking rudeness, you are in for some rude shock. People will not, in general, greet you in the sidewalks or lifts or even at office (if you don’t know them). Remember, its nothing personal.

Don’t talk politics unless you have to. Most Singaporeans do have their opinions, but may not be comfortable airing them in front of strangers or foreigners. Don’t pull them into those awkward situations.

Be aware of some local superstitions and customs. Don’t gift someone a clock, because that means they will die soon. Don’t put your feet on a table, even while you are having a relaxed coffee at the local cafe with your friends. Don’t throw litter on the floor (its not just about the 1000 dollar fine!). Do not jump queues - queueing up is a sacred national hobby. Don’t speak in an extra loud voice - Singaporeans are soft voiced by nature and even if you don’t realise it, your voice may be the only one booming through the room. Filial responsibilities are important in Asia - don’t make snide remarks about a grown up man still living with his parents etc. Kiasu is a term that is commonly used in Singapore, and for good reason. Understand what that behavior entails, and you will not be annoyed or shocked by certain actions which may otherwise seem unnecessary.

I have tried to give you most of the don’ts - so I ended up writing a rather negative post. Let me clarify - that was definitely not my intention, just that I don’t have to warn you of the good things, you can discover those on your own. Let me reassure you lest you cancel that flight ticket to Changi (which my colleague almost did),that it’s a great place to work. Take it from someone who hasn’t always had it so easy, Singapore is one of the easiest and most convenient places to adjust to if you are a foreigner - the infrastructure works, people are sweet and receptive to aliens, and almost everyone speaks English (a word of caution though - familiarity with Singlish would definitely help. If you can understand what “CAN ALSO CAN CANNOT ALSO CAN LAH” means, you pass the Singlish basics test. If you don’t get it, well, good luck to you!) . Last but not least, enjoy the warm sunshine (and stop complaining about the humidity! - I am freezing in the bloody winter..)

The more things I have to get done, the more my mind wanders - that leads to more ideas I have, which feeds into my list of things to get done - I am not sure whether I should call this a virtuous or a vicious cycle. Either way, there have been a hundred half baked ideas floating around in my head, all of them screaming for a little thought and time. Where were you, I ask, when I had time on my hands. But how do you ask a newborn child why he wasn’t born earlier? All you can do is embrace him and take care of him. So, today on my way to work, while I should have been flipping through the pages of the Coffee trader, I wondered instead, why I couldn’t combine what I really like to do - writing, that is - and use it for some good cause. Hell, I am not really benefiting from it. Why shouldn’t someone else?

While trying to figure out the chaos that was happening outside the tram thanks to a car that had banged into it, my brain told me that I could somehow combine blogging and a good cause. I have met very few bloggers, yet I feel like I know a lot of them. I could be wrong here, but something tells me that someone who writes for the joy of writing (for very few of us make any money out of this), wouldn’t hesitate to do some of it for public good. My time just doesn’t permit me from taking a holiday to Cambodia to build houses, or to sacrifice my preciously short vacations in India to teach the young, or to fight for AIDS relief in Africa. With my limited time and resources, what I could offer is the ability to write, and a willingness to do so, even if I come back home at midnight dogtired. Now, I may not be the best of writers, but I know a few who could qualify for that title, and if nothing, powers of persuasion and organisation have never failed me - I should be able to convince people to write and put them together into something that makes money, enough to make a difference to someone out there.

People pay to read good articles or stories or poems. People are paid to write good articles or stories or poems. Now, if the people who will write will be willing to write for free, and if you subtract out the publishing and distribution costs, there must be something left behind to dedicate a decent amount to those who need it. Simple logic. I couldn’t be missing something, could I?

I know I know, I am missing a whole lot of details. Sadly, my tram ride ended. And I am at work. The details will have to wait till tonight. But in the meantime, if you have any thoughts on this - please do put them into the comments. Whether you think this whole idea is ridiculous or if you know of some organisation that has done this successfully ( I am aware of some bloggers’ projects which have raised money before, but I am not aware of any that does so in a regular manner and which involves more than a few bloggers or non-bloggers), or if you would like to express your enthusiasm and willingness to help out as and when the time comes - whatever it is, I am all ears.

Update: After trying to explain some of the ideas I had in the comments, I realised how hard it is do that in the comments box rather than in a post of its own. So, if you would like to let me know of some fantastic idea, you can either write about it on your blog, and I will link from here or you can send it to me and I will publish it with due credit. Not that I mind long comments, so feel free to write in a notepad and paste it into my comment box..Cheers!

You climb every mountain
You cross every river
To find the hidden gem
Ah! you poor fool
Did you look within yourself?

That happiness comes from within is not a new thought, yet why do most of us forget that? In our eternal search to be happy, we forget to search in that one place where it is most likely to be - ourselves.

Over the past few days, I go to bed with a general feeling of emptiness which I fill with sadness, for lack of any other emotion. Until last night, I decided to take a hard look at my own self and ask myself why I was unhappy - and truth be told, I couldn’t find a reason, which completely surprised me. I had assumed that since I had moved there must be stresses associated with it and that I should be unhappy. But once I started decomposing each of my reasons, I realised that none of them hold water. I had chosen for myself what I call a default state of unhappiness. And I was looking everywhere else to find my supposedly lost or stolen happiness, but at my own self. And hence it was time to reiterate to myself one of my philosophies of life, which I had formulated to myself eleven years ago.

(Now I know that I am propounding my own philosophies of life and maybe hard for many to stomach - firstly, you don’t have to read it, and secondly if you insist, you can always rip my theories apart in the comments section. This is not turning into a Dalai Lama kind of blog, just an occasional detour =))

Eleven years ago, I was supposedly in a state of elation - or so everyone around me thought. Something really good had happened in my life, the details of which are completely irrelevant here, and people around me thought I should be in the “seventh heaven of delight”. Just that, I wasn’t. And I was too afraid to confess that for fear of ridicule, for fear of being branded insane or just plain confusion. I myself wasn’t sure why I wasn’t as happy as everyone expected me to be. Having had the luxury of time on my hands, I pondered deep thoughts and decided to step back and for the first time in my life, wonder what makes me unhappy and happy. And the answers I discovered then, still hold true for my life.

Happiness comes from within. And the moment you let external factors dictate your happiness, you lose control of it. So, you aced your exam or you got that elusive promotion or you won that million dollar lottery - do you really have to be happy? Why are you happy if you aced an exam? Probably because you worked hard for it and you think you are being recognised for it. Probably because you will benefit from it, such as a great job. Probably because people around you, like your family or friends, are proud of you. If you look at it objectively, you no longer hold the key to your happiness. You could work hard, but you are depending on everyone else around you to act in a manner consistent with what could make you happy, which they may not happen all the time. All of a sudden, they have control over your emotions. Now if you think about it, why would you want to do that? If you have worked hard and if you feel you have done well, shouldn’t you allow yourself the happiness, no matter the consequences? Just because your friend may be jealous and doesn’t shout and scream with you, should you be unhappy?

The argument gets stronger if you consider that it would take care of the risk of unexpected failure. You have done exceptionally well in your job, but you were denied the promotion, because the CEO’s son wanted it too. Should you be unhappy? I don’t see why. Now, don’t mistake lack of unhappiness with lack of reaction. If you have been passed over for unfair reasons, you should react against it. But not because you are unhappy. But only because a logical analysis shows you what the best reaction in such a circumstance would be. I am not asking everyone to be machines, devoid of emotions. You can be happy or unhappy - but know the sources of your happiness to the lowest granularity, and give no one else the control over it. If you can be happy or unhappy at will, you are ready to go into samadhi. Not that we want to do it, but know that we can. Cultivate that power, and nothing can ever make you really unhappy.

The downside is that sometimes you are not happy when everyone expects you to be. I feel happy over small things - like a blossoming flower or a soulful tune or a lovely smile from a loved one - but I doubt that a million dollar lottery or a great Prada gift or an unexpected Ferrari - would make me really happy. And yet, if I got any of that, I would indulge in more external exhibitions of happiness than I would if I had woken up to a lovely sunrise. Strange are the ways of humans! Stranger are they when we ourselves forget that the external exhibitions are just that. We forget that the simple pleasures of life hold the key to our happiness much more than these huge non-events that we keep hoping for. We forget to find joy in the beauty of a job well done, rather than in the recognition of it.

Today, I reminded myself of a truth I had accepted once and forgotten over the years. Today, I feel happy.

(Translation: He who has realised the ultimate truth, is fully established in Brahman, poised in spiritual intelligence and devoid of delusion, he neither rejoices when experiencing what is pleasant nor is distressed when experiencing what is unpleasant.)
- The Bhagavad Gita

Yes yes, I know. Its been a month since my last post here. I am well aware that one of the cardinal sins of blogging is inconsistent writing. And I am guilty of it again. I won’t apologize, coz I have barely had time to breathe, let alone surf the net. I am quite proud of the fact that I managed to delete most of my comment spam within a reasonable timeframe, and saved any remaining readers from objectionable materials. But I do know and understand how annoying it must have been for any remaining regulars here. So, I will really try to be more consistent - things are getting a bit less hectic, and I will aim for two posts a week (putting a frequency down, hopefully, will make me stick to it). For all those blogs I haven’t visited for ages, I’ll dedicate this weekend for some serious catching up! And lastly, if you are getting sick of irregular updates, yet wouldn’t like to miss anything, do consider subscribing to the rss feeds (its on the right side bar). And I am really in a customer-service mode today - if you don’t have rss feeds, you can sign up for email updates everytime I write a new post - just drop me an email (also on the right side bar).

So, whats kept me busy so far? hmm..lets see. I started a new job. I must have met close to a hundred new faces in the last one month, many of whose names I can’t even begin to remember. Spent some quality time in Paris and Belgium for my work. Finally moved all my stuff to Amsterdam and set up my apartment here - picture frames, curtains, plants et al are all in the right place . And heres the bit I am most proud of - cooked and served a house warming dinner for 18 people!(i am never accepting any snide comments about my cooking anymore).

Bought myself a second hand bike, which looks like a second hand bike (a very important criteria in Amsterdam, or its going to get stolen before you can say “Ikakanabikaboo”) and did a fair amount of ‘bika-vanting’ and added to the confusion and chaos of Amsterdam roads with total ignorance of biking etiquette. As if that wasn’t enough, I further add to that whenever I exercise my non-existent driving skills, because I completely don’t know how to watch out for bikes when I am in the car (Its not as simple as it seems, really!). Bikes and cars should belong to parallel universes, definitely not on the same roads! Reading the Netherlands traffic rules book is definitely on the top of my to-do list (and has been there for a while now!) I signed up for skiing lessons and will spend the next few weekends on the slopes, in preparation for a grand ski trip in March somewhere close to Geneva (the destination is still a well-kept secret, which I am not privy to). If any of my insurers are reading this, maybe its a good time to temporarily suspend my insurance.

Despite all the external distractions, work (the usual suspect, isn’t it!) is really what is keeping me busy. Its quite different from what I used to do, and I am still in the adjusting-to-everything-around-me phase. But I am completely ‘lurrving’ it, which means I end up spending more time than I should at my work. Aha, and did I forget to mention learing dutch. Whoever told me that I don’t need to speak Dutch in Amsterdam (there were many of such people), is a complete moron! Yes, maybe to buy groceries at the supermarket, you can get away with English, but to work in an office which is predominantly Dutch, speaking the language is a definite bonus.

So, now I hope you can begin to forgive me for my MIA (that’s Missing In Action, if you have never done military time before) phase, and lets all make merry and have a great weekend.