UAE National Day weekend in Singapore

The key activity for today was a go at cooking Bise Bele Bath- a variation on a "Sambhar", wherein you mix the rice in with the watery dal all cooked together with overboiled veggies and some oil or ghee infused with spices right at the top, once everything is all one basic yellow mush. I am deeply intrigued by this type of dish because it essentially counts as a one-pot meal (OPM)- that panacea or rather opiate for the single dweller, where effort before and after cooking can be optimised against a simple recipe containing everything one needs to carry on. There are other such items I have tried a number of times and are my go-to weekday meals in general- mainly Paella ( Spain ), Jollof Rice ( West Africa), Khichudi (my Native Bengal)  and Bhaatebhaat ( also my native Bengal).  The most frequently prepared OPM, I will say, is Bhaatebhaat- which literally translates to rice-on-rice which I always found interesting. It does have rice , but what is "on" the rice is not rice but other objects- namely vegetables, boiled eggs and high quality ghee. This is really popular with me because it is quick and requires almost no prep. Just a cauldron of boiling water into which multifarious items are submerged from close range. Around 20 minutes, and everything is ready- the consistency is slightly soupy-insert ghee- and salt, quick stir and bob's your uncle. 

Bise bele bath is a vegetarian rice dish from Karnataka, and requires a similar process to bhaatebhaat but has a few extra steps and  spices- particularly tamarind and sambhar powder.  There are also dry whole spices needing to be fried separately and inserted over the top. I concluded, at the end of the run, that the product was permissible but not heady. One was filled with food but not glee- if you know what I mean. Perhaps the problem lay in the fact that I used okra-not a vegetable on the playbook. But I doubt the humble okra is capable of single-handedly causing so much harm. In any case, it will probably be a while before I try this one again.

I must also mention that I had just spent the last few days in Singapore, flying in early on the last  Thursday from Manila and staying at the Orchard Hotel for 3 much needed nights with the family. Whenever in Singapore, and for whatever time, one tends to ride in taxis a lot- careening from points A and B to C, D and E – in no regular pattern in a bid to run every errand, meet and greet every friend, and when inebriated, gossip about everyone else who is not actually a friend. Top this off with eating more meals per day than normal, in a bid to fulfil every dietary lacunae that has developed morbidly over the large swathes of time periods that one has resided outside of the lion city.  Nasi Lemak and Kaya Toast but also Chwee Kueh and Char Kway Teo make up breakfast. Mixed Economic Rice for Lunch- and the customary Jumbo Sea food for dinner.  A visit to the Immigration Office in Lavender, a jam session with my erstwhile band at a studio on Beach Road and a jaunt along Botanical Gardens to whip up an appetite for the subsequent  gastronomic delight. Every one of these milestones had been accomplished by constantly tapping on one of two apps on my phone- namely Zig and Grab- to call to one's arms a taxi. 

It is also no secret to people who either live here or visit frequently that the taxi drivers tend to be very chatty. You can get a download on matters wide-ranging in these 20 minute blocks of discussion that run from the airport to your hotel, or from East Coast Park to your friends condo. I had two memorable parleys this time around. The first was with a Grab driver, and while discussing the high rents of apartments in Singapore, he mentioned that he owned three properties in China. He was intending to sell one, now that he had become an empty nester, and would like to go off on a holiday with his wife. He said this plan was to be for much later ( perhaps a decade later, when he would actually legally retire). However, upon reflecting over the covid outbreak, he decided to do this now and not later. Because, he learnt, over this period that life was fragile and one could drop off at absolutely any time and so there was no use planning too far out. He mentioned also that the world was increasingly more volatile and one could not predict what might happen- for example who would have predicted Russia invading Ukraine. And then he went on to mention that he believed the USA was entirely to blame for the war. NATO reaching Ukraine was illegal and not on- and the USA had this really bad habit of only considering its own wishes and pretending the entire world was beholden to them. He mentioned a renowned Singaporean academic of geopolitics, Kishore Mahbubani- who was currently an advisor to the government. Per him,  Mahbubani spoke eloquently on various prestigious forums on exactly this behaviour of the USA and apparently did not like to hold back. Coincidentally, I had once been on the same flight back to Singapore as Mahbubani- from somewhere in Europe- many years ago. At the time, he was still a Professor at NUS- but was still well-known. His face had looked familiar to me and the stewardesses were bestowing some extra attention to a rather distinguished, if avuncular gent. All of which suggested that the man was somewhat famous. Later I made the connection when I saw him on TV or in the papers.

The other conversation was with a slightly older driver - in his early sixties. It was going to be a long ride from Orchard Road to Woodlands, so after exchange of pleasantries, I asked him how the taxi driving works- from a commercial model perspective. He was most keen to oblige me with the details so I very much wanted to pen it down. He will be paying a lease on his taxi. The lease money is extracted from his account on a daily basis. He then has to cover for incidentals and gasoline each day. He is free to ride as many trips as he wants, and the math is simple. His lease currently is 100 Dollars a day. He aims to make taxi trips with clients such that he receives aleast 200-250 dollars. This gives him some comfort because he needs to pay around 30 dollars for gasoline and it still leaves him circa 100 dollars a day for his own expenses. He already has government housing that is all paid for. So he just needs to pay for his utilities, meals, entertainment and incidentals. 200-250 a day means 10 trips roughly assuming each trip is worth 25 dollars to him. If  each trip takes 20 mins, that means he is driving for more than 3 hours each day- but there is also waiting in between and all in all it is a full days work- between 8 and 10 hours every day including weekends. However, he has to account for when he is sick- because on such days the 100 dollars are still deducted for his daily lease payment. So he needs to maintain sufficient surplus so he can afford to take some sick days or other off days. It is all up to him. On the one hand, it is a gruelling job for someone at his phase of life. On the other, he does have quite a lot of flexibility. His own views are slightly melancholy when I ask him how he likes it. He says as per the new law, he cannot retrieve any money from his  Central Provident Fund (the Singapore government retirement security scheme) until he hits 65. It used to be that he could retrieve most of the money at age 55. But the government had clamped down on this because there were many folks who blew up the cash on vices- namely gambling and women- and were left with nothing soon after. This now means he has to work until 65 no matter what. There is no choice. But atleast this way he has a bit of flexibility as opposed to doing a service type of job- not that he would get one easily. He feels that the government means well with all of this, however it does not change the fact that it is harsh for people at retirement age to have to work so hard. He is not that old but there are many taxi drivers deep into their 70s- and he feels it is not even safe for them to be driving. Not safe for the passengers either. Hands are unsteady on the wheel, and reflexes are weak. It is simply not advisable, but there is simply no choice for many of these citizens. 

Listening to this man, I reflected a bit and realised how hard it is to run a country and how much thought has to be given to policy making. For a small island nation with no resources, it has no avenues to wealth accumulation other than attracting foreign corporates and investors and extracting some form of rent. At the same time, these rich parties tend to skew the market and pricing upwards for almost everything- but particularly house rents, making it unaffordable for the locals - who are not rich investors but ordinary folks trying to live normal lives. This is a choice that the government must make, and then it must do its best to even the playing field in other ways. Before we criticise our politicians we must surely also spare a thought for the difficult choices that are in front of them on a daily basis- atleast the responsible ones- of which there are plenty in Singapore.