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2003-11-18 - 9:59 a.m. MRT memories 1) Our first journey on the Mass Rapid Transit was documented by photographs. We took them while standing on the platform and sitting in the carriage, and at least one shot shows the sign: 'E11 Tampines'. My mother was pregnant at that time. I was making faces. My sister, if I remember correctly, was wearing a cloth hat, that could be fastened to her chin by an elastic band. To shield her from the sun. She was fair, like my mother. 2) At times, trifling debates about whether the 'T' in MRT stood for 'Trains', or 'Transport'. 3) In the carriage, my sister and I knelt on the seats, facing the windows. If she sat down, her legs would dangle from the seat's edge. We observed the scenery being as scenic as it could, but were most enthralled when the train entered a tunnel. This was when the train's velocity was revealed to us; perspective had distorted our perception of its motion. We terrified ourselves by imagining that we would catch sight of something sinister along the rushing walls--the underground, after all, was hellish vortex and lightless abyss; tomb and catacomb. For a period of time, a popular horror story was The Last Train at Novena, the Exhumed Station. 4) Cryptic colour codes. Tanah Merah (Red Earth) was red; so was Redhill, although it was modernist crimson in the former and redbean-icecream shades in the latter. These were logical. The deducibles: green Kembangan since the Malay word 'kembang' meant 'bloom', a rusty brown Tampines since 'Tempinis' was the name of an indigenous tree, beige Pasir Ris since 'pasir' meant 'sand'. Probably unintended: the moss-green of ex-cemetery Novena. Bizarre: the blindingly chirpy yellow of mature, shady Toa Payoh. 5) I took the MRT to both my secondary school and junior college. In the beginning, the wanderings of a mind in an enclosed space. I would memorise the names of the twelve stations on each of the tributaries (West, East, North) that led to City Hall and Raffles Place, which also represented the axes of the flow of capital. (Both eyes scrunched close, a name like 'Aljunied' whispered in the head, one eye peeping to verify, both eyes suddenly open under the slash of a disbelieving frown). 6) From route rote to listening comprehension; after I was done with pictorial memory, it was time for aural recall. And hence, mutely lip-synching the reminder 'Next Stop: City Hall Interchange...etc' rendered in the four official languages, and never completely mastering the Tamil version. 7) City Hall Interchange. A boy, in his RI uniform. A girl. The former was me. The latter was...once I fell asleep in the carriage. I was supposed to alight at City Hall, but my biological clock took the day off. Suddenly, her voice, excuse me, I think...your stop. I was startled awake, greeted by a smile--one defines a vision as a precipitation of light, and she was a vision. The next day I noticed her standing, not far from my seat. I pretended to sleep. It was a scheme to repeat the Blessed Act of the Benevolent Timekeeper. As the moment of the Contrived Contact neared, I became anxious. What if she couldn't reach me in time today, impeded by stony passengers? What if I woke up almost too ardently at her prompting, betraying my rehearsed readiness? In the end, I decided to wake up on my own; one should not besmirch the angelic encounter with fiendish plots. 8) Question: My name is Su Mei. I like snakes and lizards. Why? Answer: There are actually two questions here--why is the girl Su Mei, and why does she like snakes and lizards? The former query on identity would come from a child, the latter inquiry on desire is distinctly adult. Even if ultimately they are both nuances of the same question: why am I what I am? 9) Factors that play a part in the choice of a carriage: the availability of seats, one's privacy requirements, and the presence of some cutie to fix one's eyes on during the train journey. Of these three, the last one is paramount for me: the greatest menace presented by public tranport, (where routes are predetermined, where passengers are bent on affecting the absent looks of those in transit) is boredom, and the best antidote to boredom is beauty. Mental ravishment plots its own barefooted and meandering tracks. 10) These days, an announcement is often played to remind those on the platform to 'stand behind the yellow line', accompanied by the rationale 'for your own safety'. It comes on regularly, in the four official languages, and one cannot help but be reminded of that schoolteacher who strayed off the platform, fell onto the tracks and was run over by a train. From that absence of mind that resulted in her tragedy, there is now presence of spirit: the multilingual statements sound like a repeated funeral elegy, more so when one is waiting on the platform at dusk.
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