Kumar's Singapore Travelogue: Prelude

(Posted on behalf of Kumar)

Seven years after a previous non-stop long-haul from the East coast of the US to the Pacific Rim (PAC Rim), I left this time to a tinier country, nay a city state, and possibly on a more daunting business mission. Whereas the previous trip was to educate through case studies some key businesses in Japan on Rational Software tools, this trip after 7 years was to understand, analyze and publish an architectural review of a major software platform my company is developing; very different purposes, people & destinations.

What a change can seven years bring! My daughter was barely 3.5 years old then, and now a flourishing eleven with the ability to understand and absorb information, science math or languages -- as rapidly as a black hole sucks matter! My son was barely 3.5 months old then, and now has amassed enough knowledge to keep me on toes while he professes his faith in a long-lost sea creature in a certain lake (the infamous Loch Ness monster) or, lectures on types of baleen whales or types of volcanoes – all in one fell swoop. The family cousin was yet to be born, whereas now she can bellow mavayya for the entire suburb! There are other large-scale changes as well[1].

This is a memoir [2]of my trip to Singapore, and yet again, the pre-teen in me jumped up for another adventure! Adventure borne by the audacious intent of (or maybe hubris?) being able to observe an entire society, culture and country in a matter of 2 weeks, and summarize the observations as if they were fully accurate. But, again, without adventure, without risk and without a tad bit of hubris, nothing big has ever been accomplished[3]

A minor digression is warranted about the pre-teen that jumps out of me every so often; 1973 is my most favorite year in life. Dad had just returned from Canada in the early summer, along with Mom & Sister all of whom disappeared for a couple of years in the pursuit of his Ph.D. The reunion, as exhilarating and fun-filled as it was, it was nearly not as revolutionary as the post-reunions track of years - a track that as I climbed more, I could see more. He achieved this by negating everything I believed in – by saying “don’t believe anything until you have a proof” – starting with religion, caste, math and everything I knew. This led to a forceful and relentless pursuit of roots of any topic I endeavor to understand – because I could no longer be persuaded by mere assurances of mere mortals. I needed a proof[4]! This attitude has benefits of any exploration and discovery, but the pains of having to spend enormous energy to explore and discover. Additionally, it required years of practice to refrain from commenting on other peoples’ un-explored and unexamined opinions. It is this well nurtured zeal for discovery of roots that makes me what I am: a constant skeptic in pursuit of knowledge so I can continuously correct myself, and defend myself or others in an intellectual judo.

This story of Singapore, therefore, is another discovery or exploration to achieve a smattering of understanding.

Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing. Don’t believe everything I say; discover for yourself!

[1] For example, Japan is no longer the pre-eminent manufacturer; China is. India is no longer an exotic curiosity with snake charmers, but the destination of millions of dollars and workers with a giant sucking sound of flow of capital from US!
[2] Hopefully my daughter would read it with 1% the zeal, rapture and ardor she has for “Crack of Dawn”, a novel she’s been reading of late. [editor (Dawn)'s note: Make that "Breaking Dawn" -- Kumar is well known for forgetting details that are beneath his dignity]
[3] As Hardy puts it in his memoir “A mathematician’s apology”, (paraphrase) a math professor has to exaggerate the importance of his subject in the firmament of knowledge, and his own importance among other explorers of the firmament.
[4] As Plato and Erdos after him said, Proofs come directly from God’s book.