“We are staying at Roxy Hotel,” said Naveen, as he stood between his parents and faced me early in the afternoon on Saturday. I was leaning against the raised portion of the bus behind the driver which houses the front wheels and sacrifices precious seats for the sake of accommodating wheelchair-bound passengers. A railing discouraged attempts to place my bum squarely on the wheel pocket so the surface served instead as a handy spot for a heavy bag of gear. Most other passengers had fled to the rear in a frenzy for seats, but I scorned the rackrace and thus was a sitting duck for the trio as they regained their bearings after a hasty search for loose change.
“We are from Mangalore,” muttered Mr Srinivasan, a mousy gentleman dressed a little too formally for a weekend. But it was their final day in Singapore and they wanted to visit a famous Buddhist temple at Waterloo Street. “We aren’t interested in Indian temples,” he said, “We’ve got so many back home.” The family had spent a week in Malaysia before legging it to Singapore for a few days before their return to India. I gave the assurance that I would tell them exactly where to alight and their palpable nervousness gave way to unguarded candour. “Are you Buddhist?” asked Mr Srinivasan, “Did you know Buddha is an incarnation of Lord Krishna?” I feigned surprise and turned to Naveen, a strapping fella with soft, keen eyes and a stubble I envy.
“What do you do?”
“I work at Infosys in Mysore,” he stated. “Do you know of it?”
“Ja. Software?”
“Yes, but I’m a mechanical engineer.”
“Oh, I see.
<Pause>
“Er...are you married?”
“Oh no. I’m here with just my father and mother.”
Standing a little away, Mrs Srinivasan maintained a cheerful silence throughout but obliged with toothy smiles when I aimed at her in a shaky sprawl while the bus roared high above Kallang Basin.
“We were taking taxis, but decided to take the bus today,” chirped Mr Srinivasan. “We couldn’t really see the city from the taxi. It was going too fast. With the bus, we can see more and talk to people.”
Naveen scribbled email addresses on a business card as the bus left the highway and approached Rochor. “Turn left after the bus stop and go straight down the lane,” I instructed him. The bus was emptying and they hurriedly joined the crowd that mobbed the pavement before a complex of three fortunes. My mind was already beginning to wander and I caught a final, fleeting glimpse of the family as they headed towards an alley where plastic devotion meets genuine desperation. Two blocks later, they were all but lost and my thoughts flew askance to imagined moments of serendipity that grew from a casual word and rolled with abandon to become a soft, smothering wave that caught us both by surprise and refused to say when, if ever, to stop.
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