Of a certain kind of reunion

What would you do if you were the only one on time for a primary school dinner gathering near your primary school? If you were like me, you would, first and foremost, clandenstinely walk in the back gate of the school - the vehicle gate, for the passenger gate where parents and maids are milling about would be locked. Both change and constancy would strike you. You would notice that the basketball court has been replaced by a driveway, that there is only 1 canteen now, complete with designated tables for classes, that the sports hall is now air-conditioned. You would notice that many things have changed, even as the familiar contours of past memories mingled with your current perception. You would note that some things, remarkably, haven't changed - the field, the table tennis tables, the corridors.

After your clandestine tour of the school, you would nonchantly exit by the front gate - where, of course, everyone else hasn't arrived. You would smile, accepting that this is part of life. You would then take a walk in the surrounding neighborhood, for it is evening, and it is a quiet neighborhood. While soaking in the orange ambience you would try to recall if there are any nice food places in the area, for it is not often you travel to this area, you are quite hungry, and you are entertaining the prospect that everyone else is not going to turn up. At this point - while still on the lookout for nice places to dine in - you would arrive at a serious dilemma. You would wonder if you should call the organiser. The dilemma presents itself because on the one hand, you are perfectly content to find a quiet spot and dine by yourself; plus you are very shy. On the other hand, reunions don't come by often; plus there is a small chance you got the time and place wrong (that would be a most charitable view of human kind). At some point you would stop in your tracks and think furiously. And at some point you would opt for a compromise - an unimposing sms sent.

You would then proceed to a coffeeshop for some tea. A reply is received - we're meeting at 7pm, not 6pm. But of course! The time would change without you being informed - this is as unsurprising as everyone else being an hour late. You would smile again, a wave of equanimity spreading through you as you drink your tea, for such is life, and, for whatever the cause of the timing mismatch, it had at the very least presented an opportunity for you to have a long walk by yourself. A long walk - and you would have felt that you already had a certain reunion of sorts before everyone else had arrived.

If you were like me, you would already have half of this blog entry composed in your mind during the walk, during the insipid moments of the dinner in which people talked about their work lives. (To be fair, not all talk about the working world is boring - did you know that 90% of Singapore's ice-cream is owned by a single corporation? Did you know, too, that the very same MNC that produces Panadol and anti-malaria drugs is also the same firm that produces Horlicks and Ribena? [to which I half-jokingly said that GSK should include a packet of Horlicks in the anti-malaria packs they distribute in impoverished countries]) There were some stories of the filthy rich too, almost inevitable given people are just starting out on the corporate ladder and taking their first look upwards. Someone who worked in the real estate line said that a Taiwanese had bought the whole block of Reflections (a condo unit at Keppel Bay) after only half an hour there. The agent who handled that client would have had her commission in millions, assuming she had no cap. You would have felt envious - money comes by so easily for some.

Talk of money would have, at the end of the day, made you wonder how much you would be willing to give up past memories and past attachments for cash. Suppose you were offered $200,ooo, but you would have to give up all memories of my primary, secondary and junior college days. That is, when you think back to those times, you would come up with a blank. You wouldn't recognise anyone from those times, though they would recognise you. All your school records, photos, would be intact, but they would mean just as much as a bus ticket of a journey you cannot recall. Would you accept the deal? What if it were $500,000? $1 million? If you were like me, you would have no answer.