Calling London

Called a friend in London because I wanted him to give me a quote. I am writing a piece on casinos and was looking for someone to back up the story.

He was pleasantly surprised when he heard my voice and I was pleasantly suprised that he was pleasantly surprised.

``So would you want to move back to Singapore in 2009?'' I asked.

``Why 2009?'' He sounded a little puzzled.

``The casino!!!! The opening!That's in 2009. '' I exclaimed.

He laughed. Great. This is how you get your contact to give you snazzy quotes. You get them in a mood, relaxed and cheeky.

``Of course. I would for the casino. yes yes yes.'' Great...he's onto something......I am waiting. Great. Some oxford-bred dude's willing to move back to Singapore where he stayed for a few years because Singapore is going to be a fun city with the casino and its sky garden and some museum that opens up like a lotus fronting the sea. (hardly inviting, in my opinion.)

``I would do that for the Merlion too.'' Arrrgghhhh.....he is spoiling it..

``Of course, that is silly.'' he said

``Don't you like living in proximity to a casino? Don't you like that lotus-flower museum?'' I asked, still trying to do my job.

``No, it is ugly.''

``Yes, it is a stupid casino. I hate it.'' I chimed in, giving up on working on my story. I know that casino is going to draw tourists, draw in the high rollers. But it is irrelevant to my life. And the whole thing is an eye sore.

I joined him in bashing the casino.

``You know what they would do in Singapore if they are going to build the Venetian? what would they use Instead of gonolas?'' He asked.

``Ya. Ｉknow. Use sampans lar. and drivers in sarongs. Well, they have to blend in with the culture here. Just like that hideous looking structure they are putting up claiming that it is not going rob the skyline of the city but blend in with the city. '' I answered.

``Yes, the government should just built on their past success, expand that whole Merlion idea. Build a bigger Merlion but a laser beaming one. I am sure the high rollers will come.'' He continued, totally enjoying himself.

``Call you back, my editor's looking for me.'' Back to working on that story.

Well, well, what can I say. I am such a professional reporter. I am able to sever my personal emotions from my work. I hated the whole casino idea, but it is the fact that people are embracing the concept. It will bring in the money. and the story is just about that, all good stuff on the casino, no personal opinions, whom nobody cares about anyways.

On writing

''GREAT writers often seem to haunt their cities. Joyce and Kafka remain ghostly figures on the streets of Dublin and Prague, and the elfin presence of Borges is still glimpsed, through cigarette smoke and tango sweat, in the cafés of Buenos Aires. In the ancient city of Cairo, it is Naguib Mahfouz who does the haunting.''

I have read many books on writing. None has moved me to make writing my life vocation. But, great writing like this inspires. Words form lines that speak of great minds and deliver the wretched, set the oppressed free and spur people to act on their grand plans.

These little words moved me this afternoon in a secluded corner of a crowded foodcourt. Smoke and noise blocked out a person's right to her solitary lunch break, but not her chance to meet Naguib Mahfouz on pages of words that sprung from another writer in love.

They tell me of him and his characters in his books: ordinary people living in his beloved city struggling with upholding personal dignity in a place of pervasive poverty and how they live, divided on tradition and modernity.

``He enriched an Arabic literature which, while perhaps incomparable for its poetry, was then still largely innocent of the fully formed imaginary world of the novel.''

``Writing was a joy to him. He loved the sheer act of it, writing every morning and always in longhand. This made the worst drama of his own life particularly cruel. In his 83rd year, a knife-wielding religious fanatic stabbed him in the neck. The would-be killer—inspired, it seems, by clerical objections to allegorical characters in one of Mr Mahfouz's books—failed in his mission, but nerve damage stopped Mr Mahfouz writing for five years.''

He said, a writer should write at least something anything everyday, a obituary written and published in New York Times.

I want to write.