Will you miss Singapore?
That’s a question I’ve been asked a lot lately.
It’s a question that swirls in my mind every time I walk past a food court, talk Singlish to the security guard, am in “rush hour” Orchard Road, visit Changi and wonder how it is kept impossibly serene when every airport in the world creates frantic stress.
Yes, I will miss that.
I will miss Singapore, where the government works better than the private sector does anywhere else on the planet, allows you liberation from bureaucracy, gives you freedom from the time spent elsewhere battling taxation, filling out forms, waiting in long queues and being thwarted constantly by confounding regulations.
Yes, I will miss that.
I will miss the noiseless streets, the tranquil neighbourhoods, the quiet that finds your inner voice, the calm that allows you to think.
Yes, I will miss that.
But I will miss much more than the physical.
I will miss Singaporeans.
With whom I have found warmth and enduring friendship.
And I will miss the singular defining quality of the people on this island – their practicality.
I will miss the simple wisdom that we are all on this earth to love and to be loved, to have the warmth of friends and family, and to give our children a better life.
I learnt here that “talking cock” with old buddies in a kopitiam in the evening of your life is a good measure of success.
I’ve travelled to over 80 countries, and I’ve never been to a more “practical” country.
The lack of a defining ideology, or a social or political doctrine that drives, and so often divides communities, is so refreshingly unique.
Especially when the rest of the world seems to be torn asunder with, well, a simple lack of common sense.
Practicality.
I will miss that.
I will miss more than anything the fact that in this country you can practise any faith you wish to believe in, that no one judges you for whichever god you choose, no one discriminates you on the basis of your religion, that church leaders go to mosques for Eid, that Imams go to Hindu temples for Deepavali, that Hindu priests are invited to mosques for breaking fast.
In short, the Singaporean understands that faith and religion are perhaps necessary for human beings to overcome this fascinating struggle we call life.
But these are personal choices, not national movements.
I will miss that.
Govind Karunakaran, born in the United Kingdom and raised in India, first discovered Singapore as a schoolboy at Jurong Secondary School in the early 1970s, where plates of char siew rice and mee siam sparked an enduring affection for the city. After stints in Japan and South Korea, he returned in 1989 to make Singapore his home, eventually leading Grupo Kaybee, a global trading firm headquartered here. As he retires and moves back to India, he leaves behind not just a career, but a place that quietly shaped the course of his life.
