WALAA- MAAU-SSSC Track & Field Meet

It's good to finally have a pocket of time to blog... In fact, I was using this pocket to clear up my things and came across some old artefacts belonging to a bygone era in my life. Since they related to a recent trip I made to Malaysia, I thought I may as well take some pictures of them.

A few posts down, but quite a while ago now, I wrote about an escape to Malaysia to sort my thoughts out, remember? Well, it so happened that the trip coincided with the Bersih and Perkasa rallies, resulting in KL going into lockdown and I being shunted to Cititel Hotel in Mid-Valley.

While milling around in the lobby, I saw some girls wearing tracksuits bearing the word 'Singapore' on them and so asked them what they were doing in Malaysia.

"Oh we are here for a Track and Field meet. It's a junior meet for Under 15s. It's at Bukit Jalil. Why don't you come and watch us?" said the most chatty of the girls as she flashed me a disarming smile. "It's am international competition between Singapore, Malaysia and --"

"Australia", I said, finishing her sentence.

"How did you know?" she asked.

"I ran in this same competition in 1991", I explained.

"B-but, I wasn't even born then!" she said, and looking embarassed, promptly erased her smile and terminated the conversation.

Notwithstanding that she probably felt I was 9 parts dinosaur, and possibly 1 part pedophile, I thought there was no harm heading down to Bukit Jalil, since I could not get into KL anyway...

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It has been more than 15 years but I realised that the smell of Deep Heat and other muscle ointments which helped in race preparation still managed to set me on edge and fill me with the nervous anticipation of yet another race.

Sigh... That used to be me...





A pleasant surprise was that I managed to chat with someone I had not seen for more than 15 years. This is Patrick Zehnder, one of the legendary coaches of Singapore track and field, and to date, the only one who has coached a Singaporean Asian Games Gold Medallist (400m in the 1974 Games in Tehran. Her 400m and 800m records still stand to this day!). He was also a classmate of my father's more than 60 years ago at St. Joseph's Institution.



This is me with some of the Singapore athletes. There were a whole load of them but all the girls ran away, leaving only the guys to take a picture with me (Why? Is there a sinister look about me?)



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But back to those items I found which caused me to write this article (and to reminisce a tad too much)...

I was clearing my cupboard when I found an overloaded black bag which weighed quite a lot. I opened it and found all my track and field stuff - spikes, track suits, running gear and medals. I almost cried.

Specifically, these are my tangible memories of my time representing Singapore a long, long time ago...





All right, enough of thinking about the past and back to my life in the present. With a little bit of effort, I may yet make something of it

Another Flash From The Past

My boss's boss got an invite to a Book Launch hosted by one of our panel lawyers. As he had no real interest in legal literature, he asked me if I would be interested in attending.

As I knew the author of the book, having worked with him when I was a pupil at a law firm, and as I had once been very interested in the subject matter of the book, I agreed to attend. It was agreed that I would purchase it and then claim for it if I thought it would be useful, a good read and cost less than $100.

It was quite a grand affair, attended by a Judge of Appeal and some of the Who's Who of the legal community, the food exquisite and the serving attendants meticulous. (I would have taken a picture but you don't go holding your digital cam over your plateful of food when there are judges, past and present, around you) There was a long queue forming at the book stand and it seemed that every attendee was buying a copy. I for one was quite undecided when I found the price to be around $150.

Apart from that, I felt happy at seeing many of my old friends, colleagues and peers, albeit a little jealous to realize how far they had progressed in legal circles, being successful partners in reputable law firms and/or owning their own small but flourishing practices.

But it was when the honourable Judge of Appeal Mr Justice Chao Hick Tin made his introductory and commendatory speech about the book that I realised that for all I appreciate about not having to handle demanding clients and pressing deadlines, I was still very interested in the law and its development. I found myself nodding with approval as the judge listed landmark developments in the law of Interlocutory Injunctions as well as the jurisprudential attitude towards it. I found myself noting with interest a comment which seemed at odds with the writer's personal views on Performance Bonds which he had expressed to me years ago in his cramped office stacked high with files.

If I had any doubts as to whether to buy the book, they were gone then, although there remained a slight unease as to how to explain why such a small volume could cost that much (it's not uncommon for legal books actually). And even that unease was gone, totally overtaken by nostalgia, when I opened the book to find, under the Case List, that one of the injunctions which I had handled before had been commented upon inside the book.



'I couldn't have been that bad a lawyer, right?' I asked myself. 'I could do all this even then and even after three years I'm surprised I still understand this subject. Maybe I can still do this..' I thought as tantalizing scenarios and possibilities played out in my head...

But that was before the combination of events that night - which would make it one of the worst I have had to endure in a long while....

An abrupt jolt to the dream - but is it dead?

Falling Down To Earth

I just read with interest the other day about how a karaoke hostess managed to survive a 12-storey fall. It reminded me of my own fall more than 15 years ago.

I was doing my National Service then and had 'booked out' for the weekend the night before. I had just gotten up after enjoying the first bout of adequate sleep to which I was entitled after a week at Pulau Tekong. I was still exhausted but happy and looking forward to meeting my girlfriend later during the next day so I could present her a small cosmetic ring which I had bought from Perlini's Silver. It was cheap but - I fervently hoped - symbolic.

As fate would have it, I was admiring the ring at the window when it fell out of my fingers and landed onto the sun-awning of the 3rd storey unit (I lived on the 4th floor), resting somewhere near the edge. Looking back (and I have looked back on that incident thousands of times), it was so easy to have gotten a feather duster or a longer instrument to nudge the ring off the sloping precipice and then go downstairs to retrieve it. I suppose, if I were to be honest, I was lazy and didn't fancy a walk down (and then up again) 4 flights of stairs (we then lived on the top level of a 4-storey walk-up apartment). Besides, I had, despite objections from my parents, always been climbing onto the awning to retrieve objects which had dropped onto it. Nothing had happened all those times, so surely nothing would happen this time....

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In the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, there is a chapter dealing with plane crashes. In it, he shows that planes don't just go dramatically crashing out of the sky but that virtually all plane crashes are a combination and accummulation of small factors and circumstances that bring into being what would ordinarily be a very unlikely scenario.

- If it hadn't been raining before such that the awning was slippery
- If I had not been wearing socks to keep my feet, already accustomed to the hot and balmy nights at Pulau Tekong during weekdays, warm in the air-conditioned comfort of my room for that weekend, such that the grip of my feet on the awning was reduced.
- If the ring had fallen 5cm further away from the edge of the awning, making it possible for me to comfortably retrieve it with one hand while holding onto my window grille with all the fingers of my other hand.
- If the awning had been evenly slippery throughout, such that I would have not been convinced by the dryness of the spot where I first stepped onto that it was no more dangerous than usual.
- If the phone had not suddenly rang when when I had, in a bid to to reach for the ring, loosened my grip such that I only held onto the grille with a hooked middle finger.
- If I was not startled such that my weight shifted and one of my feet moved ever so slightly onto the most slippery part of the awning.

*******
I had never done bungee jumping or sky diving before so nothing prepared me for the feeling when I fell. The abiding memory is that all in all, it felt very fast.

Well, the first moment, when I went "Oh shit", felt quite normal actually, the kind of feeling one gets when one jumps off a table or a less tall structure. But all of a sudden, as if pushed by some invisible hand, I accelerated towards the ground at a speed which I had never felt while falling before, the ground hurtling towards me. Friends ask if I saw my life flashing before me but I just tell them that my dominant memory of my time in the air was that it was so fast. Darn. Even now when I recall the incident, I breathe faster.

Actually, come to think of it, even though I had verily intended to, I now don't want to relive too much of what happened after I hit the ground. I will only say that the impact was a jarring thud which - and this is getting familiar - was like nothing I had ever felt before and that while I knew straight away that something was wrong with my back, it was only around half a minute later that I felt a searing pain at my right ankle and another half a minute when it became unbearable.

I do not want to talk too much about how a crowd gathered and how my Dad, just driving home from work, having parked his car, saw a commotion, went to see what it was all about and saw his only son screaming in pain for help.

I had never before known why people sometimes asked to be put out of their misery. Make no mistake, I still think life is the most precious thing we have and I still do not think I would ever ask for that. But, lying on a bed waiting to be operated on at the A&E section of Alexandra Hospital, I don't think I ever looked forward more to surgery in my life. Such was the excruciating pain despite two pain-killing injections that all I could think of was going under general anaesthesia, so that I could get some relief, no matter how brief (I might have added "or lasting" but then as I told you, I am very pro-life).

I do not want to talk too much of the pain my parents suffered and I believe that even if I tried, I could never completely articulate it, because I do not believe I can even begin to quantify it.

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For the record, I suffered a compression fracture of the spine at M1 (a technical description of the lumbar column somewhere down the middle of the spine). This, the doctor said, was a million dollar injury because despite the sensitive nature of the damaged area, it would heal completely. It was my right ankle which would suffer the most long-lasting damage. For those technically-inclined, or aspiring orthopaedists, I suffered a fracture of the lower tibia, the calcaneum and a severe fracture-dislocation of the talus, with ensuing avascluar necrosis. In short, my ankle was smashed - with irrepairable damage.

Most of the impact however, was subtle but psychological. I think that this was the first major incident in my life which so emphatically highlighted the universally known but oft-forgotten fact that sometimes in life, because of the choices you make, you do not get a second chance.

I think the fall was the first occurence which was to significantly shape the direction my life was to take, though most of the changes were non-physiological. I had, till then, been doing the 'right' things. I had always gotten good results, gone to the 'right' schools, mixed with the 'right' friends. I had engaged in the 'right' activities, watched the 'right' plays, the 'right' philarmonic concerts and said the 'right' polite pleasantries in doing so.

All that changed after the fall. Prior to that, I had always thought that no matter how daunting the problems seemed at any one time, everything would always be alright, return to normal and that I would continue on my path to success and live happily ever after. The fall made me realise how a split second could change all that, how sometimes in life, some things that we take for granted could be gone forever and never come back.

Maybe my girlfriend realised that as well, for a few months after the incident, she was to break up with me and leave for Cambridge to study medicine, never to return. I have to stress that a large part of it was because I was extremely moody after the fall - lying in bed all day for months on end does that to you - and impossible to speak to. But that didn't change the pain and anguish I felt at her departure.

It didn't help when I found that I would never run competitively again. A promising athlete in school, I had held the Raffles Institution 800m record, won medals at the National Schools Championships, represented Combined Schools and dreamt of running for Singapore at senior level. I began to see life from a different perspective and found it ironic that where once I could run so fast that few in Singapore could catch up with me, I found it cause to celebrate months after the fall when I successfully walked across the room unaided to get myself a glass of water.

After 21 days in hospital and nearly 5 months at home, I recovered enough to be able to limp without the help of crutches and too much pain. I was then sent to complete my National Service at the Military Transport Company at Pasir Laba Camp, seen by many as the backwaters of the Singapore armed forces. Imaginably, I took a while to settle there, this 'Air-Level' (that's the term they used for people who had 'A' Level qualifications), former Humanities Scholar from RJC who spoke grammatical English with good diction. This was in contrast to most of the other National Servicemen there, a lot of whom had stopped schooling after Primary 6, came from broken families, sported tattoos and smoked and drank as if there was no tomorrow. Some of them, though the same age as me or only slightly older, had kids because of an 'unfortunate incident' with the girlfriend. Incidents of servicemen going AWOL (Absent Without Leave) were frequent and as the Company clerk, I was tasked with typing out the charge sheets whenever an errant serviceman was caught and charged.

Indeed, it was during National Service that I learned that there was another strata of society in Singapore and more importantly, that while some of these people within it were recalcitrants who refused to do anything to help themselves, the vast majority of them were no worse than me, only less lucky. My fellow National Servicemen in the Company, drivers mostly (of trucks called 3-tonners, jeeps called Land Rovers, military mini-buses called..mini-buses and other road-going vehicles) were friendly, stoic, helpful, calm in the face of pressure and ever optimistic and happy, be it with their present circumstances or future prospects. They listened sympathetically to my 'sad' story, which given my mental state at that time, I rehashed to anybody who would listen, and gave me words of comfort, often extrapolating from their own experiences. They were also very willing to teach new languages - within months, I had learnt how to say 'vagina' in Hokkien, Teochew, Malay, Chinese and Tamil and had obtained my 'Certificate in Elementary Cussing'. On their part, they were amused at how I always managed to do a dirty cover version of the latest hit songs (the trick lay in having ready rhymes for key vulgar words).

We went on to have a lot of fun together though I turned down most of their invitations to go drinking and all of their entreaties to go to Geylang for some fun.

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My deployment at National Service aside, the fall had other varying effects on my psyche. At first, I was extremely angry with my lot and at my girlfriend. I could not believe how she could abandon me and run off to Cambridge. I was angry with her for making her studies a priority, as opposed to our relationship. I was young and naive and unreasonable.

Be that as it may, I felt that the best way to show her she was wrong was to show her that the pursuit of educational qualifications was way overrated, that one did not have to go overseas in order to be a success. As such, I enrolled in a multitude of part-time courses. By the time I reached adulthood and before I entered Law School, I had obtained a Graduate Diploma in Marketing as well as a Bachelor of Business Administration.

It was only later that my perception, influenced by the fall, changed yet again. I began to wonder if it was worth going down the 'straight and narrow' road on the one hand and mercilessly pursuing success in the ratrace on the other if everything that one was familiar with could change because of a twist of fate, or in my case, the laws of gravity.

It was because of this that I had less recriminations exploring what many would label the 'dark side', the world of 'intelligent guessing'. I do not shy away from saying that I feel quite at home in a casino, that I can decipher and find meaning from the statistics of most horse racing publications, that I have means to tell you the scores of football matches played at any one time from Japan to Russia to Brazil to Azerbaijan (ie. anywhere). I can tell you the relative strengths of basketball teams in Europe and the top-ten players in the squash rankings.

Make no mistake. I am not saying I am proud of what I have experienced and what I know. I am just saying that I am not ashamed of it. Indeed, if pushed to a corner, I will say that from what I have seen even in the 'bright side' of the world, what with the office politics, the back-stabbing, the unbridled ambition and outright deception prevalant in some organisations and situations, the 'straight and narrow' path, the scene of the ratrace, might be an even more dangerous place to be, with as few, or even fewer scruples, in evidence.

What I want to say is that we all have had different experiences and these experiences, like it or not, have all played a critical part in the formation of our beliefs and values. I have digressed a long way from talking about my 4-storey fall but the gist of it all is that it is surprising how a small slip can set one on a vastly different path. My experiences have certainly been more myriad as a result of what at that point of time I deemed an absolute disaster. It has taken me this long to realise that if I have learned something from all of them, then maybe I fell for a reason. Maybe, in the wider scheme of things, I didn't fall at all.

Holding Court Once More... For A Day...

"I'll see you in Court!!!"

This oft-used catch-phrase in the movies was for the greater part of my working life a matter-of-factly statement describing the location of my next meeting with a client, friend or opponent.

And then one day, it all suddenly ended. One moment, I was busy attending applications, hearings, preparing for trial, always on the move geographically. The next, I was a sedentary, desk-bound office executive, a victim (or beneficiary) of my abrupt decision to seek a change of surroundings.

For a while today, I got to relive my former life as I headed to the Supreme Court to oversee a trial in which my company had an interest.

The premises as usual looked serene and peaceful when I walked in early in the morning. I had always found it deceptive that, what with its quiet ambience and soft-lighting, this relatively new building could be the battleground where some of the most acrimonious disputes in the land came to be resolved, a place where lives were changed and sometimes taken away.

It did not take long for the tranquil feeling to be forcefully dissipated, as lawyers
arrived in their unvarying black and whites, first in a trickle, then in droves. Many of my friends have told me that they could never be anything else but a litigator, for where else would one get the adrenaline rush (err.. Casino, turf club, roller coaster ride, rock concert?) and the intensity (err... football match, argument with spouse?) of a cut-and-thrust battle of wits and wills?

I remember the adrenaline rush, all right. For all the times that I had stayed up the night before to prepare for a hearing, I never once felt sleepy or tired while waiting for my turn to appear before the judge or registrar (though Red Bull and its heavy nicotinamide content - the equivalent of 4 cigarettes I have been told - might have had something to do with that). But that is where the similarities end. Where my more 'adversarial' friends felt anticipative excitement, I only tasted bile and felt an impending sense of dread or doom, depending on the strength of my case. Where so many of my counterparts couldn't wait to show the world how the logic of their case was incontrovertible, I always feared that my poor, innocent client (who of course was so clearly in the right) would lose his because I would forget to make an important submission or could not respond quickly enough to a witness's diabolical reply.

Watching the legal eagles surge through the metal detectors armed with their court bags, stuffed no doubt with Bundles of Authorities (or Documents or Pleadings and/or Affidavits), I began to feel the nervous tension synonymous with 'trial-day' all over again. And then I just as quickly remembered that I was no longer one of them - a realization that was nostalgia tinged with relief and regret in equal measure.

You see, unlike what many of my closest friends might think, I always enjoyed being a lawyer and yes, I thought that it was a noble profession. It sounds corny, but I always found it fascinating to study and analyze the pillars which underpinned, and the boundaries which defined, the rights of every man and how they balanced and interacted with those of another. These are things that one only gets to do on a regular basis as a litigator.

Only problem was - I did not enjoy articulating my arguments under pressure, faced with a (yeah, must be so...)misguided opponent, his stupid witness on the stand and a judge who just would not understand how watertight my argument was (yeah, that must have been the reason why I even lost any case at all. Yeah!). But more seriously, trial advocacy, while not as crucial in Singapore as, say, in the States, remains a hallmark of a good litigator - a glib tongue is still what the man in the street expects when he hears the word "lawyer". And I'm not saying I was bad at advocacy. I'm just saying that I did not enjoy it.

When, while still an undergraduate, I was taking a part-time course in Mass Communications, an American lecturer, when told that I had held back in making a comment, asked me how I was to become a good lawyer that way. I wanted to reply that in Singapore, we are taught as lawyers that it is good to speak well but absolutely imperative that we think soundly (even if it means not speaking) while in the States, they have perhaps got it in reverse. But I thought better of it and held my counsel.

I do not deny that the importance of tone, inflection and/or conviction in one's voice, the ability to think on one's feet and/or to make pithy comments in a Court hearing can make or break one's case. But I do wonder whether it is sometimes scary that hugely important decisions are made on the basis of questions asked and answered under intense pressure.

That is why I have always enjoyed making my arguments in writing, when one is allowed time to sit back and organize one's thoughts and where likewise, the reader is afforded the luxury of more than just a few fleeting moments to form an impression, and then to weigh all the countervailing arguments. As is the case with speaking, good language and clever use of words are powerful weapons when it comes to writing. The difference, I have often felt, is that writing reflects much more one's ability to present arguments after considerable thought whereas trial advocacy tests one's ability to effectively make those same arguments in a short space of time.

I'm not making any judgment as to which method of persuasion is better but it is obvious which I feel am more adept at. It is also clear that I like writing. I hope you like my writing too.