“When it used to have vines, your father used to swing from them...”
“Oh, wow!” Goldie says, reading the small interpretive board at the base of the tree which confirms that Pansy was right about it being at the spot where the tree could see the sea in the old days. “Imagine my dad playing here! It’s so amazing that this tree is older than me! That it stood here even before I was a twinkle in my father’s eye.”
Pansy stands there pensively whilst Goldie goes and checks out the food stalls in the centre. Pansy recalls that Kampong Bedok used to be across the road. Of course it too is defunct now. In its place is a modern shopping precinct with a spanking new air-conditioned supermarket and shops. She tries to visualise the place as it had been in the old days and some scraps of memory surface. She seems to remember that there used to be a petrol station located here, and a police post. But she’s not too sure. Too much time has passed and her brain is not as sharp as it used to be.
“Lots of Malay food stalls,” Goldie says when she gets back. “And the ju her eng chye and cheng teng stalls, like dad said. We must try them one day. But I’m too full right now. Where to now?”
“Well,” says Pansy. “The village that used to be all around here and up to Sungei Bedok is now taken over by this housing estate. If we stood on this side of the river, near the wooden foot bridge in the old days, we could have seen my village, Kampong Tepi Laut. But I can’t see the bridge from here. However, the main access to my village was through Koh Sek Lim Road, so let us go and find that first. We should also pass the two banyan trees, the ones near where the old lake used to be…”
“Okay.”
“Your father was right. This place has changed radically,” Pansy says with a sad voice, as if the changes have violated her youthful memories.
The car passes more and more condominiums, both on the left and right side of the roads. The old forests and lallang fields are all gone. When they reach Upper Changi Road, the American-accented computerised voice on the GPS instructs Goldie to turn right and another right to Koh Sek Lim Road. They cross a bridge that spans a river.
“We must be going over Sungei Bedok,” Goldie says.
“This used to be a wooden bridge,” Pansy says. “When cars went over it, it used to make a sound like a drum, gedung, gedung, gedung. That’s what they say Bedok means, you know. The sound of a drum.”
“Oh, really?” says Goldie. “Funny how I never even question its meaning. It’s just the name of a place. But now you’ve opened my eyes to new things, grandma.”
“There’s so much more to tell.” Pansy says. “The town folks who came to buy our famous Teochew salted fish and bunga rampay had to use this bridge to come into our vicinity. But they had to park before the lake to walk to our villages because there was no motorised vehicular access to our kampongs. Our kampongs could not be seen from the road because of the vegetable farms. That’s why they were called ‘hidden villages’.”
“Goodness, grandma, they sound like they were in a different world!”
“It was a different world. And to think it was not that long ago, less than fifty years…”
“It’s Singapore’s fiftieth birthday next year, in 2015,” Goldie informs Pansy. “So the changes to Singapore must have been rapid. You know that LKY is sick? His health deteriorated rapidly after his wife’s death. We’re all hoping he will stay alive to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of our independence on 9 August.”
“Yes, he has done a lot for Singapore. The change has been staggering,” Pansy says. “A tsunami of reformation.”
Instead of the sprawling old forests, the area where they are driving through is now a forest of landed properties and industrial buildings—not at all as what Pansy remembered. These days the MRT track sweeps overhead on its way to and from Simei, Tampines and Pasir Ris. Another track separates at Tanah Merah above ground to burrow underground to and from the exhibition halls at EXPO, and Changi Airport. And the trains are now the ones producing the rumbling noises, replacing the drumming of yesteryear. The tall, slim Changi trees have all been uprooted. The hill that George had scrambled down on his runaway bicycle when chased by the buffalo has been flattened. As they turn into Koh Sek Lim Road, now truncated, they are greeted by the MRT trains reposing in their depot. Instead of open fields and a mud-packed road, the depot is behind a boundary fence and the road is surfaced with tarmacadam. Fortunately, many of the beautiful rain trees, with their split trunks like sturdy fingers cradling the bird’s nest ferns, still line both sides of the road. They are the forlorn vestiges of the past.
Goldie follows the single track road.
“Wait! Stop!” Pansy says excitedly, pointing to the left. “There they are! Rama and Sita. My banyan trees.”
“Who?”
Goldie pulls the car into the space in front of the gates which are padlocked. Before she can get out, Pansy is already there, her hands clutching the fence, looking out to her beloved trees which used to stand overlooking her lake. They look imprisoned behind the fence but are still magnificent, their vines intact. They no longer look upon Windermere but face the steel hulks of the MRT trains. Here was where she had met George and where her new life had begun.
“Oh, Rama, Sita. You’re still alive!” says Pansy softly. “And you will live beyond me. But I have failed you. I
