“How will we get drinking water if they do that?” Ah Gu asked.
“The government aims to provide every household with piped water,” Uncle Krishnan, our clever civil servant, informed us. “Then we won’t need a communal standpipe anymore. But as there are plans to dissolve Kampong Potong Pasir, I’m not sure if we will get to that stage.”
We didn’t.
In July, the Censorship Board lifted a ban on the 1973 American film, Jesus Christ Superstar, which surprised us all, especially the Christian leaders. Based on an Andrew Lloyd Webber rock opera with lyrics by Tim Rice, the story was based loosely on the last week of Jesus’ life. It highlighted the political and interpersonal conflicts between Judas and Jesus. These were not covered in the Bible. Many religious leaders around the world were offended. As with anything banned, its release meant that hundreds more people rushed to see the film, who might not otherwise have gone, or bothered. Many local Church leaders kept on protesting and discouraging their flock from seeing it. But I gave in to temptation and went to see it. Boy Friend, who was a staunch Catholic, would have been mortified.
The songs were lively, but I felt it was almost scandalous in the way Mary Magdalene sang about Jesus in ‘I Don’t Know How to Love Him’ as if her love for him was a carnal one. And yet, I was influenced by the thought that there could be more than one interpretation of the Bible and its parables. This was a mind-opener. Recently there had been a spate of events at the church near Kampong Potong Pasir with the misbehaviour of its parish priest, who ran off with a young teenage girl, and other church organisers who preyed on young girls. I felt that some of the religious laws did not seem to aid in true moral behaviour but a hypocritical one. It spurred me on to want to find out the basis of all spiritual teachings. It occurred to me that if I should get a chance to study philosophy, I would be interested to read comparative religion, to understand for myself how religions ticked, what the spiritual laws were and how they came to be dressed in different codes and tenets of the various religions.
I was planning for my future in a way I never had before.
And then there was colour TV! On 7 July, Singapore had its first colour TV transmission. Hosted by Brian Richmond, the first colour telecast was a live World Cup soccer final match between West Germany and Holland. Two thousand sets had been sold the day before. Obviously a colour TV set would be very expensive for the majority of people. There were still many people, like those in my village, who didn’t even own a black and white TV, let alone a colour one. My family was one of the lucky ones when my father had splurged his Christmas bonus from the English company where he was working, to buy a TV set. That was two years after TV made its debut in Singapore. The government arranged to install a 26-inch colour TV in each of the 63 community centres, so that ordinary folks could also watch TV in colour.
“We will also be able to watch the National Day Parade in colour!” Karim said.
“I’m buying a colour TV,” Uncle Krishnan said proudly, the first man to own an automobile in our part of the village.
“Aiyyoh, Uncle Krishnan, you chap duit or what? You print money or what?” Karim said.
“You’re all welcome to come and watch in my house,” Uncle Krishnan said generously. “They are going to screen the 1960 film, North to Alaska. John Wayne and Stewart Granger are starring.”
We all loved John Wayne and his cowboy Western movies. The film that Uncle Krishnan mentioned was about the Nome, Alaska Gold Rush, which we had seen when it came out in the theatre. The story was about a prospector, George, played by Stewart Granger who sent his partner, Sam, played by John Wayne, to Seattle to bring his fiancée to Alaska. When Sam arrived in Seattle, he discovered that she had married another man. Sam found a prostitute, Angel, played by the gorgeous-looking Capucine, and brought her back instead. It was a Western comedic film. We trooped into Uncle Krishnan’s house, and his wife offered us muruku, the Indian snack, which we crunched happily. We sat on their cement floor which was lined with linoleum. It was considered posh in the kampong to have linoleum on the floor. Ours was bare cement.
We all knew the chorus of the ballady theme song which was sung by Texan Johnny Horton, so when Uncle Krishnan surprised us by singing, “North to Alaska, you go north, the rush is on, north to Alaska, I go north, the rush is on,” and we all joined in. The film whetted our appetite to travel to this most northern land. The wonder of it all was that the film was on TV and in full colour. Colour made everything more real and alive and we laughed at the actors’ antics.
On our National Day, 9 August, we got invited to Uncle Krishnan’s house again, to watch the parade in colour. On that day, all the members of Mr S. R. Nathan’s negotiating team involved in the Laju Hijack crisis were given National Day Honours. We luxuriated in seven glorious hours of colour TV!
In November, we thought that climate change was upon us, when we had to put on knitted sweaters as the temperature dropped. The strong wind was coming in from the East Coast, stirring and swelling our usually placid waves. Dark cumulus clouds swept into our sky, and they grew taller and taller, casting an ominous pall everywhere. Then lightning cracked open the clouds, followed in a few seconds by loud rolls of thunder. We expected the rain
