As I stood and watched the fireworks display the evening before I left, a thought arose. This was my farewell gift from the Land of the Thunder Dragon. A feeling of calm came over me, knowing that my work here is done and it is indeed time to go. Another chapter beckons from beyond the mountains.

Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
O, beautiful, and full of grace!
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.

- Anne Bronte, Farewell

But I am. In a little over a week.

[Mini-factoid: I hate to pack unless it involves a backpack and an itinerary scribbled on the back of a napkin.]

A thousand clichés flash through my mind. None of them quite fits. To sum up all that I have thought, seen, heard, tasted, breathed, felt from the moment I got off the plane at Paro exactly one year ago.*

I don’t know how to say goodbye to this little corner of the world in the mountains. Where I have fed a good dozen or more plump fleas. Where I had the miraculous fortune to meet so many good people, reminding me that it is as important to be good at something, as it is to be good. To be a good person. Where I once ate 3 plates of rice for lunch because the cold made me really really hungry. Where I learnt how divine it is to bask in the sun on a winter’s afternoon. Where I once laid awake at night wondering what in the world I got myself into, and then now wonder, how I am going to get everything packed and get on that plane next Sunday.

But if I had to say my goodbyes, I like the way the French say it. Au revoir.

Till we meet again.

* It was when I started this post, but I write slow. So it’s now 1 year and 1 day.

Argentine dog saves abandoned baby

Happy Birthday Singapore. May you always remain a beautiful home to the people who have toiled for your success.

Update: In my haste to make the August 9 midnight deadline (Singapore time), I forgot that I wrote this. A friend told me about a competition to write about what Home means. It turned out to be a mistake, because the competition was specifically about a place in Singapore that reminded you of home. Or something like that. In any case, the poem was written and here it is. My sincere apologies to Wilfred Owen, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and the great Dylan Thomas for my embarrassing homage. Did I mention that I was never a Literature student?

Home was where I first tasted chilli
As a child and saw my mother’s smile
As she wiped the sweat off my brow.

Home was where I fought
Many a riotous teenage battle and saw
The anger that flashed in my father’s eyes.

Home was what I left to explore the world
with the wings I started growing
The day I learnt to walk
without my mother’s supporting hands.

Home is why I don my uniform
and pick up arms when I know
War is but a sweet sweet lie.

Home was where I wept and raged
As my father’s eyes dimmed
in the dying of the light.

Home is where I cradle
the dreams of my young child
And pray I will be her shelter
from the rain that must fall.

Home is where I hope to lay
at the dusk of my days,
With a smile for the stars that take my place
as I fade into that good night.

And the geekification began thus.

1984. Not the Orwellian novel. I was all grown up at eight. My family moved out of our government-built apartment (where Dad, Mom, brother and I, shared one room, fun times) into a larger one. One day, Dad brings home a strange-looking device. A new TV? Hooray! No. It was a computer. A Commondore 64. But as far as my 8-year-old self was concerned, it was a mutant TV-typewriter breed. The TV part of it was crap. Monotonous green characters flashing across a black screen. Dad spends afternoons in front of it, pouring over the manuals. I had more important things to do.

1987. We move again. This time to a house with a garden. The Commodore moved with us, migrating along the way from Dad’s room to the kids’. Geeky son of Mom’s friend who lives in the neighbourhood introduced us to computer games. Space Invaders. Asteroids. Hoo-boy. My favourite game at the time - Who Wants to be a Millionaire? A trivia quiz game. Brother and I fought constantly to get the highest scores.

1988. Dad buys a new computer. I secretly watch Dad use DOS. I learn my first real computer command dir. Makes the screen scroll with a list of stuff. Very cool. Dad was pleasantly surprised and decides to send me for the free introductory computer course that came with the purchase. I start to acquire some computer chops. Type windows.exe and this fancy windowy stuff came up. I think it was Windows 2.1. But it wasn’t really useful since WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 ran in DOS. Brother and I compete furiously on typing games and taught ourselves BASIC from Dad’s manuals. We attempted to write our own Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game modelled after the books we were reading at the time. Brother also wrote a small program generating random numbers for the lottery so that he could get rich quick.

I chose a more practical money-making option. Earn extra pocket money typing out assignments for Mom and Dad on ChiWriter. The rhythmic beats of our dot-matrix printer as it spits out the outputs of my efforts was a comforting soundtrack for many afternoons. A year later, I could touch type like a pro.

1992. I join the school computer club to race little robotic mice in a maze. Windows 3.1 takes off. This GUI thing was turning out pretty cool. Because of the way the computer was placed at home, I was a right-hander that could use the mouse only with my left hand. I brought home Wolfenstein 3D, the first ever first-person shooter game, thanks to friends I made through the club. I spent way too much time shooting Nazi soldiers.

1993. Brother and I decided to form an unholy alliance, the first and last in many years, to play Doom co-operatively. Navigating in the 3D levels was making us woozy, so we decided to play it relay-style, handing off the game play to each other whenever we started to feel sick. We got through the levels in record time.

1995. I start college. Got my first access to networked Windows NT workstations and a Unix account. Sent my first email from Pine and spend too much of time chatting on talk (we later graduate to ytalk). Discover the Internet. Went quickly from Mosaic to Netscape Navigator. Taught myself HTML from viewing webpage source codes.

1996. Uploaded website assignment to the Interwebs. 100% handcoded in Notepad. We even used javascript and made our own animated gifs. Graphic design in Microsoft Paint. Unbelievably, it is still online. We got awards but no, we didn’t make it rich. Got a spanking new computer running Windows 95 at home.

1998. I graduate from college with a business degree. And then went right back to do a post-graduate in Systems Analysis. My geekification is almost complete.

1999. I graduate and begin working life in the Industry. The dot-com boom takes off.

2000. Subscribes to broadband at a blazing 128kbps. The tech gods take pity on me and replaces NT4 with Windows 2000. Acquired a beautiful sexy little PDA known as the Palm Vx. And my first digital camera, the iconic Canon G1. My geek transformation complete. There was no turning back.

For lack of better content, but mainly because I’m such a sucker for sappy poems.

PS: Miss K and Mr T, this is apparently a very popular wedding poem. Hint hint wink wink.

Love
- Roy Croft

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

On the way to town after work today, I saw a beautiful beautiful rainbow. It reminded me of one my absolute favourite songs, Judy Garland’s rendition of “Over the Rainbow”. No prizes for guessing which song’s on the repeat loop tonight.

Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
There’s a land that I heard of
Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true

Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?
Some day I’ll wish upon a star
And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
Where troubles melt like lemondrops
Away above the chimney tops
That’s where you’ll find me

Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
Birds fly over the rainbow
Why then, oh why can’t I?

If happy little bluebirds fly
Beyond the rainbow
Why, oh why can’t I?

Monday marks Bhutan’s final steps in her march towards a modern democracy. It’s D-day tomorrow as Bhutanese all over the country head to the polls and cast their vote for the party that will form the new democratic government. Thimphu is unusually quiet over the weekend, as many leave the country’s capital to return to the villages across the country to cast their votes. Many shops and restaurant are closed and it wasn’t easy to find lunch in town today.

I wasn’t in Thimphu to witness the local National Council elections in January, so I’m absolutely thrilled about the opportunity to witness the birth of the world’s latest democracy tomorrow. Photo opportunities are a little tricky, so I’m keeping my fingers-crossed.

History will be made tomorrow, my friends, are you excited?

Apparently not. Richard Easterlin postulated that “happiness at a national level does not increase with wealth once basic needs are fulfilled”. So how does that tie to the trends reflected in the Gallup data? The gains in life satisfaction is greatest in the lower GDP region of the graph, giving credence Easterlin’s theory. What is surprising though, is the consistent, though less dramatic, gains in life satisfaction with an increase in income for the richer countries.

The article explains this apparent contradiction by suggesting that when asked about their state of happiness, “people use a global standard.” Through globalisation and improved telecommunications, people understand how good/bad their lives are in relation to other low/high-income countries.

What does this mean for Bhutan? Technologies like the Internet and television are already bringing the world into Bhutanese homes. More Bhutanese than ever before are travelling overseas. Happiness is a moving target influenced by our exposure to global standards. As living standards improve in the world, what makes the citizens of this little land-locked nation happy today, is unlikely to bring them the same level of satisfaction in the years to come.

Much as I would like Bhutan to remain the oft-romanticised vision of Shangri-la, the pragmatic side of me (thanks to my Motherland, the land of the GDP-focused pragmatics) know it is difficult. Bhutan has already recognised the importance of the economy as it tries to find its own place in the global stage.

The global tides of change are here. And they are here to stay.