Singing in "Indian"

On Page 39 of Thursday's Today newspaper, a very popular, iconic SINGAPOREAN musician was quoted as saying,

"We once did a Chinese song... done as a ballad with Indian instruments and sung in Indian."

Every Indian nerve in my body prickled and stood on end at those last three words. Sung in Indian?

How do people who have lived in a multi-racial society like Singapore, have friends of different ethnicity (one would assume) and have written and performed in all 4 official languages not know that "Indian" is not a language?

I can understand if the person grew up at the bottom of a well, is a SAP school alumni and local university graduate whose only contact with other races is when they are feeling exotic and want to eat prata. But this person is a much respected cultural icon, who honestly should know better.

So, to clear it up, here is the low-down:

Indian is a nationality.
A Hindu is person who practises Hinduism, a religion.
Hindi is a language.
The Indian language that is also our official language is Tamil.
Tamil is spoken by 90% of Singaporeans of Indian descent.
Tamils are not classified by how "fair" or "dark" they are, but where their forefathers came from (Tamil Nadu and some parts of Kerala and Sri Lanka)

And for the record, we are not amused when you imitate our language and ask non-enligtened questions like "Wah, you perm your hair ah?"

It is as impossible to sing in Indian, as it is to order food in Malaysian or speak in Singaporean.

To the respected musician in question, I really do hope that you were misquoted. It is unforgivable for a person such as yourself, who borrows freely from our vast cultural heritage to make such an ignorant comment.

I do not like them, Sam I Am

I do not like numbers. I don’t mind random numbers that have meaning like money, or time or the number of drinks I have had the night before.

I mean rows and rows of numbers that need verification, checking against the source, and then given over to the scrutiny of someone else who can probably make a lot more sense of them than I can.

That seems to be all I am doing at work these days. Checking pricing against the original, checking it against other versions and determining if the number I am inputting is the correct one!

I don’t like numbers. If I enjoyed them, I would be a statistician, accountant or working in some bank somewhere. I have a Bachelor of ARTS for a real good reason. I am a creative, left brained individual, who can do the odd spreadsheet if required to. But looking at dozens of them on a monthly basis is just NOT MY THING!


Thanks for listening!