udderiffic indulgence.

(Name of condition courtesy of Mr Ng.)

There has been a widespread Internet famine in the last 18hours or so in the National University of Singapore!

I couldn’t do anything at all and am so glad the Ingterneck is back, which is why I decided to commemorate its return by a short but sweet blog post!

Okbye.

NUS Writers Connect
Bringing together writers from the NUS.

Date: Thursday, September 27, 2007
Time: 1:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: National University of Singapore (exact venue to be confirmed nearer the date)

This event aims to provide a safe and positive environment for budding writers in the NUS to experience a group work-shopping process in the hope that:

1. It allows writers to gain feedback about their works to facilitate improvement.

2. It kicks off a regular program for writers to share their knowledge and network, among other objectives.

Whether you are a poet, a playwright or a prose writer, this event is for you, as long as you are an NUS student who does some writing on the side and wants an opportunity to learn more about writing.

Just bring yourself and about six (6) copies of the work you would like to workshop along with some snacks and drinks (halal/vegetarian preferred!) to share - what’s a gathering without food?

R.S.V.P. Do e-mail or call if any queries.

See you there!

Hi everyone,

I thought I would like to discuss The Tiger in a bit more depth here, because I quite like the problematic complexity of the themes and the way Rajaratnam deals with them in this story.

My opening would be to ask if we can read The Tiger as a satire on government and society in this posting.

The characters of the headman, Mahmood, the villagers and Fatima’s mother are problematic, for they have their own reasons to protect their own kind

But Rajaratnam could also be satirising government and society in the way he depicts the said characters.

An example would be the discourse of the headman, who says that “[f]or the peace and safety of the women and children the beast must be hunted down and destroyed without delay”. (Rajaratnam 4)

Mahmood similarly enthuses: “We have to think of the women and children… . It is the duty of the menfolk to protect them”. (5)

Both these discourses adopt a particularly ideology - gendered, obviously, but are, nevertheless, also politically charged, as it propagates a view that the community has to take charge of its own defence against a potential aggressor.

Rajaratnam is a man who, I am sure is safe to say, believes in the power of a community’s unity - not only did he pen the National Pledge, but he has also mentioned before to Singaporeans that:

“If you think of yourself as Chinese, Malays, Indians and Sri Lankans, then Singapore will collapse. You must think of Singapore: ‘This is my country.’ I fight and die for Singapore if necessary”. (quoted in Mesenas, “The Passing of a Titan“)

The discourse in the text definitely reflects this notion of togetherness, enthusiasm and passion in a community’s unity.

BUT, Rajaratnam has also said before that “Singapore run only by PhDs would be my vision of a purgatory. Equally, a government run by roadsweepers can be no less a terrifying place to live in” . (Ibid)

It has also been said that “there was one subject on which [then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew] and Mr Rajaratnam did not see eye-to-eye. Mr Lee argued that graduate mothers should be offered incentives to have more children and non-graduate mothers less so. Mr Rajaratnam refused to accept this”. (Mesenas, “The Passing of a Titan“)

So we can see in Rajaratnam this resistance against a state (State?) of extremist tendencies.

This can be said to ring through in The Tiger, as the ending of the story problematises the text and the notion of the characters propagating a community spirit.

Because the reader is left to devote a certain amount of sympathy to the tiger, whose death seems slightly unjustified in view of the fact that it died while defending its young, one wonders if Rajaratnam, whose main message may be about nationalism, may also be cautioning his readers against an extreme version of it.

Just to clarify: I know Rajaratnam wrote this text in 1946 or so, before his involvement in Singaporean politics, which may render my use of the evidence from Mesenas a bit redundant.

But what I meantersay is that his sensibilities as a human and a potential politician should have developed by the time he wrote the story, hence the possible message I speak of?

Food for thoughts and your comments, please.

P.S. More of Rajaratnam’s stories here!