...the next time you visit us.. Ma'am, please come and stay with us again...

.. the Chinese Sous Chef at the Regency Club Lounge Breakfast bar managed to say this to me in his broken Chinese Singlish and as he warmly shook my hand.. he cleared my table that he had laid even before I showed up for breakfast, coz he knew I had an early flight out of Changi that morning and he wanted to make sure I get my "2 egg white omlette with the green chillies and coriander.." on my last day there... the cynics among you will react to this.. as ... "she must have given a big tip... " well tipping is almost prohibited, so that was not the reason.. the practical ones among you will say.. " a four seasons hotel obviously has great customer service..." very true.. but then... as I started writing about the rains in Singapore and how the greens rekindled my spirits, I realized my thoughts strayed more to the people I met there than the finesse of the place...

.. Yes the flight was amazing... the hotel was spectacular.. Sentosa was a treat, the work stuff was very well worth the travel, seeing old friends made this trip very very special and seeing my parents who flew in to surprise me made this trip priceless... I think my photo album captured those moments a lot better than my words every could.. there is only so much that words can capture when it comes to the heart... however when it comes to the mind, that is a different story....

The pollyana in me firmly believes that human nature is inherently good and the human spirit is inherently a part of the cosmic whole and if you appeal to that universality in this world, it is rare that the response back will be anything but positive. That is always what I have maintained whenever I have been amidst situations, people or places that are different from me, that assumption or presumption has elicited a favorable and usually an extremely warm response...

Such was the case in Singapore too, my 10 days in this island country had fun interactions with cabs and cab drivers, camera stores, plush malls, desi departmental stores, hotel doormen, concierge, local colleagues, flight attendants, maintenance staff in hotel resorts... what i enjoyed about the whole thing was how kind people were to a perfect stranger, how proud these people are of their country and yet so warm and welcoming. So while one cabbie told me how I should get myself a Buddha amulet, the other one forgot to turn on his meter and didn;t take a single dollar from me saying..."sometimes it is just nice to have a good passenger that makes you forget to worry about the fare... those trips are what make it worthwhile for me to drive a cab.." Hard to forget those lines when u hit a rough day and think back on some memories that make you smile...

I guess wanderlust is in my genes and also have been blessed with opportunities to travel since I was a child.. I think what fascinated me more than the sights and sounds of a place were the people.. they were the the only reason why a place came alive for me... so whether it was Father David in the Salisbury Cathedral, or a wonderful tour guide in Paris or the concierge lady in Seoul... it was always the people who made the difference.. the place or country is secondary..

Singapore and its greens reminded me of my times in India... and as the fighter jets rehearsed for the upcoming airshow, I looked outside my hotel window and saw a beautiful heart... made me realize, doesn't matter if I was strutting along Sentosa with an umbrella or dancing in the rains in Bangalore...when the soul is touched by love and kindness, it is renewed each time...