Samarkand

When we left Dubai, I wanted to buy a parting gift for myself; something uniquely Middle Eastern. So I picked up this book: the english translation (the original is in french) of Amin Maalouf's historical novel 'Samarkand'. And wow, what a great book it turned out to be!

Maalouf has taken the historical facts from 12th century Persia & used beautiful imaginative threads of fiction to connect them. Omar Khayyam, the celebrated 12th century Persian poet, philosopher & mathematician is the main character of this tale. The story traces the birth of Khayyam's famous book of persian poetry called Rubaiyat which earned him praise from many intellectuals & wrath of many religious zealots. As the legend goes, Khayyam was being tried by a qadi (a religious judge) for his supposedly 'un-islamic' verses; but instead finds a friend and sympathiser in the qadi who explains to Khayyam that the world is not yet ready for his philosophy & urges him to write down his private thoughts in a small notebook. This was the beginnning of the Rubaiyat. The book follows the manuscript of the Rubaiyat all the way to 19th century Persia through the revolution & the resultant democracy.

Here's a quatrain from Khayyam's Rubaiyat that I liked :)

"I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And by and by my Soul returned to me,
And answered "I Myself am Heaven and Hell"

Colourful Clarke Quay

We're staying at Clarke Quay at the moment & its a really colourful part of the city. Literally.

Arrived

Last week we finally packed our stuff from Dubai and arrived in Singapore this Monday. We're living out of our suitcase at the moment & its not easy finding an apartment in Singapore. All we've managed to do so far is make a checklist of 'must-haves' for our home (proximity to a MRT station, proximity to work & a decent size are at the top check-boxes for now).

In the meanwhile, I've managed to collect a lot of fengshui charms for the apartment (which we haven't yet found). Singapore's China Town is full of them! The picture on the left is the biggest fengshui charm of the city; its called the "Fountain of Wealth".

The 'Fountain of Wealth' is surrounded by five high-rises representing the five fingers of a hand, and the Fountain itself symbolises the ring in the palm of the hand. The water flowing into the ring is a symbol of fengshui good luck. Dont want to get superstitious here, but if you see the recent boom in this city/ country the charm seems to be working :)

The New Star

I went to India over the weekend to see my nephew and he is such a cutie!! He has everyone wrapped around his little finger...one look at his crying face and who could say no to him? :)