by Balli Kaur
On the buses, the National Courtesy Campaign posters remind us not to shove other passengers. Signs with penalty warnings remind us that the cost of littering is $500. Although falling in love and all of its excitement, along with its pitfalls and challenges, are not forbidden to Singaporeans, our government seems more concerned with legally pairing men and women who will eventually breed to fill the future population. I am writing today to tell you that love cannot be manufactured. This should be the most basic knowledge to anybody who claims love as their business. We do not always choose who and how we love. In my case, we do not always love the people we are supposed to.
I will never marry a woman. I am a homosexual. There was a time in my life, during my years of National Service, when my officers treated this with great gravity, as if I carried a contagious and dangerous disease that needed to be contained. They asked me to confirm their suspicions. I told them the truth because I did not think I could hide it. If two commanding officers who only knew me from basic drills could see right through me, what chance did I have of hiding this from anybody else? Over the years, however, I became more aware of the fact that hiding my homosexuality was the appropriate option.
I must admit that your recent marketing campaign has revamped your image significantly. If you catered to my population, maybe I would have attended your recent movie night or the Hawaiian luau or the picnic in Bukit Timah nature reserve. But after reading the Getting Started brochure and the registration form, certain questions would have turned me off. I would have sat down to write this letter regardless.
Firstly, the SDU is exclusively for university graduates. I fit into this category, which means that the government values my potential for finding a partner. So let’s not deny why the SDU was really founded: the government’s aim is to populate this island with the future offspring of university graduates in hope that we will have a more educated society. Clever people breed with other clever people and create clever children. Attached to this letter, you will find a photocopy of my secondary school leaving slip, with my results in every subject. My marks were always just above average and I was lucky to be accepted into a third-rate engineering program in America, where they were eager for the revenue from international student fees. I have a degree, but I have never considered myself an intellectual. A questioner, yes. An occasional reader, to combat my boredom on the commute to work. My father was a driven and selfmotivated Indian immigrant who taught himself English with great discipline. Although he did everything to instil this same drive in me and my siblings, I narrowly passed my secondary school exams. My older brother was also an average student; he makes his living selling insurance now but two of his daughters have received countless awards, scholarships and prizes throughout their academic careers. There is no guarantee that an intelligent and studious man can produce carbon copies in his offspring, or that a less academic man is destined to have stupid children.
My sister Amrit is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met. Although I doubt she’d try joining the SDU. She would be rejected upon application. Amrit would not pass the screening on the grounds that she didn’t go to university. But let’s just say that she did. Let’s say that Amrit graduated from the National University of Singapore with an honours degree in Law or Physics. She still would probably fail the SDU screening because of her record with Woodbridge Hospital (Question 7a: Do you have any history of mental illness? Please explain in the space below).
When I was getting ready to study overseas in America, my sister was fifteen and about to sit her O-Levels. She was what you would describe as a mischievous girl, a bit of a troublemaker. She was never a bad kid, just restless and curious. Yet at some point, Amrit changed for the worse. She began mixing with boys who skipped school, and doing dishonourable things. When Amrit first ran away from home, I knew that something serious had taken place. I also knew that it had been present in her all along. Since her adolescence, I had been trying to suppress this thing in Amrit that made her different – not just daring and rebellious but impulsive, overly excited and incredibly moody. I always knew that when I left, it would spring out and take over her, and it did.
By the time I graduated and moved back to Singapore, Amrit had already carved a reputation for herself for drinking, staying out late and mingling with the wrong company. She had trouble finding work and when she did, she was unreliable and frequently late. This continued, so my father tried to arrange her marriage but the engagement did not last. After that, things just became worse. Amrit would disappear for days on end and come back either drunk or hungover. Sometimes – mostly when she did not have any money – she would stay at home, but this was actually worse because we had to witness a different kind of disappearance, where it seemed as if Amrit’s spirit had left her body and another one had replaced it. She talked rapidly and excitedly for hours about topics that had no relevance to each other. She had theories and ideas that made no sense. Then in the following days, she would be detached and incapable of speaking at all.
I look back on this period with a great deal of regret over how I handled Amrit’s behaviour. In those days, I was blinded by the unfairness of this burden I had to carry. I believed that Amrit was holding me back and if not for her, I would be free to do whatever I wanted. I would have found love. I resented her. At the time I didn’t realise that it was me – I was holding myself back. Whenever there was an opportunity for me to live a truer life, I saw Amrit as the obstacle that kept me from moving forward. I believed that Amrit didn’t want me to be free so she misbehaved and drew me back into my responsibilities.
Several years ago, everything began to make sense. Amrit vanished from our flat for nearly a week and during that time, I decided I wanted nothing to do with her. If she returned, I would padlock the gate and tell her to take her things and go back to where she had been. Certain events had occurred in the days prior that made me feel as though lying for another day would just be unbearable. I told my father that I was gay. He chose not to deal with it, but I was relieved anyway. I had told him. Moments later, we were sitting with a group of men at a coffee shop and they began to make jokes about a girl who lived in our building and slept with several men at a time for the price of a bottle of whiskey. We knew it must be my sister. My father broke down. I knew his tears were not just for Amrit. He was crying for everything he had lost, and I felt partially responsible for that. I was furious with Amrit for eclipsing this moment of my coming out, and for following her impulses with no sense of the consequences. In contrast to her actions, I had narrowly escaped jail just for ‘dancing with men’.
I went back to our flat, and Amrit returned only a few hours later. I did not give her a chance to sneak in; I stood at the door and told her to get out. Then I took all of her belongings and threw them out of our flat. Amrit became hysterical and ran down the stairs of our apartment block. I panicked and ran after her. She went straight to the main road and planted herself in the middle of it. I screamed her name. In the surrounding apartment blocks, I remember a few lights flickering on but there was nobody out there but me and my sister. I don’t know if she heard me. We both saw the bus approaching at the same time. Still running towards the road, I screamed out her name again and this time, she turned and stepped off the road.
The story, as Amrit would like to believe it, is that I pushed her out of the way. She claims she remembers my hands on her shoulders, pulling her out of harm’s way. The psychiatrist she saw afterwards told her that it was common to confuse fantasy with memory after a traumatic incident. The truth as I witnessed it is this: Amrit saved herself. She stepped off the road, away from the bus, and collapsed into tears. I crouched next to her and, for a long time, we remained there in complete shock. Eventually, we returned home. Amrit looked as though she was still in a daze but her words were very clear. ‘I need help,’ she said.
Now I know that there are terms for what we just used to call Amrit’s disappearances, and there is research to explain it all.
We discovered these terms a short time after this incident when Amrit managed to get a referral to see a doctor at Woodbridge. He confirmed that she could not help her behaviour because she had a sickness that produced these emotional highs and lows. The doctor said that a steady course of medication and therapy would be the best treatment for Amrit. I certainly did not think it would be so simple, and I was right. Some pills made Amrit drowsy. Some made her sick. Others turned her into a zombie. At one point, Amrit decided it was better to go off medication altogether. She missed the highs she used to feel – the thrilling confidence and exhilaration – and she thought she would be able to control the accompanying lows now that she was aware of the illness. Luckily, the doctor talked her out of it and recommended another type of medication. He also persuaded her to increase the frequency of her visits to the psychiatrist.
Throughout this period, I did what I had done my whole life: I protected Amrit. The only difference was that I was now protecting her from herself. My only concern was that Amrit stayed on course. I took a leave of absence from work, citing a family issue about which my colleagues were thankfully polite enough to refrain from asking. The first few weeks of therapy were very taxing on Amrit. She came home each day looking drained, and she slept for long periods. The new medication had fewer potential side effects and the only one that affected Amrit was constant thirst. Then something happened. The books describe it as a turning point, when the right combination of remedies clicks into place. Amrit sat me down one day and told me that she was feeling a little bit better. It doesn’t sound like a very promising statement but this marked the first time that Amrit could say she was making some progress.
Currently, Amrit works part-time at a shop for a woman who sells Christian religious figurines. This boss likes to remind Amrit that she is lucky to have any job at all considering her illness (which Amrit had to disclose). Amrit wants to find a new job but she also knows that her boss is right. Amrit wants to study. She wants to learn more about her illness but she is afraid of borrowing too many books about her disorder from the library because she does not want her name attached to that subject matter. My job is to convince her that she has nothing to worry about. I wish I could do this with complete faith but I cannot. Letters from organisations like the SDU remind me that we are being monitored and judged in the most private aspects of our lives.
When Amrit was switching medications, she went through a period when she just wanted to give up trying. Everything made her miserable, and chances of a cure were nowhere in sight. I found myself reminding her that there were no neat solutions to such a complex problem. At the time, I said this out of desperation because I was very afraid that Amrit would slide back into her old ways. However, this became a daily reminder to myself as I noticed a disparity between the government’s initiatives to civilise this nation and the actual signs of civilisation in our people. Courtesy campaigns and the banning of chewing gum are superficial solutions. People should be kind to each other for the sake of kindness. People should understand that sticking chewing gum on elevator buttons is disgusting. In the government’s efforts to advance the people of this country as quickly as the skyscrapers are rising, they are forgetting that we are people. We are complex and diverse and will learn better through trial and error than through mandates. If you think I am wrong, step out of your office and look closely at the people. Peep into the government flats, take a stroll through the estates, eavesdrop on a hawker centre conversation. Everywhere, we cling to superstition and old beliefs. I entered a public rest room recently to find the muddy imprints of two shoes on a toilet seat. An older man from my father’s generation must have squatted on the seat, not knowing that he was meant to sit on it, despite the illustrated Ministry of Health instructions pasted on the back of the door.
The old ways are rife in my own family, despite our modern surroundings. When Amrit informed my father of her diagnosis, I came home to find him sitting on the balcony counting his fingers. He said, ‘A man is supposed to have as many misfortunes as the fingers on his hands.’ He counted his fingers many times, looking genuinely puzzled. He had ten fingers but so many more misfortunes.
I worry about Amrit. Frankly, I don’t know how anybody can survive in a society so eager to place each person into a category and close their file, without sacrificing their fundamental humanness. It is now my job to make sure Amrit does not believe she is only worthy of marginal things. Of course, this means that I have taken on another impossible responsibility but I can’t live my life any other way.
On the SDU application, there was a space for me to write down what I wanted in a partner. If it were possible for a man like me to join the SDU, I would stipulate that my partner must accept that I would always take care of Amrit, even though she is learning to take care of herself. This is my reality. I will always wait for her phone calls, check on her, take down her doctor’s number and follow up on her appointments to track her progress. This has nothing to do with what my family has assigned me to do. I want to support Amrit because I know how it feels to be defined by what I have not accomplished.
Initially, I wanted to write to say that I could not join the SDU because I have other responsibilities and duties, and they take precedence over finding a partner – but this is not true. My responsibilities towards Amrit are not more or less important than finding love. They are equal. If I can’t show my sister the fullest support, then I can never hope to do the same for anybody else. Furthermore, my duties involve caring for somebody whose country does not consider her worthy of love. I want the government’s attitude to change and I want Amrit to have the same opportunities as everybody else but I fear that, instead, this country will continue rapidly growing and changing in impressive ways that will make little difference to the humanity of its people.
For these reasons, I will not be sending this letter. I would rather send a simple note asking that you take me off the SDU’s mailing list. It is enough that I have written the above sentiments, and that I keep this as a record of my opinions. Perhaps one day I will be able to read this again and see that something has changed.
Sincerely,
Narain Singh Sandhu
Narain blinked at the pages that were spread before him like a gambling deck. He stacked them together and stretched his neck and arms to ease some mild soreness. A long confessional had not been on this morning’s agenda – he had only meant to inform companies to take him off their mailing lists.
It was not the first time this had happened. He recalled that hectic period during Amrit’s in-patient treatment at Woodbridge. In between his visits, he had scribbled frantic notes in the flimsy pad he kept in his pocket to keep track of the names of medications and doctors. He still had that notebook, although its pages had long been filled with outraged rants at Gurdev for thinking Amrit’s illness was a figment of her imagination, and with drafts of speeches to Father explaining the diagnosis in a way that he would accept. Each time Narain opened it, those feelings returned. So many words remained trapped within the margins of those pages.
As he contemplated a hiding spot for this letter, Narain noticed Amrit crossing the hallway past his open door. Her hair was neatly brushed and pinned up, her slacks ironed the night before. When she first started working for Ms Rosario, he supervised each of these tasks. Amrit had not liked it. ‘I’m not disabled,’ she had said exasperatedly one evening, after Narain reminded her to set her alarm clock. At the time, Amrit did not like hearing him explain the importance of setting routines.
Narain had known that Ms Rosario would not be kind to Amrit – he had met her himself when he accompanied Amrit to fill out her job application. Correctly predicting that the job offer would come with a catch, Narain was not surprised to see Amrit come home in tears one afternoon, declaring that she would give notice the next day. ‘No, you won’t,’ Narain said firmly. ‘You have to work through it.’ Taking her through the tasks of laying out her clothes and setting her alarm clock for the next day, he w
as struck by the paradox of Amrit’s situation. If she stayed, she had to put up with Ms Rosario’s snide comments and suspicions about her character; if she quit, she would have to grapple with a sense of failure and a long wait until she found another employer willing to take her on. Even the smallest periods of idleness were dangerous – routines helped to close the gaps through which she might slip, especially in a crisis.
There she was again, her shadow flitting past Narain’s door like a moth. He pushed the SDU letter into his dresser. Its contents felt private, even though Amrit knew him better than anyone else in the family.
Amrit poked her head in. ‘Is Father home?’ she asked.
‘Probably not. I heard him leave after eating breakfast,’ Narain replied. ‘Are you ready for work?’
Amrit nodded quickly. ‘I just have, uh… something to do,’ she said. ‘Where is Father exactly?’
‘Taking one of his walks,’ Narain said. Father spent most early mornings on foot, travelling from one housing estate to the next and returning home with anecdotes brimming. He did not speak these stories to Amrit or Narain but, late at night, mistaking their flat for a home with wider dimensions, the muffled sound of his voice could be heard.
‘What do you need from him?’ Narain asked. Amrit did not answer. He looked up to see her opening the door to Father’s room. She looked over her shoulder as if she knew that Narain would be right behind her. He repeated his question but Amrit said nothing as she entered the room and headed straight for Father’s desk. Narain went after her, stopping at the door to jiggle the doorknob – Father had made no move to repair the lock, which had broken last week. Considering how much Father used to value his privacy, that was strange.
Amrit shuffled through Father’s papers. She seemed intent on finding something, and Narain knew what it was. ‘Amrit,’ he said, placing his hand gently on her shoulder. She whipped around to face him.