Material Girl

It’s a new month! Well beyond the half-year mark of 2024. Paris Olympics are in full swing, people are buzzing around on summer vacations and a woman of colour is running for US President. It frustrates me how many people in my circle haven’t seen Veep to understand how well this was predicted by the show. My home state of Kerala is going through fatal rainfall again. I watch the casualties with a heavy heart between the various Bloomberg headlines on my screen. Geopolitical tensions continue. My life’s worries seem so flimsy in comparison. And yet they are there.

My entire family has gone to the grandparents’ house. It is a cousin roundup, only this time - there are mini versions of the cousins running around too. I will soon be joining them, for a fully packed week-and-half. The schedule is set, the multiple doctor appointments, the dress fittings, the functions and the transit tickets. I used to joke about it years ago…but somehow I am fully on track to being that single NRI aunt who visits once a year. I am so excited I can already see the greenery that greets your eyes as you begin the descent to Cochin International Airport. My mother says I used to be so excited on journeys back home during summer vacations that I wouldn’t sleep all night on the train, and honestly, nothing’s changed.

Singapore’s vibes will be missed. Hot Kopi-si siew dai in the morning, drinking water from the tap (without having to boil it first), the adorable extremely well-behaved babies on the MRT. And I am flying out on National Day! The Singapore flag flies proudly around the city, peppering the HDB apartments and local stores. Exactly like the tricolour flies in Delhi. It is a young and proud country, turning 59. Home to a very hardworking bunch of people. Welcoming ones (expats/immigrants/foreign workers?) like me to build a better life for our families too.

I always enjoy getting into deeper conversations with people from different walks of life than me, the farther the better. Learning the way they think and approach life is always worth the time you put in to just listen. In my regular parlour, there is an expert who everyone queues up for. Simply put, she is a class apart and I can’t quite trust anyone else with my brows now. Initially extremely professional, we have now grown to exchange light pleasantries. Yesterday, I got the opportunity to hear her story (while she ripped my soul out with hot wax of course). A native of Punjab, we bonded over our love for parathas and chai. ( BTW guys, it’s not me. Even she couldn’t make chai that tastes right since moving here. It’s probably the milk.)

Now she was also a young girl, working far away from home, seeing her family once a year or two. But there is obviously a big difference. I work in a cushiony white-collar banking job. While the labour regulations in Singapore demand she be given medical leave, paid annual leave, insurance benefits – and her contract states so as well- she gets none. No overtime either. And it’s a tricky situation – raise your voice and risk losing your job or hold onto the pay checks. She was smart, had so much perfection in her work and could probably take her customers with her. But of course, fear holds her back. As I kept wondering what the right organisation would be to raise this to, she asked to me stop thinking so much and sent me away with a scolding to leave my eyebrows alone for a month.

Over the weekend, I had lugged myself to the other end of the island, to a beauty sale that was giving away quality brands at massive discounts. To stock up for myself and my sisters. Earlier in the week, I had worn an outfit that I had clearly grown out of that made me sick at work after a particularly greasy lunch, which meant I had to go get a change of clothes on the spot. And I could afford to do all of that. I didn’t have to work or sleep hungry even once in my life. I don’t think I am any more hardworking or talented than my eyebrow specialist, or the server at my neighbourhood Koi Express who operates like a goddamn dancing swan. My new senior tells me our job is an art, not a science. Something of intuition that you need to build with nights and days of hard-work and practice.

It made me wonder – isn’t every job an art if you want to be good at it? You can of course, do exactly as much as your pay cheque demands you to and leave it at that. But to make a mark, to stand apart, to have people lining up for you – specifically – because only you can do what you do. That needs an artist, who elevates the work, and adds their own charm to it. Like Indra Nooyi, former Pepsico CEO, says in her book (one of my comfort reads) – she developed her own research routines while working with BCG at the beginning of her corporate career. By adding onto their frameworks, I am sure that extra effort kept her a class apart and constantly courted by many companies throughout her leadership journey. Some of us progress with a golden ticket and support systems, and some of us have our own grit at best. The art however, always shines through. Just like, after Coldplay and Taylor Swift, the SG cafes have moved on to Sabrina Carpenter.

PC: @half.plate on Instagram/YouTube who makes food that looks and tastes heavenly.