Tribute I

3 years ago, on a rainy Friday night in Singapore, I made my way to a dingy expatriate populated bar in Emerald Hill which couldn’t have been more suitably named ‘Ice Cold Beer’. I wasn’t planning to meet you there, but somehow amidst the chaos, I found myself planted beside you listerning to you go into a lengthly description of what seemed to be the chasms of hell you were stuck in. At that point, I was thinking its Friday and I’d still like to go home for the weekend.

3 years later, I find myself meandering off a crowded street in London on a rainy afternoon, entering the Michelin Star Christian Liaigre furnished, Hussein Chalayan staff attired, legendary barman Dick Bradsell’s designed cocktail list Chinese Restaurant, Hakkasan to meet you for Venison Buns and Dragon Tail Tea wishing the evening would never end.

As usual, amist the back drop of the blue frosted Ling Ling bar and brooding lighting, when I saw you, you were smiling brightly at me like a purple peony. I can register that feeling only now as I sit down to write this, that when I am with you, I feel at ease, almost as if everything will be ok as long as I am with you. As if you could save my misguided soul if I opened up enough to let you. I know you could. That is how great you are.

Because of this simple fact, some how any lengthy descriptions of how you replicated my mums’ soup for me, the numerous culinary fleets you performed in our apartment, the gastronomical orgasms we have experienced together no longer seem as important. It wasn’t what you did for us, but who you were for us. The listerner, the adviser and the friend.

So, my dear world wisely PP, as you sit on the plane bound for new horizons, do not be afraid because on this cold London morning, as I climb into my bed, I am thinking of you and wishing you frosted milkshake dreams basked in silken moonlight surrounded by the warm effervescence of soft fluffy clouds. You told me I always have a choice, so do you. And I believed you only because you told me so.

On Player_’If You Leave’ by Nada Surf’