Birthdays are mostly fun. If you know how to enjoy them. I woke up, without caring what time it was. Watched my favourite TV show during breakfast. It was amazing. It's called Penn & Teller : Bullshit and I owe a lot of my thoughts, ideas and manner of thinking to that show. For those of you who don't know, Bullshit is like Mythbusters (the Discovery Channel programme where they blow up stuff to test the validity of Urban Legends). Bullshit deals with broader, on-going issues and they have done themes like Boy Scouts, prostitution, profanity and so on. I would encourage you to watch it but it is not for the faint hearted as they get very controversial and the discourse is peppered with profanity (the reason for which is elucidated in Season 1's first episode)

I hit the books for a while and was happy that I made some progress. I usually find it challenging to study on my own so I was overjoyed. There's this “cracked the code” feeling to it. Though honestly, it didn't carry over through the rest of the week.

I did something crazy which very few people do. I had reasons though. A week or so back, I was hanging out with my buddies and one of them just casually said, “You're going to be 21 right? How does it feel to have been through a quarter of your life?”. I am always surrounded by these kind of people. They ask uncomfortable questions at uncomfortable times. I would, however, credit the same people for my growth. *I love you guys, who know who you are =) If you don't, ask me!* A week or so before, we wanted to send a friend of ours off. We were thinking of something absolutely cool and special. This same guy thought it would be nice to head to the cemetery near his house. So we went. There were five of us hit the grounds. The place had actually been exhumed. The christian part was kind of like a park you go for a walk in. The muslim section (not sure whether its older) is more like a dark, scary forest. Most of us were scared but this girl was exquisitely uncomfortable so we decided against entering the grounds further.

So back to my story. My folks and I had dinner at 7 Sensations (nice vegetarian restaurant, to describe it in one word, Sattvic!) and I headed off on my mission. I was dressed in off white pants, my hippie-looking kurti, two rings on my index fingers and my fish necklace. My mom brought me along to the temple to I had a small streak of kumkum on my forehead. I could have looked like a medicine man. I recall texting my BFF earlier telling him that I was chickening out and didn't want to go. We threw words around like “need to man up” and so forth. I so thought it would be a good idea to just give it a shot.

I dropped off at Serangoon station and asked Passenger Service where the Cemetery was. He didn't know and referred me to his colleague. That Indian man, gave me a weird look (which, on hindsight, was justified) and told me flatly that it didn't exist anymore. I asked him how to get to the area and he gave me the information. I saw this lady in gaudy makeup at the bus stop and started freaking out. I checked the board and found out that the next bus will take me there. Everyone was giving me the look on the bus. I calmly took out my tube of insect repellant (you know where it came from =P), checked my torchlight and peered out of the window waiting for my stop. I intentionally skipped my stop and went to the next one so I could psych myself up on the way.

As I walked past the Christian grounds (or park) I thought about reasons to not be scared. Firstly, I am a materialist. I am not convinced that anything remains after you're dead. You just die and tada!. Secondly, there are no bodies buried there anymore. All of them have been exhumed. Thirdly, I have had real world experience of being tricked by my mind. And fourth, I'm a man yo. Nothing to be worried about.

Well, I stand at the entrance and go wobbly. I take out my torchlight and it shines like a bloody firefly and cease to trust it. I'm bloody terrified. I go through my reasons once again and it doesn't work. I tell myself that it's ok to be scared and think about whether it's something paranormal and breath a sigh of relief because it's plain old vanilla fear. Just fear, nothing ghostly about it. I call my BFF and tell him I'm coming over for a while and start walking to the other bus stop. Shit, I feel like a wussy now but I am glad that I gave it a shot. On the way back, I see a car at the traffic light and am tempted to go and knock on their window to scare them but decide against it. I spend the night with my buddy chatting before I call it a day.

I think it was a unique day. Well spent. Unique, won't forget unless it's outdone next year =)

Addendum:

I found these two links of Significance

This one is by some Paranormal Research group. It details just one of the many scary stories associated with the area.

This one reminisces the fond memories the author has of the place. It's very nostalgia inducing.