Divya Victor

DISCOURSES ON LOCALITY: Singapore

Locality: When you're here.

For the last six months, I have been living in Singapore, a City-State affectionately called The Little Red Dot.

I could tell you that I am 85 miles north of the equator on a diamond shaped land mass, much of which has been reclaimed palm by muddy palm from the sea, studded by sixty islets like tiny emeralds emerging from the blue-gray straits.

I could tell you how I came here to join those who came here before me— those who came here to join those before them. I could tell you of the people who were here before all of them came. I could tell you of the shards of clay or carvings from the 4th century, or the boats that arrived carrying slaves and the boats that left carrying rubber in the 19th, or the bombs that came from East and West in the 20th.