grandma

The main reason for going to Singapore was to keep my grandmother company. At 82, she's increasingly frail, though as fiercely independent and fiesty as ever.

Her neighbourhood has changed enormously since she first moved in with her young family, but her home is the way I remember it from childhood.

She enjoys telling stories, and it was interesting to listen to her recount memories of her childhood in Japanese-occupied Singapore.

I got tutorials on how to make 'roti jala' (Malaysian crepes) and 'jemput jemput' (Malaysian banana fritters). Yummy!

I also enjoyed rummaging through her stashes of old photos - many of my mother and her six siblings through various stages in their lives; more of my cousins and I.

This one made us both chuckle. My grandmother estimates it was taken in her first or second year of marriage, which means she would have been 16 or 17. Très Bollywood... :)