Ryan Ang gave me this much needed India survival tip on my second day in Chennai.

The extremely helpful Chennai-based centre director (South Asia) of International Enterprise Singapore talked at length about the cell phone or mobile revolution. Sitting with a box full of name cards at his office in Anna Salai, he pulled out the names of several Singaporeans based in Chennai and other parts of India.

Watching how I was painstakingly writing email addresses first, he suggested I get to the cell phone numbers. 'Just call them,' he said.

He was right.

Every city I visited had completely sidetracked the landline and leapt into the realm of the mobile.

A quick call was all it took to set up an interview and newsmakers did not seem to mind hearing their questions on the phone. I got used to talking more than typing.

It was hard to get by without a cell phone in India. Everyone had it. From the guy washing the dishes at the numerous idli, dosa and coffee places to Venkatesh, the tuk tuk (autorickshaw) driver who helped me get around Chennai, when the interviews distances were short.

Getting around was not always always easy though. The distance could be 5 kilometres, the traffic could mean a 30 minute drive.

One night, I found myself stuck in a traffic jam in Chennai’s famous Pondy Bazaar. So as Venkatesh rather impatiently honked along I decided to take a walk along the street lined with glittering gold stores, traditional silk sari shops and several shops offering 'one hour' tailoring packages.

It took me around 30 minutes to cover the distance, Venkatesh got there in 45.

Once he made it to the traffic light, he did what everyone with a cell phone likes to do - call. Under the glistening lights of Pondy Bazaar his Nokia looked a lot better than my borrowed Motorola.

Chennai is often called the Gateway to South India. Established by the British in the 17th century and formerly called Madras, it is the capital city of the state of Tamil Nadu and India’s fourth-largest metropolis. It has a booming arts scene, a rich cultural heritage and almost every venue in town seems to be hosting a dance performance, a classical music performance or a drama.

It is also home to Kollywood, the South Indian film industry and the week I was there provided ample opportunities for star gazing. Superstar Rajnikant’s daughter got married while I was there and the wedding pulled in the best of Kollywood and Bollywood including the Bachchans, to Chennai.

I got my dose of celebrity gossip and viewing a lot more easily. All thanks to one of my interview setting, a state of the art film studio in Nungambakkam.

Along with the interviews, there was the food to be savoured. The full south Indian range including idlis (steamed rice cakes), dosas (a pancake made from a batter of rice flour) and pongal (a mash of rice and lentils boiled together and seasoned with ghee, cashew nuts, pepper and cumin seed).

At what is often called the Michelin star of idlis, the famous Murugan Idli Shop at G.N.Chetty Road in T.Nagar, it took an hour to get to the food. But when you are in idli, dosa and filter coffee heaven, complaining is futile.

Yap Swee Keow

Age: 62. Married.  

City: Gurgaon, near New Delhi

Job: Mandarin interpreter, translator and teacher

IT was only supposed to be a fleeting visit, a couple of months at most, but 23 years later and Swee Keow Yap is still in New Delhi.

A casual tourist jaunt led to a job offer, a romance, a family and eventually a new passport.

It all started when Ms Yap, who has a masters degree in Chinese Language and Literature and an advanced postgraduate diploma in interpretation and translation (French and Chinese) from Sorbonne, dropped in on Jawaharlal Nehru University’s school of languages in 1977.

She just wanted to see the campus where some of her former classmates at Paris’ Sorbonne University had studied.

'My first visit ended rather unexpectedly. I went to meet the head of the department, and had a job offer to teach Mandarin at the university. I thought I would try it out for a couple of months then go back to Singapore,' she recounts over a meal at a packed restaurant in New Delhi.

The new job soon led to love and she married S.A.Rahman, a professor of Arabic at the same university, in 1979.

They have two daughters, Syeda Safia Rahman, 30 and Syeda Sana Rahman, 26.

By 1984, she had traded her Singapore passport for an Indian one.

Ms Yap admits that at first it was tough to adjust to life in India.

In the 1970s, the economy had not opened up to the outside world and government policies made it difficult for the university to pay her. Despite being married to an Indian, she found it difficult to get a work permit.

But campus life was pleasant. New Delhi in the 1970s and 1980s was a quieter and more beautiful place than it is today, with few cars and minimal traffic.

She has retired from the university but is fully occupied with diplomatic and corporate interpretation assignments as well as giving private Mandarin lessons.

'There is a huge interest in Mandarin now. My days, even my weekends are packed.'

Read the special report in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times

Age: 58. Married to Vijayalaksumi, 57. Has two children, daughter Kavitha, 26 and son Kesavan, 30.

City: Chennai

Designation: Director, South Asia, MIQ Logistics

A 'punishment' posting.

That was Mr M.M.Kunasekaran's first reaction when he was asked to go to India by his employer in 2001.

Mr Kunasekaran, 58, works in logistics and had been in India since 2001. -- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM

The American logistics firm, MIQ Logistics, he works for was keen to develop its business there. And, having an Indian face with a Singaporean passport, meant the 58-year-old was the natural choice.

The negative view of the posting did not improve upon his arrival though.

The first few months in India, as he recalls them, were extremely difficult.

Mr Kunasekaran with his wife Vijayalaksumi (left), 57 and daugther Kavitha, 26. -- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM

Being away from his family was tough, and he did not enjoy the food in New Delhi. For almost a year he ended up eating at a McDonald's near his Vasant Kunj apartment.

But that was nothing compared to the physical danger he experienced.

In 2003, he witnessed a race riot near Bengaluru at first hand and had a lucky escape. Clashes between Kannadigas and Tamils had been triggered by a court ruling, which forced Karnataka to share its water resources with Tamil Nadu.

'I remember running as fast I could. When I had time to reflect I thought about how harmoniously we live in Singapore,' he says.

Being away from his family was tough, says Mr Kunasekaran. -- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM

It took him some time to adapt to India's work culture.

There were countless delays and even simple tasks like installing a washing machine could take days, sometimes weeks, to complete because the concept of deadlines is very fluid in India.

It took a while, but India slowly grew on him and he came to value its quirky difference.

Last month, his nine-year-stint came to an end and he returned to Singapore.

Now that he is back home, he says he misses the sounds and some of the chaos, which makes India unpredictable but fun.

'I feel more Singaporeans should experience India. You end up valuing a lot of things you take for granted when you are living in Singapore.'

Read the special report in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times. 

Age: 27, Single

City: Was in Hyderabad, now on a project in Ghana, West Africa and Kenya and Tanzania, East Africa.

Ms Kalyani Sukumar Iyer wit hhandmade motocycle toys she got from the villages in India. -- ST PHOTO: MARYANNE TAN

Designation: Microfinance and mobile banking consultant. Formerly senior manager with Spandana, India’s largest microfinance institution.

A conversation with Kalyani Sukumar Iyer got me thinking about other Singaporeans like her in India.

Her India journey started in January last year and ended early this year. She moved to Hyderabad, in southern Andhra Pradesh state as senior manager with India’s largest micro finance institution, Spandana.

The toys are painted in vegetable dye and is protected by a shiny vanish. -- ST PHOTO: MARYANNE TAN

She made the move not just to get in touch with her Indian roots but also to make a difference in people’s lives.

While Lonely Planet may prepare you for a host of foreign trips, it does not prepare you for living in India, she says while talking of her experience of living there.

Ms Kalyani Sukumar Iyer moved from Beijing to Hyderabad as senior manager with Spandana, India's largest microfinance institution. -- PHOTO: KALYANI SUKUMAR IYER

'There are too many cultural complexities and each region in India is different from the other. No book can prepare you for such diversities, you have to experience India to understand it,' she explains.

The fluent English, Mandarin, Italian, Hindi and Tamil speaker’s role saw her head off every week into the heart of India - its villages. There, she came into contact with hundreds of people whose dreams took flight for as little as $10. She was involved in pilot-testing and launching financial and non-financial products and services to over four million clients in more than ten Indian states.

-- ST PHOTO: MARYANNE TAN

India toughened her and broadened her horizons. The two-time fellowship winner, who received the Eliza Buffington Fellowship this year and the Ann Cornelisen Fellowship in 2008, moved to Africa in June. 

She previously worked with China’s largest microfinance institution and is now looking for her next opening.

But she does not rule out a return visit to India.

'I may end up going back. It is a land full of possibilities. You can eat on the road side on one side and shop at a swanky boutique on the same road on the other side. The train rides are an unmatched experience. All of these things make India a very special country,' she says.

Special report

Life! correspondent Deepika Shetty travelled to four main Indian cities and several satellite cities in September.

She started her India journey in the southern city of Chennai and ended it in capital of New Delhi. She spoke to over 100 people to piece together the story of Singaporeans living and working in India and their motivations to do so.

The idea was to find stories of ordinary Singaporeans who have followed their heart to India.

Read the special report in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.

Passion Projects was launched to allow journalists time off their regular beats to chase stories they feel strongly about. The stories I worked on will appear in the Saturday Special pages of The Straits Times this weekend.

Ideas are often sparked by the most unexpected ways.

This one had its roots in the Life! feature Singaporean Abroad, a weekly Sunday column launched two years ago that profiles Singaporeans in various parts of the world.

Life! editor Helen Chia asked me to contribute. On the surface, the column is a seemingly straight-forward piece taking you through a place, complete with tips on where to find the best food, drinks, shopping and the sights to see.

Probe a little deeper and it unravels the lives of many Singaporeans who have made things work for themselves in unfamiliar places.

Whenever anyone tells me Singaporeans only seek out comfortable places to live and work, I tell them the story of the bee-keeper in Uganda, the project manager and photographer in Kyrgyzstan and the hotel manager in Luang Prabang.

The cynics often respond back: 'So what? It is such a small number.'

My counter argument is: 'We are talking of a nation of five million people, you do not expect to see a human tidal wave.'

I became even more curious about Singaporeans working in the the not-so-cushy zones after my conversations with the brilliant Kalyani Sukumar Iyer.

She could have been anywhere in the world. A stint in China was followed by one in Hyderabad, in India’s southern Andhra Pradesh state. Now, she is in Africa.

A micro-finance specialist, an academic achiever, a linguist, she moved to India to familiarise herself with her Indian roots and to make a difference in people’s lives.

Her time in India saw her heading into the real heart of India - the villages and helping people whose dreams take flight with funds from as little as $10.

In April last year, I became friends with another accomplished Singaporean, Abilash Nair. He got his degreee in Fine Arts with a specialisation in film from Columbia College. Instead of looking at Hollywood, he trained his lens on Bollywood, building an impressive body of work in Indian films.

Were there others like them in India?

If yes, what were they really going to find in India? Did they find what they want? How unlike were such Singaporeans from the first generation drift of Indians to Singapore, who came here to better their lives? And what do their stories say about our world where our lives are increasingly becoming less de-lineated, more fluid and open?

The diversity of India is best reflected in its many festivals. -- PHOTO: AFP

I was looking for ordinary Singaporeans who had consciously made some extra-ordinary career choices. I felt their stories mattered because they are as real as they get. They shatter the myth that Singaporeans who have grown up in comfort, only opt for equally easy places if they move out of Singapore.

On another level, we all know what draws Indians to Singapore but the reverse journey by Singaporeans into India has only received fleeting mention.

The decision to move to India could not have been easy so why did they do it and if given the chance, would they do it again?

 Chennai railway station. Chennai, formerly known as Madras, was the starting point of this project. It is often called The Gateway to South India. -- PHOTO: CHANDRACHOODAN GOPALAKRISHNAN

In late August, when this idea was picked as a feature idea, I had only two names. I was to pack my bags for India in a week and was panicking if I could find other Iyers and Nairs.

Over 300 emails sent to everyone with even a remote India connection and help showed up first in the form of Lt Col (retired) Harpal Singh. He connected me to all the Singaporeans in and around New Delhi.

Mr M.M.Kunasekaran, a Singaporean, who had wrapped up a nine-year stint in India, went a step further. He not only suggested names, but put me in touch with Mr Foo See Thiam, the Singaporean chief executive of the Accord Metropolitan in Chennai. This became my base in Chennai and over several cups of coffee I met several Singaporeans who are drawn to this hotel, thanks to its CEO.

While there, Ryan Ang the centre director of International Enterprise Singapore, pulled out two boxes full of name cards and provided me a long list of all the people I needed to talk to. Amazing.

In Mumbai, Vimal Rai, Robyn Tan, Magdalene Loh, Toh Sork Lee and Sudeep Bhalla generously agreed to last-minute interview requests and put me in touch with many of their friends and contacts.

In Bengaluru, Eu-wen Ding posed for us on the road and fielded questions about being a Jackie Chan-like superstar with remarkable poise.

In New Delhi, Singapore’s deputy high commissioner Wong Chow Ming was fielding all the concerns about the Commonwealth Games. Between phone calls, he helped me put this story in perspective.

Several other individuals spoke off the record, yet their inputs and contacts added depth to my constantly evolving story.

While most Singaporeans have adapted well in India and apart from the usual woes of traffic and bureaucracy, have done well for themselves, it hasn’t been a smooth ride for everyone.

Mumbai skyline from the Marine Drive area. -- PHOTO: AP

Take garment manufacturer Ms Penny Phuah. Her name was recommended by almost everyone I met in Chennai. It took several days to track her and when her response eventually came through, it was heart-wrenching.

She had been duped by someone who had forged property documents. A legal case is ongoing and she is not allowed to re-enter India. In her email response from Nepal, where she is now based, she explained the full story.

'I have no regrets working in India. It was very rewarding. My garment company started with an investment of $120,000 and was able to earn and invest in various properties now valued at $1 million. We have bought land at a tsunami hit village along ECR Road. I hope to build a school for children there some day when I can return.'

I asked her why she was not angry. She responded by saying India has taught her to deal with minor irritants such as anger. Her capacity to forgive seemed almost super-human.

'I have been humbled,' was a sentence I heard often from different news makers.

And humbling is how I would describe my three weeks in India.

Mumbai's iconic Taj Hotel. -- PHOTO: AFP

From the amazing help I received from friends of friends to the resolve shown by the people I interviewed, each day presented itself with new possibilities, new ideas, new people and new things to learn.

I could not have asked for more.

Read the special report in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times.

It has been playing on my mind even more all of this week.

Compared to what my mother went through, I only had to deal with minor irritants such as the flu and gastroentritis and its attendant woes. As my body whirled in pain, my son's stomach did too. It turned out to be a seemingly endless round of doctors and medicines.

It lasted just a week, yet it felt like long days and seemingly endless nights.

There were several times during the week, when I felt overwhelmed and hoped the dawn would arrive with the promise of good health for my son.

Each time, in my seemingly finite space, when I felt the world was closing in on me, all I did was shut my eyes and spent a few moments thinking of my mother. This is something I often do, when I am feeling low.

There is something about mothers and the role they play in their children's lives, which often goes unacknowledged. The fact that they tend to under-state all that they accomplish in a day does not help.

I remember an interview I did with Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan. A question about his late mother got him all emotional and we spoke for the next hour.

He said he missed her greatly not because he is successful. "I miss her because she would have loved me even if I was a failure," he said.

Yes, mothers have that power of being everything for their children.

When the double whammy of arthritis and breast cancer struck her, my mother was just 28-years-old. She had two very young children, my younger sister and I. My father, an Indian Army officer was posted in Rajouri, in the north Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It was a place where soldiers were not allowed to take their families. The altitude, the terrain, the temperature and the political situation, all came into play. So we had to stay back in Dehra Dun, while my father did his two-year stint there.

The day my mother found out the truth about the pain that had been crippling her occasionally, she was alone.

The year was 1976. Cancer was still a dreaded disease and as my father would tell us years later, the doctors did not give her much hope.

But my mother was a fighter. 

She ran the house single-handedly, without any full time help. She had a day job as a school teacher and she loved to paint.  In the evenings after our homework was done and dinner was served, she would retreat into one of the rooms which doubled up as her studio.

The canvases, oils, brushes, turpentine, all combined to energise her and she would paint for at least two hours every night before she went to bed. Those were days when funding for the arts was virtually unheard of.

So she would organise an annual solo show, which was always a sell-out. In fact, what we are left with are several of her unfinished canvases.

On weekends, several young students flitted in and out of our home attending art classes offered by her. She had never officially studied art, yet she had created a loyal following in days well before the arrival of the internet and all the attendant social media platforms.

One of her oils on canvas and ten thousand rupees was all it took for my father to buy the land he built his house on.

Even when she was in intense pain, she never showed it. When she had to snip off her long, lustrous hair, we cried. It was too beautiful to let go. She remained calm, telling us, it is only hair, it would grow back.

My mother never once talked about her illness. For as long as she could, she moved around and kept her routine and ours as normal as possible. On the last holiday we took as a family, she took us to the heritage site of Ajanta and Ellora caves in western Maharastra state.

She had to use a walking stick to get past the steps. I cannot even imagine the pain she was in, yet she ensured our last holiday memory of her, was filled with smiles.

She mutli-tasked years before the term was invented and never made a big deal out of it, just like a lot of mothers in her time. All our meals were home-cooked, we ate out only once every month. On birthdays every single dish on the table would be straight out of her kitchen.

The month before she fell very sick, she baked four birthday cakes for my sister because she felt on that day nothing was 'rising right.'

My sister and I only got whiff of her critical illness, the day she was bed-ridden. November 8, 1980 marked the beginning of our worst winter.

My mother was confined to her bed. She hated it.  

It was on that day that she changed. She kept urging her many friends not to visit her. At that time we could not understand. After all, our house had always been open to people.

Now, when I look back I comprehend fully. She did not want people to see the helpless side of her. 

Even as she lay dying, she moaned not about the pain rather the birthday cake she could not bake for me. 

When my fingers swelled, as they always did in the winter months, she made sure I had the hot water ready before she got her rubber bottle filled with hot water.

Each time I think of her, the rush of memories leads to a flurry of tears.

My mother died on Feb 8, 1981. I was barely 12. I never knew I would be a mother some day and that I would need my own emotional crutch to lean on. 

Through her exemplary life, she ensured she could always be present in her absence. Just like mothers everywhere.

Since last week, my mail box has been filled with requests, my cell phone has buzzed so many times that I've been forced to switch it to a perpetually silent mode. Random folks call my office line pretending to pitch stories, when all they want is a brush with the stars.
 
Acquaintances have re-surfaced almost as dramatically as they had exited from my life. I have open-ended invites to lunches, to dinners, to drinks, even to salons to get my hair done.
 
"Please bring Katrina and Akshay along," the invitations breezily spell out.
 
Your wish, is as good as mine!
 
It all started when I wrote about Priyadarshan filming his action comedy De Dana Dan in Singapore with a who's who cast from Bollywood.
 
Let me share a little secret: They are not my best pals.
 
I only get to hang around with them because I have a job to do. And they only agreed to let me in, if I didn't go about disclosing locations or room numbers or the hotels they are staying at. Trust me, I've been as good as my word.
 
Even my best pal was a little taken aback, when I told her "I am not liberty to disclose that".
 
"Gosh, you sound rather officious. Trust me, I am not interested," she shot back.
 
Welcome to a journalist's life. You keep your word, you get more stories. Watch this space.
 
But it is fun to see how the facts in the stories one reports soon transform into fiction.

At a dinner last weekend, a lady told me she'd seen Akshay Kumar in Clarke Quay (for the record, he wasn't even in town). I listened, nodded my head and complimented her on her deep insider information.
 
I did my rounds, she did hers and when we bumped into each other again, I was introduced as 'the writer'.
 
"Can you introduce me to Akshay?" she sheepishly asked. "Actually I was about to ask you to do the same," I responded.
 
We left it at that.
 
These days, even my children update me about all the Bollywood spottings around town.
 
They were at Padang, at Clarke Quay, "at a local hotel". Now, that sounds awfully familiar.
 
"How did you know that?" I asked my six-year-old. "You know, my friend's mother read it in The Straits Times," he told me.
 
At the risk of sounding a tad self-promotional, keep reading the paper for more starry updates.
 
Until then, your news is just as good as mine.
 
Oh yes, you can still have me over for that dinner. If you don't mind, I'd like to leave Kats and Akki behind.

It started with a four hour flight to Sri Lanka's capital Colombo, then driving another five hours to get to Mihintale and climbing 1,840 steps of an ancient stairway barefoot in the sun to get to the top of a hill where Buddhism is said to have started in Sri Lanka. In 247 BC, King Devanampiyatissa was converted by Mahinda, the son of Emperor Ashoka, to Buddhism on this hill.

This week, however, I took just a short 20 minute drive from my home, I got to keep my shoes on and I stayed in the air-conditioned comfort of The Peranakan Museum. But the creature comforts didn't overshadow the impact of what I saw: Exquisite Buddhas, made over 1,400 years ago, lost for about 800 years and now on show in Singapore, the only South-east Asian stop for the exhibit, Serenity in Stone: The Qingzhou Discovery.

In 1996, Chinese construction workers hit upon a pit in Qingzhou, Shandong province. The pit contained 400 limestone sculptures, all 6th century Buddhist figures, the likes of which had never been seen before. All were damaged, some with missing torsos, others with missing hands or arms, still others with major cracks.

But none of these flaws could hide the gentle smiles, the bodies carved intricately with rich ornaments or the simple yet exquisite folds of the statues' robes. Some of them had traces of coloured pigments and gilding that continues to glow despite the long entombment.

Source: Shandong Provincial Museum

Coming face to face with 35 of the best preserved Qingzhou finds, it is hard to believe these were created centuries ago.

There is a certain timeless quality to these sculptures. This is enhanced by the enigmatic smiles hinting at the inner contentment of beings who have reached nirvana or spiritual enlightenment. They look unworldly, yet with the robes clinging to their perfectly chiselled bodies, they look almost human too.

Source: Shandong Provincial Museum

Created between about 500 and 577 AD, they transform Lord Buddha into a more human form. The Torso of the Standing Buddha, for instance, shows him with one leg slightly raised, giving the whole piece a sense of movement. Another standing figure of Buddha creates the same sense of movement through the fluid flow of the robe. What makes the effect even more dramatic is the fact that it is all carved out of local limestone.

It is "the real thing", says Tan Huism, the show's curator and deputy director, curation and collection at the Asian Civilisations Museum. She adds: "In this day and age when we are practically living in a virtual world, there is something to be said about the craftsmanship of the past. I don't think anyone has the patience to create something like this anymore."

Beyond the beauty of these sculptures, the bigger story is about the inter-connectedness of ancient Asian cultures.

Many of the sculptures on show are inspired by Indian art and sculptural forms of the Gupta period. But the Chinese artisans have added on their own elements to their creations. So you get to see dragons, Chinese inscriptions and less elaborate halos around Lord Buddha's head.

A week ago, all the stone figures, now on show in all their glory, were lying flat in coffin-shaped wooden boxes. Some pieces, like the star attraction which shows a Buddha with two bodhisattvas, weighed 1200 kgs. It took 11 men to bring the whole piece back to life.

Looking at the men hard at work, carefully handling the pieces, I couldn't help but think of the artisans who worked on this piece centuries ago. What sort of picture did they have in mind, if at all? Did it all start with a sketch? And could they have ever imagined the journeys their creations would make some day?

Source: Shandong Provincial Museum

It is unanswered questions like these that make these lost and found Buddhas all the more intriguing.

Sure, you don't get to see the sun set among broken ruins, which you would if you journeyed across the seas to the Unesco World Heritage Site of Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka. What you do get to see in the 35 sculptures on show in Singapore is what happens when the cultures of the world come together. In this day and age of conflict, it is a wonderful reminder of what is possible when people choose to exchange the best, rather than the worst, of their cultures.

View it:
www.peranakanmuseum.sg
What: Serenity in Stone: The Qingzhou Discovery
Where: Peranakan Museum, 39 Armenian St. Exhibition is at Dr Tan Tze Chor Gallery, Level 2 and Upper Annex Gallery, Level 3
When: Till April 26, 9:30am-7pm (Tues-Sun, open till 9pm on Fri), 1pm-7pm (Mon)
Admission: $8 (adult), $4 (concession). Ticket price includes admission to the museum's permanent galleries.
For details call 6332-7591 or visit www.peranakanmuseum.sg

Read Deepika Shetty's full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times' Life!

In a post done today, he writes:

'Biennale is definitely hilarious though. It's a theme park disguised as a cultural phenomenon. Because we need to believe we have a culture. That we are a country. One worth investing in. We're saying the same things all over again, aren't we? Like you said, some things need repeating.'

I just hope that the responses that follow will pick up on the intriguing ideas and themes that he has raised about the Biennale.

I say this because in the past few days, posts have degenerated into slamming and slanging matches.
The fuss started on Sept 15 when a post titled "Quick Guide to One Hundred Years of Solitude", appeared on the Biennale blog.

It began innocuously enough: Someone didn't quite get what artist Heman Chong's work was about - which is perfectly fine.

After all, reading, mis-reading and not reading a work of art is sometimes what art is all about. And as it is often said, it isn't art until someone hates it.

Like poet and playwright Ng Yi Sheng, I was enjoying the fight. That was till the attacks became personal, the language degenerated and the debate and intent of the blog was well and truly forgotten.

I am all for debate, I'm all for discussion, for arguments, especially when they are laid out as lyrically as the ones in Cyril Wong's post.

Can we keep it there on the Biennale blog?

Sure, if the tempers stay in check, the intent behind the blog isn't forgotten and people who say their bit stick by what they write.

Blogs, posts and comments leave little room for apology. And people who join in the act need to remember that.

However, it is encouraging to hear the Singapore Biennale blog organisers will not be policing this site.

As Low Kee Hong, the general manager of the Singapore Biennale, has spelt it out: "Any official blog would die a natural death. I would much rather prefer that people who join the fray stand by what they write."

I'll second that. But it would be nice if the level of discourse lived up to the high-flying intent of the blog's organisers.