Do you know that today is 07-07-07?

“Do you know,” said a voice from behind her, “that today is 7-7-77?”

“Oh, really?” replied the young lass as she looked up from her old trusty typewriter, the intro in mid sentence, her heart missing a beat and looked appreciatively as if that piece of information was the most important announcement since man landed on the moon.

It was the beginning of what was to be a series of Do you know….? For not long after that , before she knew it, the lass found herself swept off her feet to a foreign land that was to be their home for the next thirty years and more.

“Do you know,” said the familiar voice again, “that today is the shortest day of the year?” It was 21st December 1979 and what must have been the coldest day ever for the young bride who had just landed in London, eyes swollen after a marathon weep all the way from Changi Airport to Heathrow, after leaving behind her beloved mother and siblings for this new life in a foreign land.

“After today, the day will get longer by two minutes everyday,” he offered helpfully as her eyes began to well up again. She wanted so much to believe him that the days will get longer and brighter, that there will be leaves on the awkward branches of trees which looked so menacing in the dark. And that there will be flowers blooming in the garden. No, no one had prepared her for the bleak winter and the short gloomy days and most of all no one warned her that the toilet seat can be the coldest place in the whole flat. She could have done with one of those “Do you know…that the toilet seat is very cold in the mornings?” or for that matter at any time of the day during winter!

And sure enough, the days got longer by two minutes each day, the flowers bloomed and the young bride who later got used to cold toilet seats, no longer cried as easily, except if you count the time when she first heard Sharifah Aini’s song being played at the Bunga Raya restaurant in Westbourne Grove. She choked back on her crab sambal and yearned for home.

“Do you know,” he said, looking up at the magnificient designs on the ceiling of the Harrods food department, “that most people come here to look at the ceiling?” That, she agreed immediately as not many people, herself included, could afford the astronomical prices Mr Al Fayed was charging for his mackerel. She only went there looking for lemongrass and found some powdered stuff which cost as much as three meals complete with deserts at her favourite mamak stall in Bunga Tanjung.

The young lass was very much on the learning curve, exploring the new world that had presented itself when she said yes. Did she know how to cut chicken properly or measure the water for the rice? No. Did she know that she was not to wash keropok before frying or not to boil the dried beehoon in hot boiling water till they became too soggy to make fried beehoon goreng? No. So, these were other areas of “Do you knows…” which were more practical that she obediently noted.

She soon put away the menu from Khan’s restaurant that she used for emergency take-aways when there were visitors. She began to have more confidence in her culinary skills, encouraged by her husband who never failed to wipe clean his plate of rice even though the consistency of the curry was never quite right or the sambal was too salty. But she was learning.

“Do you know, that is just a story?” he said annoyingly as she wept uncontrollably watching Little House on The Prairies and repeats of The Sound of Music.

Even as they drove along the countryside as she experienced her first summer and the first whiff of fresh air, the familiar question was asked many times. ”Do you know,” he asked pointing to the green fields, “Do you know that when the cows are sitting down, it will soon rain?”

And when the children came they too were not spared these trivia which kept them very much amused during car rides and train journeys. Silently she smiled, listening to the Do you knows....?

And today, on 07-07-07, thirty years later, she reflected back to that moment in the busy newspaper office when someone said to her; “Do you know.........?”