Singing Songs from an Overhead Bridge



Little Fella~

I cross overhead bridges almost daily in Singapore. For me, the two most important ones are the one right outside NUS Faculty of Engineering and another one outside the School of Design and Environment.

Somehow, over the years, the activity of crossing an overhead bridge has become more than just a way to get to the other side of the road. The bridge has gained a new meaning - a rather abstract and personal one - as a place for short daily contemplations. Sometimes, when I am lucky enough to cross the bridge early in the morning, I can hear the chirping of birds or the rustling of leaves from the adjacent Clementi Woods. A greater luck would let me catch a glimpse of a squirrel making a dash to its safe hideout. In the evenings, I would think about the stray cat, or secretly replay the tune of a familiar song. The song changes everyday.



This morning, it was a song of gratitude as my thought wound back to my days spent in Semarang during the Christmas week. This overhead bridge which has come quite closely to being taken for granted suddenly sang a different tune.


I had crossed a number of overhead bridges in Semarang because personally I dislike jaywalking or climbing over road partitions at any time of the day, no less during peak hours. However, apparently, that makes me part of the minority. That I realized as soon as I was halfway  towards the bridge platform. The wooden plank creaked and fell out of its original placement, revealing the fact that it was only attached to the rusty railing by a piece of metal wire. My heart almost stopped. Yet, I continued to walk up, slowly and steadily, towards the bridge platform. I thought I would be safe up there. I was so wrong. The aged wooden planks that made up the platform were joined together - all right - except for the fact that you will have to watch where you are going, as there were holes in between the planks. Now, that is a less funny version of Captain Hook's "Walk the plank". I got down safely on the other side of the road, but now I can finally understand why the locals feel much safer jaywalking across the crowded roads rather than using the overhead bridge. 



The bridge had been there for as long as I could remember, but I do not recall any meaningful maintenance work being carried out other than painting over the rusty frame and replacing the advertising billboards. The authority knew that the bridges are in poor conditions and that people are not utilizing them, therefore they are reluctant to even think about repairing - let alone refurbishing them. This perpetuates the public's reluctance to use proper crossing and creates a poor and forced justification for the unsafe practice of jaywalking.

However, the song for today is not that of criticism. Maybe I will come back another day for that, when I do have solutions to offer. As of now, I can only offer a simple song of gratitude, of which tune needs to be appreciated by every individual who can cross from one end to the other end of a firmly standing concrete overhead bridge without having to worry about slipping one foot into a holy wooden plank.



My daily luxury