Kirpal Singh (b. 1949)
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Invitation
Written by Kirpal Singh
Dated 30 Nov 2020
This is my poem, “Invitation”, published in The Second Tongue anthology in 1976:
Invitation
Four months and we had not seen each other
You said, “Come over, won’t you”,
I did.At your house you told me to make myself comfortable,
The television was turned on, tea was brought in
You entered your room to change.
Fifteen minutes later you re-appeared,
“This is my favourite T.V. programme; do watch”.
I watched.
Forty-five minutes later you asked me about Tim and Jenny,
About Susan and Uncle and Auntie and children.
You did not ask about me.Now six months later you invite me again.
In its first life, “Invitation”’s original title was “A Four Month Invitation”. Here is the original version, first published in anthology of poems by seven poets titled Articulations. Though the anthology appeared in 1970 the poems it contained were all written before that year.
It had been four months
and we had not seen each other.
You said "come over, won’t you".At your house you told me to be comfortable.
Tea was brought in
And you asked about auntie and uncle and the children —
you did not ask about me.now four months later, you invite me again.
The poem caught the eye of many, among them Edwin Thumboo who had recently joined the English Department of the University of Singapore.
In 1969 I was admitted to the University of Singapore to pursue a degree in Arts. I chose to read English, Philosophy and Sociology. I also applied for a Government Scholarship to help ease the financial burden I was imposing on my late uncle, who had taken upon himself to bring me up. My uncle was a bachelor but well-known among many, including Lee Kuan Yew who, much later in life — indeed over a period of some twenty plus years — would periodically ask me about my uncle. (In my last meeting with Mr. Lee in 2013, he asked me about my uncle again, which was how I knew that the man was finally showing signs of memory-strain, as I had already told him previously that my uncle had died.)
The interview for the Government Scholarship took place in City Hall, at the Public Service Commission; there, the interviewers told me, “Mr Singh, you have done very well and we want to award you a Scholarship, but we note you have chosen to study Philosophy and Sociology as well. Unfortunately, if you wish to take up our offer, you must drop both Philosophy and Sociology and do some other subjects instead.” They then suggested I do Geography and History, which caused me to tell them: “Gentlemen, I like to think that I did not enter university to be dictated to in terms of choosing subjects to study. I promise you that I shall pursue English with dedication and specialise in it as soon as I am able to.” (In those days we were required to do three subjects in Year 1 and then do two “majors” in Years 2 and 3, before specialising in one or two subjects for our Honours Year.)
The interviewing gentlemen (they were all men, seven of them) looked at each other and then at me. One of them was the Chairman of the Public Service Commission, who said: “Okay, Mr. Singh. That'll be all.”
I was dismissed. I returned to a waiting Prof Maurice Baker, Head of the English Department, knowing that I had failed to get the Scholarship.
As soon as I stepped foot in his office, Prof Baker put his arms around me. He said rather chidingly, “So I hear you told the PSC guys off…” I was about to interrupt him, to explain and to clarify what had happened, when he told me it was okay. “Actually, I am very proud of you,” he said. “They should learn not to impose and dictate. But now we have to find a way of paying your University fees." I felt so, so dismayed and frustrated — what had happened was that the PSC Chairman had personally called Prof Baker to complain about me, saying I had been foolish and stubborn. In any case, the kind and generous Prof Baker (there has been no other like him) paid the fees for my first term and even found others, anonymous till this day, to pay for the other two terms. In Years 2 and 3, my fees became partially subsidised, and I had also been given a job to teach A-level classes at the Adult Education Board (also known as the Lembaga Gerakan Pelajaran Dewasa). I also had the fortune of having both Prof Thumboo and my uncle help me tide over my financial burdens. By the time I reached my Honours year, I was earning a fair wage through hard work and long hours, teaching night classes and giving tuition on the weekends.
When I thus began my studies in the English Department, Prof Thumboo already knew a fair bit about me; he knew I wrote poems, for instance, and had published several of them in different journals and magazines in Singapore and elsewhere, including one that Wole Soyinka was the editor of. I remember Prof Thumboo summoning me to his office one day. “Give me five of your best poems,” he said. “I am editing an anthology, and I think it will be good for you to be included, even if it is by one poem.”
And so it came to pass that of the five poems I gave him, he chose “A Four Month Invitation” in The Second Tongue, the 1976 anthology by Heinemann. Prof Thumboo told me it was too long and unwieldy, and suggested changes, which I readily accepted. When the anthology finally appeared, “Invitation” came to being, and I felt delighted and honoured to be not only among my more recognised poet-peers (such as Sng Boh Khim) and seniors (such as Chandran Nair, Arthur Yap, Robert Yeo) but also among well-known poets from across the Causeway (such as Mohd Haji Salleh, Ee Tiang Hong, Wong Phui Nam).
So there — this is the short though curvy narrative of how the initial “A Four Month Invitation” became finally articulated as “Invitation”.
