Hindi Centres 2012 Concert

Excerpts of a speech delivered on 22 July 2012 to commemorate the Hindi Centres Day.

Mr Vijay Kumar Rai, President of the Hindi Society Singapore; Members of the Management Committee of the Hindi Society and Hindi Centres,

We are here today to celebrate 23 years of really heartfelt volunteerism. I see many of you in this room that I recognise, and was also introduced to Mrs Sharma, whom I understand has been a teacher in the Hindi Centre since it started in August 1990.

This morning, the Ulu Pandan branch visited Mr Choo Siu Heng in hospital to celebrate National Day with him. He is now 81 years old and and has been a volunteer and activist since the mid 1950s. He was banished by the colonial authorities to China in 1956, and was allowed to return to Singapore only after the 1959 General Election. Since then, he has been a regular presence at Meet-the-People Sessions and community events for more than 5 decades.

Amazing story of two former enemies who have now become champions of interfaith dialogue.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/670324.stm

Bukit Panjang Primary School will always be special for me. Both my parents were teachers in the school during the 1950s. In fact, that’s where they met and fell in love. So in a sense, I owe my existence to this school.

Even today, many people still come up to tell me that my parents taught them so many years ago.

I was very touched to be invited on this special occasion. The invitation filled in parts of my maternal family history and family tree that I had previously not discovered.

I now know that my family has been in Singapore for more than a century over at least 4 generations.