i was happily ordering my dinner at Ding Tai Fung yesterday evening when i was told about the london blasts. i guess this world we live in has changed. remember a time when we could get on a plane without overzealous body searches? a time when we didn't have announcements on the mrt telling us to report suspicious articles to the police? a time when the idea of armed patrols in the airport was ridiculous?


it was exactly one month to the day that had been my first day of london, and i had passed through all the places bombed except edgware road. king's cross, russell square, aldgate. to see people screaming and others injured and dying right outside the places i had been to is, to put it mildly, very painful. had the g eight summit been held a month earlier, and perhaps things would have been very, very different.


it was in a way fortunate that it is the summer holidays and most of the undergrads are back home safely. there is at least one acquaintance who might be still in london. someone has a sister working there who, when the tube came to a halt, had no choice but to take another mode of transport -- and boarded the bus which later exploded.


there's no turning back is there? terrorism seems to be becoming a part of our lives, and so begins a new chapter in our history.