Earthquakes. Piracy. Border control issues.

These were the obstacles faced by the four-man team behind the Tamil language feature film Chennai2Singapore. They embarked on an epic 30-day road trip from the Indian city to Singapore – a distance of about 8,090km – in a trusty black Ford Endeavor SUV, lovingly dubbed “Lakshmi”.

To add a creative twist to the trip, the team also released the seven songs from the film’s soundtrack on YouTube in each of the seven countries they visited.

They left Chennai on Aug 12, drove through Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Malaysia, and arrived in Singapore on Sept 11.

Chennai2Singapore is a Kollywood romantic comedy about Harish, a struggling Indian film-maker who travels to Singapore looking for investors to finance his dream movie and who meets his love interest along the way.

The film is slated for release in February.

The India-Singapore collaboration, with a budget of $60,000, is directed by Singaporean film-maker Abbas Akbar, who has won awards for his Vasantham TV dramas like cop show Vettai.

“We decided to do a road trip because we thought achieving something fraught with challenges sounded fun,” Mr Abbas said in an e-mail interview with The New Paper.

“It also tied in with the movie’s theme of a dream of a journey from Chennai to Singapore.

“Actually, you can do the trip by road in 21 days. If not for the delays along our path, we would have reached (Singapore) sooner.”

The film’s team, including Mr Abbas, his brother and producer Shabir Tabare Alam and soundtrack composer Ghibran, initially stopped for a break every night. (See report on right.)

But when they were delayed by earthquakes and landslides on reaching Bhutan, they drove through the night to reach Myanmar before their visas expired.

UNREST

“On top of this, there was unrest in (India-Myanmar border state) Manipur, which resulted in government-ordered curfews,” said Mr Abbas.

At the Thai border, they were prevented from entering Thailand due to a new rule requiring an additional permit from foreign vehicles.

“We were literally stranded in between Myanmar and Thailand without any country to go to,” he said.

Their vehicle was seized and the team spent three days getting the required permit to get it back.

Said Mr Abbas: “During these delays, safety was a real concern…

“Our families were waiting anxiously for us. Once, when we completely lost connection to the outside world, it sent them panicking.”

The team encountered another setback when songs for the soundtrack were leaked online, ahead of the intended release dates.

However, album sales remained strong and the Chennai2Singapore soundtrack even topped the iTunes chart for Tamil soundtracks in Chennai.

Despite the trip’s many challenges, which led the team to consider abandoning the project midway, Mr Abbas has no regrets.

He described a magical moment when the team was racing up a mountain to reach Myanmar on time and suddenly realised they were at the peak and had just driven through clouds.

“There was a moment of silence, and then we started exclaiming like children. That was funny,” he said.

Mr Abbas said the entire journey created fond memories for the team.

“It’s definitely a story to tell to our grandchildren. It was a trip filled with hopes, fears and challenges.”

He would notice doctors at the National University Hospital speaking in hushed whispers around him.

Then only 11, Daniel Prior would tell himself, “Oh god, this must be it”.

He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a strain of aggressive blood cancer that did not respond well to chemotherapy.

Doctors told the Prior family that finding a bone marrow donor was their eldest son’s only chance of survival.

For six months, the family trudged through what his mother, Ms Jane Prior, described as a “ghastly tunnel”.

They kept a military-like schedule, with mum, dad and grandmother taking shifts and time out to care for the boy24/7 when he was warded for over six months.

The light at the end of the tunnel came when an Australian donor, whose bone marrow matched Mr Prior’s, was found.

This was done with the help of the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP), a non-profit organisation that manages the local database for volunteer donors.

The New Paper, which ran a report on Mr Prior when he first got a donor, caught up with Mr Prior, now 32, and his mother last Wednesday, just a week after the 20th anniversary of his “new life”.

The Singapore-born Mr Prior, whose mother is British and whose father is Australian, has two younger siblings, aged 30 and 28.

Recalling the grim months, he said: “When you’ve got tubes sticking out of your chest, even as a kid you know that something’s not normal.

“But every few weeks, we’d be celebrating a new milestone in my treatment, those were some of the better days.”

His mother added: “Everything back then is somewhat a blank… Every day, we just got up and did what we had to do.

“We told ourselves, ‘As long as there’s hope of a transplant, we’ll go on. Run, walk, march, don’t stop.'”

Ms Prior also admitted that not everyone is as lucky as her family, and that is one of the reasons she joined the BMDP as a full-time staff member four years ago. (See report, above.)

“It was six months of absolute terror, and after going through it all, I want to help others,” she said.

After the transplant in October 1996, Mr Prior took a two-year break from school to rebuild his immune system. He went on to complete his Higher School Certificate, the equivalent of A levels, and moved to Australia, where he got a degree in business.

Mr Prior worked in the hospitality sector in Sydney for nine years before recently returning to Singapore after completing a master’s degree in environmental management. He is looking for a job here.

Mr Prior, who also volunteers at BMDP, said: “(The transplant) was a cure. I’m 100 per cent back to normal.

“Perhaps the only new thing is that I’ve got the blood of a strapping blonde Australian woman running through me,” he added with a laugh.

The Priors now consider the bone marrow donor, Ms Pamela Elliott, 70, a part of the family.

They met for the first time in 1998 and have kept in contact ever since.

Ms Elliott, who lives in Queensland, Australia, told TNP via e-mail that she never thought she would one day save a young boy’s life.

She said: “There was never any question whether I would go through with the donation and it was explained to me that there may be some pain afterwards. There wasn’t, by the way.

“My only concern was keeping healthy in the two weeks before donation day. If anything happened to me in that period, Daniel would have no chance.”

The mother of two adult children, who has since become a grandmother of four, added: “I was so thankful that I was needed for Daniel.

“In a way, I had been in the right place at the right time, that itself was a pretty humbling experience.”

Magician Jeremy Pei has escaped the clutches of the grim reaper not once but twice and it is no illusion.

The first time was in June 30, 2012. Mr Pei was in his parked car when a truck slammed into it from behind. His car was damaged, but he was intact.

The second time was a few months later, when he discovered he had a brain tumour.

Mr Pei, 32, who started doing magic shows when he was 13, said the experiences changed his way of thinking.

He said: “It used to be that magic was the No. 1 thing in my life, with my family maybe in third, but now, family is No. 1.”

The car accident occurred when Mr Pei was on his way to a show near the industrial area at Tuas in the morning.

He told The New Paper: “I parked by the side of the road to check where I needed to go on Google Maps.”

He was sitting in his car one moment and the next thing he knew, he was on his way to National University Hospital (NUH) in an ambulance.

Mr Pei’s mother, Madam Wong Siew Soon, 64, told The New Paper in Mandarin: “I was hoping that nothing happened to him, I didn’t want to think about what the worst outcome was.”

Mr Pei said that he heard later that a truck had hit his car from behind and he had blacked out.

He said: “I didn’t feel being hit… and then when I opened my eyes, there were people all around my car and they were asking ‘Are you okay? Are you okay?’.”

The magician added that he was lucky that his seat belt was strapped on, although he found it curious that he was did not have any broken bones or serious bleeding because all of his props in the car were damaged.

He told TNP: “It was almost as if a fairy came down to save me and kept me in one piece.”

But although he did not sustain any external injuries from the crash, the ordeal was not yet over.

Mr Pei was warded at NUH for 14 days as his brain was hurt from the impact of the crash and he experienced difficulties walking and speaking.

He said, “I couldn’t move properly. I couldn’t walk fast or speak fast; I couldn’t even make a Milo.”

After some physiotherapy, Mr Pei regained most of his abilities two months after the accident and he travelled and performed magic shows on a regular basis.

In 2013, a few months after the car accident, Mr Pei went to have a check-up on his brain at NUH. It was then the doctors told him that he could have a low-grade glioma, a type of brain tumour, and immediately wanted to arrange a biopsy. 

But Mr Pei instead decided to continue with his original plans to go to Europe with his wife for their honeymoon.

When they returned in March 2013, Mr Pei visited six other specialists in Singapore. Every one of them said that he had a brain tumour.

During the period, Mr Pei said he felt depressed as he did not want to become a burden to his family and his new wife.

He said: “Actually, we planned to have kids, but I don’t know whether it’s nice to have a kid and then the kid would have to send the dad away at four or five.”

FATHER

Mr Pei said his father had been a stroke patient for seven years until his death in 2011 and the disease had affected his family.

He said he did not want his mother to go through the same scenario with him.

Madam Wong said: “He never wanted to affect the family. Even when he is suffering or in pain, he would always be smiling or he wouldn’t coop himself up at home.”

Knowing that his life would never be the same after the biopsy, Mr Pei told the doctors to delay it and he spent his days doing things he enjoyed.

Then, his condition got worse at the end of July 2014, when he started having seizures.

Mr Pei said: “I could not talk… and when I came home, every night before I slept, I would have a seizure attack.”

His worst experience came in Shanghai, when he had seven seizure attacks in one day.

And when he had his next check-up in January 2015, Mr Pei was not surprised to hear that the tumour had doubled in size.

The doctors insisted he do a biopsy.

The biopsy was done in February 2015, followed by a surgery in October, which removed most of his tumour.

However, the doctors could not remove all of the tumour growth as he had delayed the surgery.

Despite that, Mr Pei is remaining positive. He said it could have been much worse as the doctors said he could have lost the use of his right arm and leg and his speech if there were any complications during the surgery.

And in July this year, he received a piece of good news. He said: “At the check-up, the doctors said ‘Congrats, you can see your children get married,’ and it made me so happy.”

Since his operation, Mr Pei has not had a seizure attack. He considers himself semi-retired as he concentrates on and spends time with his family.

“I want people to know how to appreciate life, especially the people around you – the family. Now, I really appreciate my family,” he said.

I want people to know how to appreciate life, especially the people around you – the family. Now I really appreciate my family.

– Mr Jeremy Pei on life after undergoing his brain tumour surgery

Magician Jeremy Pei has escaped the clutches of the grim reaper not once but twice and it is no illusion.

The first time was in June 30, 2012. Mr Pei was in his parked car when a truck slammed into it from behind. His car was damaged, but he was intact.

The second time was a few months later, when he discovered he had a brain tumour.

Mr Pei, 32, who started doing magic shows when he was 13, said the experiences changed his way of thinking.

He said: “It used to be that magic was the No. 1 thing in my life, with my family maybe in third, but now, family is No. 1.”

The car accident occurred when Mr Pei was on his way to a show near the industrial area at Tuas in the morning.

He told The New Paper: “I parked by the side of the road to check where I needed to go on Google Maps.”

He was sitting in his car one moment and the next thing he knew, he was on his way to National University Hospital (NUH) in an ambulance.

Mr Pei’s mother, Madam Wong Siew Soon, 64, told The New Paper in Mandarin: “I was hoping that nothing happened to him, I didn’t want to think about what the worst outcome was.”

Mr Pei said that he heard later that a truck had hit his car from behind and he had blacked out.

He said: “I didn’t feel being hit… and then when I opened my eyes, there were people all around my car and they were asking ‘Are you okay? Are you okay?’.”

The magician added that he was lucky that his seat belt was strapped on, although he found it curious that he was did not have any broken bones or serious bleeding because all of his props in the car were damaged.

He told TNP: “It was almost as if a fairy came down to save me and kept me in one piece.”

But although he did not sustain any external injuries from the crash, the ordeal was not yet over.

Mr Pei was warded at NUH for 14 days as his brain was hurt from the impact of the crash and he experienced difficulties walking and speaking.

He said, “I couldn’t move properly. I couldn’t walk fast or speak fast; I couldn’t even make a Milo.”

After some physiotherapy, Mr Pei regained most of his abilities two months after the accident and he travelled and performed magic shows on a regular basis.

In 2013, a few months after the car accident, Mr Pei went to have a check-up on his brain at NUH. It was then the doctors told him that he could have a low-grade glioma, a type of brain tumour, and immediately wanted to arrange a biopsy. 

But Mr Pei instead decided to continue with his original plans to go to Europe with his wife for their honeymoon.

When they returned in March 2013, Mr Pei visited six other specialists in Singapore. Every one of them said that he had a brain tumour.

During the period, Mr Pei said he felt depressed as he did not want to become a burden to his family and his new wife.

He said: “Actually, we planned to have kids, but I don’t know whether it’s nice to have a kid and then the kid would have to send the dad away at four or five.”

FATHER

Mr Pei said his father had been a stroke patient for seven years until his death in 2011 and the disease had affected his family.

He said he did not want his mother to go through the same scenario with him.

Madam Wong said: “He never wanted to affect the family. Even when he is suffering or in pain, he would always be smiling or he wouldn’t coop himself up at home.”

Knowing that his life would never be the same after the biopsy, Mr Pei told the doctors to delay it and he spent his days doing things he enjoyed.

Then, his condition got worse at the end of July 2014, when he started having seizures.

Mr Pei said: “I could not talk… and when I came home, every night before I slept, I would have a seizure attack.”

His worst experience came in Shanghai, when he had seven seizure attacks in one day.

And when he had his next check-up in January 2015, Mr Pei was not surprised to hear that the tumour had doubled in size.

The doctors insisted he do a biopsy.

The biopsy was done in February 2015, followed by a surgery in October, which removed most of his tumour.

However, the doctors could not remove all of the tumour growth as he had delayed the surgery.

Despite that, Mr Pei is remaining positive. He said it could have been much worse as the doctors said he could have lost the use of his right arm and leg and his speech if there were any complications during the surgery.

And in July this year, he received a piece of good news. He said: “At the check-up, the doctors said ‘Congrats, you can see your children get married,’ and it made me so happy.”

Since his operation, Mr Pei has not had a seizure attack. He considers himself semi-retired as he concentrates on and spends time with his family.

“I want people to know how to appreciate life, especially the people around you – the family. Now, I really appreciate my family,” he said.

I want people to know how to appreciate life, especially the people around you – the family. Now I really appreciate my family.

– Mr Jeremy Pei on life after undergoing his brain tumour surgery

His father is Simon Cowell, and he’s heard all the jokes and been teased for it for some time now.

Even if he’s not related to the reality television judge, England Academy winger Cameron Cowell showed he has the X-Factor yesterday when he put up an MVP performance in the SCC Rugby Sevens final to help his team beat Australia’s Sunnybank to lift the Ablitt Cup.

The speedy 20-year-old scored two tries to help his team overturn an early 7-0 deficit and romp to a handsome 40-21 victory at the Padang.

“It’s unbelievable because I have always felt this is one of the best tournaments I’ve played in,” said Cowell, whose brother plays scrum half for Twickenham while twin sister Heather, a gymnast, won gold at the 2013 World Championships in the tumbling discipline.

“I was here last year when we lost the plate final, and we had an older side then. It says a lot about the strides we have made despite this being only the second time we are playing together as a sevens team.

“I scored two tries, but it was really the boys who created the space for me. This team success is really all down to working hard and being good mates. We trust each other.

“After missing out on the Olympic squad, the aim is to definitely get into the next one for Tokyo 2020.

“With more preparation, Great Britain (they lost to Fiji in the sevens final in Rio in August) can aim to do better than silver.”

Sunnybank took a shock lead less than 90 seconds into the game through Josh Edmond, and that shook England Academy out of their slumber as they responded almost immediately before going into the break 21-14 up.

Cowell’s second try and Callum Sirker’s first gave England Academy an almost unassailable 33-14 lead going into the last three minutes.

There was still time for Sunnybank to conjure up the play of the day amid the rumble and tumble of the fast-paced game.

Issak Fines played a delightful behind-the-back pass for Fred Durrough to latch on to and score a try, with the resulting conversion narrowing the score to 33-21.

Oskar Hirskyl-Douglas then tumbled over the line one last time for England Academy to seal a deserved win.

Sunnybank captain Alfonso Horomia, 24, said: “We have played in this tournament for eight years and this is by far our best result.

“We are very proud that an amateur club from Brisbane can come this far and take the fight to a team with such resources and size of a union.

“But the England Academy are deserved winners. They are very smart, a lot of our game plan is built on kickoffs and they changed it up, kicked it all over the place and we couldn’t handle that. They were just too quick for us, too.”

With an academy team comprising players aged 18 to 29, fortunes are definitely looking up for England ahead of the World Series and Tokyo 2020.

Captain Ethan Waddleton, 19, added: “We know we have the engine, it’s all about putting in the finishing touches.

“There’s definitely many good players coming up with the under-18s and under-20s, and some of them who are here this week have shown their skills and abilities.

“In the semi-final, we beat Fijian side Daveta, who had Olympic champions in their team, and won the final to prove it was not a fluke. England rugby sevens is on the rise and is surely one to look out for.”

In the Shield Final, Daveta beat Papua New Guinea’s InterOil Turagu 36-12, while French side Froggies Sevens Rugby Club defeated Japan’s Tamariva Rugby Football Club 35-0 to win the Bowl Final.

Andy Murray took special pride in reaching the world No. 1 ranking in an era when Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic – arguably some of the greatest players ever – have dominated the game.

The first Briton to achieve the feat, Murray will take over from Serb Djokovic when the ATP rankings are updated today.

And he achieved it even before his 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), 6-4 victory over American John Isner in the Paris Masters final yesterday.

The top spot came in a somewhat fortuitous way on Saturday, when his Paris semi-final opponent, Canadian Milos Raonic, withdrew with a leg injury.

SATISFYING

Murray said: “That’s the most satisfying thing, really.

“It’s been such a difficult thing to do during my career because of how good the guys around me have been, the guys ahead of me.

“It has been really, really hard to do it, been really difficult. Obviously they are three of the best players that have ever played the game.”

The 29-year-old Murray is the 26th player to reach No. 1 since the creation of the rankings in 1973, but only the fourth man in almost 13 years.

Murray patiently fought his way to the top and he was satisfied that his hard work had been rewarded, even if in anti-climatic fashion.

“I felt like getting to No. 1, it wasn’t about this week and it wasn’t just about last week or a few days here and there. It’s about 12 months of work to get there,” the Scot said.

“It obviously felt a little bit strange when it happened. But everyone was talking about this week.

“It’s unfortunate the way that it happened today. I would have liked to have done it on the court, but it’s been many years of work to get here.”

Murray was far behind Djokovic after the Serb beat him in the French Open final in June, but an impressive series of victories – leading to titles in Wimbledon, Beijing, Shanghai and Vienna – combined with his rival’s loss in the Paris quarter-finals, propelled him to the top.

He said: “I was so far behind in terms of points, and the amount of matches it would take me to win.

“I never expected to do what I had done after the French Open.

“I was really down after I lost that match.

“But things can turn around quickly in sport, and it’s just a strange sport.

“You had Novak losing yesterday to a guy he’d beaten 14 times in a row.”

Murray will now set his sights on the ATP World Tour finals in London from Nov 13-20.

“Now that I have done it, I need to obviously sort of reset my goals and find the next thing to motivate me and try and push me to keep getting better,” he said. – Reuters.

You’ve come a long way, baby.

– Andy Murray’s mother, Judy

A remarkable journey of heartbreak, perseverance, hard work and success to make it to No. 1. Well done Andy. Never stopped believing and pushing.

– Former coach Darren Cahill

He’s got there! The new World No. 1! What an achievement, what a player. Well done Andy, no one deserves it more.

– Coach Jamie Delgado

11½ years as a professional, 798 matches, 42 career titles, one sporting pinnacle reached.

– Wimbledon statement

FACT FILE

COUNTRY: Britain

AGE: 29 May 15, 1987

BIRTHPLACE: Dunblane, Scotland

RESIDENCE: London

HEIGHT: 1.9m

WEIGHT: 84kg

PLAYS: Right-handed

TURNED PRO: 2005

COACHES: Ivan Lendl and Jamie Delgado

SINGLES TITLES: 42

GRAND SLAMS: 3 (US Open 2012; Wimbledon: 2013, 2016)

OLYMPIC MEDALS: 2 singles gold (2012, 2016), mixed doubles silver (2012)

CAREER PRIZE MONEY: US$52,504,008 ($72,655,000)

Foodies eager for a taste of the world’s only Michelin-starred ramen were up early to take a spot in the queue.

By the time the 18-seat Tsuta restaurant on the ground floor of Pacific Plaza opened at 11am yesterday, there were about 175 people waiting in line.

Singapore is Tsuta’s first overseas outlet.

The restaurant estimated waiting times to be one hour. It is set to serve 200 to 250 bowls of ramen a day in the first five days of operation, and will increase this number to 400 to 450 when full service commences on Nov 12.

Undergraduate Nigel Toh, 19, the first person in the queue at 8am, said he had heard so much about Tsuta in the news and decided to try it.

“I am keen to try their signature shoyu ramen since tonkotsu ramen is more commonly available in Singapore,” he added.

Prices start from $15 for a bowl of shoyu ramen and shio ramen.

IT consultant Kelvin Teh, 35, the second person in line, had watched a YouTube video on Tsuta six months ago but did not expect such a famous name to expand overseas – least of all in Singapore.

“I know if I come at 10am, trying the ramen will be a ‘gone case’ as the queue will be too long by then,” Mr Teh told The Straits Times.

Also in the queue was violinist and Tokyo native Yoko M., 34, who had heard about how diners would start lining up at 6am in Japan.

Indonesian Sugirato Alim, 35, arranged for a stopover in Singapore on his flight from Indonesia to Italy just to go to Tsuta.

“I thought I would take a risk and queue up for ramen during my nine-hour stopover in Singapore. I hope I do not miss my flight,” he said.

Tsuta’s Singapore outpost is a partnership with investment company Hersing Corporation, which also owns the local franchise of Michelin-starred Hong Kong dimsum chain Tim Ho Wan. – STI

He would notice doctors at the National University Hospital speaking in hushed whispers around him.

Then only 11, Daniel Prior would tell himself, “Oh god, this must be it”.

He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia, a strain of aggressive blood cancer that did not respond well to chemotherapy.

Doctors told the Prior family that finding a bone marrow donor was their eldest son’s only chance of survival.

For six months, the family trudged through what his mother, Ms Jane Prior, described as a “ghastly tunnel”.

They kept a military-like schedule, with mum, dad and grandmother taking shifts and time out to care for the boy24/7 when he was warded for over six months.

The light at the end of the tunnel came when an Australian donor, whose bone marrow matched Mr Prior’s, was found.

This was done with the help of the Bone Marrow Donor Programme (BMDP), a non-profit organisation that manages the local database for volunteer donors.

The New Paper, which ran a report on Mr Prior when he first got a donor, caught up with Mr Prior, now 32, and his mother last Wednesday, just a week after the 20th anniversary of his “new life”.

The Singapore-born Mr Prior, whose mother is British and whose father is Australian, has two younger siblings, aged 30 and 28.

Recalling the grim months, he said: “When you’ve got tubes sticking out of your chest, even as a kid you know that something’s not normal.

“But every few weeks, we’d be celebrating a new milestone in my treatment, those were some of the better days.”

His mother added: “Everything back then is somewhat a blank… Every day, we just got up and did what we had to do.

“We told ourselves, ‘As long as there’s hope of a transplant, we’ll go on. Run, walk, march, don’t stop.'”

Ms Prior also admitted that not everyone is as lucky as her family, and that is one of the reasons she joined the BMDP as a full-time staff member four years ago. (See report, above.)

“It was six months of absolute terror, and after going through it all, I want to help others,” she said.

After the transplant in October 1996, Mr Prior took a two-year break from school to rebuild his immune system. He went on to complete his Higher School Certificate, the equivalent of A levels, and moved to Australia, where he got a degree in business.

Mr Prior worked in the hospitality sector in Sydney for nine years before recently returning to Singapore after completing a master’s degree in environmental management. He is looking for a job here.

Mr Prior, who also volunteers at BMDP, said: “(The transplant) was a cure. I’m 100 per cent back to normal.

“Perhaps the only new thing is that I’ve got the blood of a strapping blonde Australian woman running through me,” he added with a laugh.

The Priors now consider the bone marrow donor, Ms Pamela Elliott, 70, a part of the family.

They met for the first time in 1998 and have kept in contact ever since.

Ms Elliott, who lives in Queensland, Australia, told TNP via e-mail that she never thought she would one day save a young boy’s life.

She said: “There was never any question whether I would go through with the donation and it was explained to me that there may be some pain afterwards. There wasn’t, by the way.

“My only concern was keeping healthy in the two weeks before donation day. If anything happened to me in that period, Daniel would have no chance.”

The mother of two adult children, who has since become a grandmother of four, added: “I was so thankful that I was needed for Daniel.

“In a way, I had been in the right place at the right time, that itself was a pretty humbling experience.”


When a fire broke out at a Toa Payoh block yesterday morning, two brothers bravely carried their 87-year-old neighbour to safety.

Brothers Tan Seng Cheng, 23, and Seng Hui, 21, were themselves fleeing from their flat on the fourth storey of Block 178, Toa Payoh Central, after smelling smoke from the floor below.

“When we got to the third storey, we saw an old uncle trying to escape from a fire that was outside his flat. He couldn’t even walk properly,” the older brother told The New Paper.

“My brother offered to piggyback him down the spiral stairs, but he said no because he was in pain.

“I then offered to carry him over my shoulders. He declined this as well.”

The elderly man then slowly made his way down the spiral staircase.

“But I think he panicked halfway because he stopped in his tracks and could not move,” Mr Tan said.

The brothers, who are serving national service, had to react fast “because the fire was getting bigger and we could not leave him”.

So the older brother lifted the elderly man from under his armpits and the younger brother lifted him by his legsand the two men carried him to safety.

When asked why they did it, Mr Tan said: “Anyone put in a similar situation would have done the same.”

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) received a call at around 8.05am yesterday about a fire involving electrical wiring outside a unit in Block 178.

“The fire was extinguished by the police using fire extinguishers before we arrived,” its spokesman said.

“A man and two women were treated for smoke inhalation, but they refused to be taken to hospital.”

In an interview with Lianhe Wanbao, the elderly man said he is a retired artist.

He said he was reading the papers in the living room when he suddenly smelled smokeseeping into the flat from the gap under the front door.

The only other person in the flat was his daughter. The maid had just gone out.

Mr Li said he opened the door and saw the flames. He and his daughter quickly made their way out of the flat.

When TNP visited the affected unit at 5pm yesterday, workers from the Bishan-Toa Payoh Town Council were helping to clean up the blackened mess.

A woman who identified herself as the owner of the flat said she was not present when the fire broke out.

The elderly man and his daughter declined comment.

SINGAPORE — A few months ago, a town council cleaner led Member of Parliament (Tanjong Pagar) Melvin Yong to a tree in the constituency and told him that he had once found a diaper caught in the foliage.

“For our cleaners to be able to clear the diaper from the top of the tree was not easy,” said Mr Yong. It was an anecdote he used to drive home a point as a six-month Gracious Living Campaign for Tanjong Pagar GRC and Radin Mas SMC was launched yesterday at a Leng Kee Park tree planting event.

“Sometimes during lunch, I visit some of the precincts, and I speak to the cleaners and ask them what are the challenges they face,” he said.

“It got me thinking that it was timely to send a reminder to all living in the community that while we can clean (litter), at the same time, we need everybody to remember not to litter.”

The campaign promotes six messages: No littering, no throwing items from apartment blocks, no obstructing corridors, no feeding birds, no urinating in lifts and no discarding of bulky items in public spaces.

“Sometimes we go for house visits, and it’s like an obstacle course — we must walk around things. It’s not safe when you put a lot of things along the corridor. If there’s an emergency, it’s difficult to go through,” said Mr Yong, who chairs the Tanjong Pagar Town Council. He added that residents should call the town council for assistance when discarding bulky items.

A different message will be featured each month, and students from primary and secondary schools have been roped in to spread the word by distributing pamphlets at communal areas. Banners and posters will also be put up to drive home key messages.

Two groups of individuals are targeted. Mr Yong said: “The first group is people who try to litter. Hopefully, they’ll see some of the reminders and they don’t litter. The second group is everyone else who sees people who want to litter and reminds them (not to do so).”