The Rainbow Connection

It is fair to say that whatever our age, we are excited when we chance upon a rainbow. But after the initial excitement, what next? Well, then it does depend on your age...

Son No 3 would say "I want to go to the rainbow". His mummy, down-to-earth and dead-honest as usual, would say that he can't. Why not? Well, because a rainbow is just a vision.... (blank look), it is an illusion... (huh?), it is not real.... (it looked very real to him). Look, it will disappear when you go near it, OK? "You mean, it is like the clouds?" Hmm... never mind, I do not really want to take away that innocence so soon. I can't very well tell him that the rainbow is caused by the refraction of electromagnetic waves when the waves travel through media of different density.

Son No 2, two years older and thinking that he is wiser, would say "No-la, you can only get the rainbow when there is rain and sun together, right, mummy?" Then he would go on to say, "I want to go to the end of the rainbow." He has heard of the common folklore and wants that pot of gold. I am not sure whether it is a sign that there is still some innocence left in him.

Son No 1, the analytical big brother, would want to show off to his younger siblings. He would say, "I can tell you all the colours of the rainbow" and would go on to rattle off the names of the colours by heart. Then mummy would challenge him, so which colour is in the inner arc of the rainbow? And after pausing for a while to think, he would be able to provide the answer.

Mummy, on the other hand, would keep her thoughts to herself - pondering philosophically why she sees more rainbows here in KL than in Singapore. The last one she saw was just during the Chinese New Year period. Is the weather pattern here really so different?

Or is God showering more blessings on this country? After all, this country is run by clowns (and that's putting it really mildly since clowns do no harm to others) and yet, the country has managed to function and even escape great calamities. The country has been registering positive growth over the years despite the huge amount of wastage that flows through the very large crevices that everybody knows about. Is this country blessed (in a certain way) or what?

Coming back to the rainbow, some may offer this simple explanation: that Singapore has too many highrise buildings which block the line of sight. To even see the sky, for heaven's sake, one needs to look vertically up. So how to see the rainbow?!

There is an even simpler explanation: when most people come home from work, it is already dark. If one does not even see the blue sky, then how to see the rainbow?

Photo courtesy of pauel_0206