NDP 2065

NILAN KAPUR-ZHANG XIAOEN'S doe-eyed face appears on the immense iLCD screen at the historic Marina Bay CiviDistric Floating Platform. Only 10, he's taken the country by storm with his hit single, 'Love You Baby Long Long Baby (Wo Ai Ni)'. 

NILAN: Hello Singapore! (smiles; waits for cheering to cease) Thank you! Thank you! I am Nilan KaZhang and I am so exciting to be here right now! Happy birthday Singapore!!! (more cheering; adjusts flashing red vest) I just want to give a shout out to Dame LadyGaga!! She's in the audience today!! (camera cuts to slender figure cloaked in a white-red cardboard dress structured like a coffin in the audience, with only her thin, slightly wrinkled lips exposed. They reveal a slight crescent of a smile.) Boy, does she have memories of national day parades since my grandmother was a JC kid! Ready? 1, 2—

Fireworks shoot up into the sky in perfect synchrony with this year's theme song, WO AI NI TO THE MAX MY HOME MY LOVE. NILAN prances around the stage with his electric piccolo and 2000 back up dancers, most of whom are wearing special-edition aluminium EcoPants. 

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NILAN: It is such an honour to be emceeing today! I may be the youngest host ever!! (raises hands in the air to loud cheering) This is indeed the year of the Youth. Just last year, our 9 year old talent, Javreenda Lu, became the youngest-ever gold-medallist in the Mumbai Olympics! And last month, 12 year old Xantha Hussein received the Nobel Prize for Medicine for her work in oncological biogenetics! Guess it's something in our water, eh? (nervous laughter from the audience as they collectively recall the uranium contamination disaster just a decade earlier)

This being the 100th Anniversary of our Pre-Revisionist Independence makes it a very, very special celebration for all of us, even as states approach their natural expiry dates. Watching old movies in our ideological cannon, like 'Sandcastle', 'Chicken Rice War' and 'The Gamblers', makes me so aware of our rich culture and our rich heritage! And, of course, how we constantly make it evolve to benefit the economy! Now, here's a special screening of an oldie-but-goodie documentary: 'Local Flavours'. (respectful applause)

The iLCD screen lights up to the familiar electronic-angklung theme music of 'Local Flavours'—a docu-musical-drama made in 2030 about the durian famine, and how everyone overcame the odds despite clashes with the Western world. On the screen: an iconic scene featuring DANIEL SUM as 'YI-DA' and RACHEL HIRAGAMOTOSANTO as 'JANE' is playing to more loud cheering from the audience. 

YI-DA: (looking at the twinkly lights of Jurong Island, singing sweetly, softly) 

Jane-yeeee, Jane-yeeeee, how I missed your fragrant pineapple breath

unlike your friends who reek of crystal meth! 

JANE: (emerges from behind a curtain, sympathetically)

Oh, Yi-Da.

(sings)

The songs of the East are still numb to me

Oh how I would again loathe to see

The peculiar husk of the spiky, gruesome monstrosity! Ah, ah.

YI-DA:

I know we are too different

but this beautiful fruit won't be frequent!

I love you but I have chosen,

have chosen,

(CHORUS-LINE: He has chosen! He has chosen! He has chosen!)

YI-DA: Darkness! 

The lights go off and the audience cheers.

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Fireworks are lighting up the night sky, to the backdrop of the Marina Bay CiviDistric and the new 2.2 km-tall CITIBANK-RePublicTransportCommunications-AdventureLand Tower standing proudly behind Marina Bay Sands. Images of every citizen are beamed by laser into space. The Cabinet is doing a traditional R&B closing number to rapturous applause.

NILAN: We have come to the end of this year's amazing show! What a night! Be sure to stay for the massive party happening along Orchard Road later! Friends above 90 will be let in free, so be sure to bring your Universal-Citizen-Pass! There'll be recreations of your favourite malls! Celebrities! Food! I'll be there, you sh— (transmission is cut)