lifeboat

Time & The Mind

2010-08-29T12:29:00.000-07:00

It has been a year since I last updated my blog. Some say time flies while others think time moves too fast for anyone to catch. But of course, all those statements aren’t true, unless you have a tool to manipulate time according to Lorent’s Transformation and experience time dilation in which time would be slowed down. And apart from such tools, you also need something to move you along at around the speed of light.
Since such tools are non-existant and highly improbable that technology could invent them, we must therefore accept time as it is.
An old saying about the effective usage of time states, ‘procastination is the thief of time’. Its intended meaning is that we must not put off what we can do now for later. While that can be true in some instances, the person who came up with such saying must have thought that perfoming any task solely requires time and nothing else.
Unfortunately while time is needed, there are other things that are also required. Not many people can perform a task when they are physically or mentally exhausted, nor can any one labour his mind, when he is upset over something.
Thus in order to perform a task effectively and not for the sake of getting it done, time as well as energized body and a healthy state of mind are needed.
To achieve this is not easy. It calls for a good time management, a good and healthy body and the most peaceful of mind.
One can learn how to manage one’s time. One can do many things to try to achieve a good healthy body. But can one always get that peaceful state of mind?

The Maulidul Rasul Celeberation: Is it necessary?

2010-02-26T09:02:00.000-08:00

The earliest accounts for the observance of Mawlid can be found in eighth-century Mecca, when the house in which Muhammad was born was transformed into a place of prayer by Al-Khayzuran (mother of Harun al-Rashid, the fifth and most famous Abbasid caliph). The early celebrations included elements of Sufic influence, with animal sacrifices and torchlight processions along with public sermons and a feast. The celebrations occurred during the day, in contrast to modern day observances, with the ruler playing a key role in the ceremonies. Emphasis was given to the Ahl al-Bayt with presentation of sermons and recitations of the Qur'an. The event also featured the award of gifts to officials in order to bolster support for the ruling caliph.
The first public celebrations by Sunnis took place in twelfth-century Syria, under the rule of Nur ad-Din Zangi Though there is no firm evidence to indicate the reason for the adoption of the Shi'ite festival by the Sunnis, some theorise the celebrations took hold to counter Christian influence in places such as Spain and Morocco. Theologians denounced the celebration of Mawlid as unorthodox, and the practice was briefly halted by the Ayoubides when they came to power, becoming an event confined to family circles. It regained status as an official event again in 1207 when it was re-introduced by Muzaffar ad-din, the brother-in-law of Saladin, in Arbil, a town near Mosul, Iraq. The practice spread throughout the Muslim world, assimilating local customs, to places such as Cairo, where folklore and Sufic practices greatly influenced the celebrations. By 1588 it had spread to the court of Murad III, Sultan of the Ottoman empire. In 1910, it was given official status as a national festival throughout the Ottoman empire. Today it is an official holiday in many parts of the world.
Islamic scholars are divided on whether observing Mawlid is necessary or even permissible in Islam. Some see it as a praiseworthy event and positive development, while others say it is an improper innovation and forbid its celebration.
A number of Islamic scholars, such as Muhammad Alawi al-Maliki, Gibril Haddad, and Zaid Shakir, all subscribing to the Sufi movement, and Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the primary scholar of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, have given their approval for the observance of Mawlid.[15] They cite hadith where Muhammad recommended fasting on Mondays, as that was the day he was born and also the day prophecy descended on him. They suggest that fasting on Mondays is also a way of commemorating Muhammad's birthday. However, there is division among them on the lawfulness of the methods of the celebrations. Most accept that it is praiseworthy as long as it is not against sharia (i.e. inappropriate mingling of the sexes, consuming forbidden food or drink such as alcohol, playing music etc).
Notable scholars who consider Mawlid to be bid'ah and forbid its celebration include Muhammad Taqi Usmani, a Hanafi scholar from Pakistan who has served as a judge on the Shariah Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan and subscribes to the Deobandi movement, and Abd-al-Aziz ibn Abd-Allah ibn Baaz, who was the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia subscribing to the Salafi movement.[16] Although all agree that the birth of Muhammad was the most significant event in Islamic history, they point out that the companions of Muhammad and the next generation of Muslims did not observe this event.] Furthermore, they highlight that Muhammad did not observe the birth or death anniversaries of his family and loved ones, including that of his first wife Khadijah bint Khuwaylid, nor did he advise his followers to observe his birthday.
(Extracted from Wikipedia)

The Cherry Tree & A Sperm Whale

2009-08-27T10:33:00.000-07:00

And so I took my guitar and sang the song written by Cass Elliot (The Mamas & The Papas) for John Denver whose original title was ‘Oh Babe I Hate To Go.’

“But, Im leavin on a jet plane. Dont know when I’ll be back again. Oh babe, I hate to go.”

The gal who destined to be a doctor one day and who lived next door stared at me through the window of her bedroom. I knew she hated the folk songs. The day before, I sang Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright:

It ain’t no use in callin out my name, gal
like you never done before.
It ain’t no use in callin out my name, gal,
I can’t hear you any more.
I'm a-thinkin and a-wondrin walkin down the road.
I once loved a woman, a child I’m told.
I give her my heart but she wanted my soul.
But don’t think twice, it's all right.

It was at this point, she blasted her Wharfedale Denton, brought from the UK by her dad years back and the sound of the electric bass thundered through the calmness of the late afternoon.

Say you dont know me or recognize my face.
Say you dont care who goes to that kind of place.
Knee deep in the hoopla sinking in your fight.
Too many runaways eating up the night.
Marconi plays the mamba, listen to the radio, dont you remember…

That is a fragment of my childhood memory. Part of the growing up days. Our bedrooms at the rear section of our respective houses faced each other. Im sure she saw Earnest Borgnine yelling at some burning train. Can’t remember what it was. Just a movie poster given by my mom for my room decoration. And from my room I could see a huge studio print of Henri Matisse’s View of Notre-Dame hung on her wall.

And we never did talk thoroughout those years. Somehow I knew she will always have Notre-Dame.

On the subject of a cherry tree and a sperm whale, I’ll tell you someday.

The Eternal Return Of A Highway Man

2009-05-09T23:22:00.000-07:00

Yeah I know I’ve not been updating this blog of mine for a while now. Maybe I was just being plain lazy about having to crack my head to think of what to write. The fingers seemed lazy too and the weather has reached its punishing point.
Not that these days the weather is friendlier than it was months ago, but it is just that at times when the heat is so unbearable due to other factors not attributed to the weather itself, there is this certain itchiness that calls upon me to re-open this self-writing-and-reading session.
Writing a blog like this isn’t really meant for any reading audience. It is more like a monologue aimed at satisfying my own desire for expressing my personal thoughts and opinions about things according to my own whims and fancies.
Maybe I would pretend these entries were not written by me. They do not represent my thoughts in any way but of someone’s else. Only this way I would be free to explore the writer’s mind – without being bias and without fear or favour, as they said it.
Having said that, I don’t think the provisions in the Sedition Act is applicable to me in this instant because every piece of writing here is solely meant to be read by me and not about indoctrinating other people about anything, political or otherwise.
To shorten the story, as I must have known and most probably others too, Malaysia has been besieged by all kind of problems – political, judicial, economics et cetera ever since the last general election. This state of affair is pretty disturbing.
A couple of months back when I received the news on the three-month suspension of the bi-weekly tabloid Harakah, one of the many things that triggered my mind was the ‘idea of eternal return’ resurrected from the ancient Greek thinking by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
Putting it simply, the idea of eternal return means that everything recurs as we once experience it (although in different forms), and that the recurrence itself recurs ad infinitum or forever.
Now, this sheer thought of “eternal return” has caused Milan Kundera’s novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, to visit some compartment of my mind. Kundera explained the term ‘eternal return’ as: “Putting it negatively, the myth of eternal return states that a life which disappears once and for all, which does not return, is like a shadow without weight, dead in advance, and whether it was horrible, beautiful, or sublime, its horror, sublimity, and beauty mean nothing.”
Kundera then went on to say: If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest burdens.
If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all the splendid lightness.
But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man’s body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life’s most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives comes to the earth, the more real and the truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earthly being, and become half real, his movements as free as the are insignificant.
What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?”
The “unbearable lightness of being” isn’t just about Tomas and Tereza (the main characters in the novel), isn’t just Kundera’s portrayal of the authoritarian government he once had to live with, but it is about us too.
Watch the following clip, and you will know what I mean.

Another Highwayman

2008-11-20T07:49:00.000-08:00

I dedicate this entry to brother Shah. It is just another Highwayman.

While Waiting

2008-11-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

I’m not someone who stands on a raised platform and recite poems before a group of friends. I don’t memorize stanzas from Longfellow or Dickinson. But while waiting for my next blog entry which is due any moment soon, perhaps some of my nice friends out there would like to read this classic poem from the Englishman Alfred Noyes.
I have a fond memory about this poem. I discovered it during the time All At Once was a hit for Whitney Houston. How did I discover it? I’ll tell you someday. Meanwhile, the poem – THE HIGHWAYMAN.

Part One
I
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight, over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding-
Riding-riding-
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

II
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.

III
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.

IV
And dark in the old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say-

V
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."

VI
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.

Part Two
I
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching-
Marching-marching-
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.

II
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through the casement, the road that he would ride.

III
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say-
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!

IV
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till here fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like
years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

V
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.

VI
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs
ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did
not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up strait and still!

VII
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night
!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him-with her death.

VIII
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.

IX
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.

The Moon Paper vs. The Paper Moon

2008-08-08T11:36:00.000-07:00

It was TokAsid who first coined the term “Moon Paper”, at least in my head when he referred to the Harakah newspaper when commented an entry in my blog some time ago.
Since the publication of its maiden issue in March 1987, the newspaper has found its way into the minds of millions of Malaysian Muslims. For more than 20 years now it has played the critical role in providing alternative views and reshaping public political opinions. More so, this in turn has helped to put PAS figures in the Parliaments and various state assemblies and provided the much needed check-and-balance against the ruling coalition.
The Ministery of Home Affairs first approved the permit for the publication of Harakah as a twice-weekly newspaper. This newspaper then gathered momentum at a breakneck speed (at least as it was viewed by the ruling coalition then) and finally became a force to be reckoned-with as the millennium drew its curtain down.
When the ruling coalition suffered a lackluster performance in the 1999 general election (failed to recapture Kelantan and lost Terengganu), the government of the day put Harakah to task by curtailing its publications from twice weekly to only twice a month.
But if you can call Harakah as a media idea, then it very well is. It fits what Victor Hugo once said: “No armies in the world can fight the idea whose time has come.”
Although looked ill-equipped to stage a reasonable media fight in future political battles especially after the subsequent general election, Harakah emerged as among a major media hero in triggering the political tsunami during the recent general election.
Contrary to the prediction that Harakah might be reduced to a monthly publication, the government instead re-approved its original publication permit of twice-weekly.
The twice-weekly Harakah will be relaunched during the PAS Convention to be held on 15th August in Ipoh, which is just round the corner.
Let us hope the Moon Paper will help to change the fate of this beloved country of ours after some powerful politicians have made it to look like a Paper Moon.

The Schrodinger's Cat

2008-07-27T09:04:00.001-07:00

To all the known friends, the unknown friends and the yet to be known as friends out there. I just wanna say sorry for not being able to join the fun of blogging and the friendly spirit as well as the warm atmosphere of our small own circle of bloggers (in term of reading and commenting each others’ entries).
I’ve learned from Cakapaje (upon calling him a few days earlier and reading through his blog a while ago) that our fellow bloggers, Raden Galoh and Muha Aziz are having to undergo some medical treatment of some kind. It is therefore my sincere hope that they will be recovering real soon. With that, goes my prayers to Him that He shall bestow them both the speedy recovery needed and eventual good health.

And now the entry:

"The Dancing of Wu Li Masters" (in my last entry) refers to a book written by one Gary Zukav which attemps to explain Quantum Mechanics/Physics to the laymen and those who have no scientific background. (Gary himself is not a physicist but rather a writer on biblical subjects.)
Wu Li, in his book, suggests “patterns of organic energy” (as how physics is called Taiwan). In the introductory chapter, the author explained further that “wu” can either means “matter” or “energy” and “li” is a poetic word. Thus, “like a Wu Li master who would teach us wonder for the falling petal before speaking about gravity…”
Of course, this book is one of the many books I’ve read on discussions on the beauty of Quantum Physics (not textbooks on this discipline though.) It is my long personal journey in seeking the beauty of how God created the Universe and created/creates everything else from an entirely different perspective (which is supposedly to be explainable but in the end, even the field of Quantum Physics at its best surrenders to the unexplainable phenomena.)
Indeed, “God don’t play dice” as Einstein put it. One such unexplainable phenomena which challenges the very foundation of this science as represented by the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is put put forward by an Austrian/German physicit, Erwin Shrodinger.
In this entry, I would like to share this strange phenomena (which governs our existence) with my fellow friends. For this purpose and for ease of understanding, I shall now reproduce a writing on this subject by Dilip D’Souza of India:

***

WHO is Schrodinger's cat? Arguably the world's most famous purely hypothetical feline. Never lived, but some say he's both dead and alive. At the same time. Ask your nearest physicist.

Erwin Schrodinger was a Nobel winning German physicist who died in 1961. The cat was part of a thought experiment he devised to explain one of the fundamental ideas of modern physics: Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

Shorn of jargon, the Uncertainty Principle says something very simple: the act of measuring something changes the result of that measurement. Heisenberg showed that simultaneously determining both the position of an electron and the speed at which it is moving is impossible. If you can measure its speed accurately, that measurement will itself make its location wildly uncertain. And vice versa.

Put another way, measurement decides the state of the electron.

This is not such an esoteric idea. Examples abound, and not just among electrons. Imagine an anthropologist visiting a remote tribal village to study its inhabitants. His very presence disturbs the villagers, who will behave differently with this stranger in their midst. So by simply observing, the anthropologist affects what he wants to observe; and thus can never hope to get a true picture of life there.

This is all very well with tiny particles nobody can see anyway, and maybe also with distant tribals. But what about everyday objects around us? What about, say, cats?

Well, that very question occured to Schrodinger. His famous thought experiment goes something like this. Let's say we have a sealed box with a cat in it. Also in the box is a device that can randomly emit marbles. In the course of a minute, the chances are exactly 50-50 that it emits one. If it does, the marble breaks a vial and releases a poisonous gas into the box. Kitty is instantly asphyxiated. Otherwise, nothing happens.

We put the box somewhere far away, where we have no way to tell what's going on inside it. Suppose we turn on the device for exactly one minute. Question: what happens to the cat?

It must seem like a trivial question. The answer is that we don't know. We cannot predict whether a marble was actually emitted. So we don't know if the cat is alive or dead.

But if we walk up to the box and open it to hear -- let's hope -- the loud miaow of a very puzzled cat, only then do we actually know that it has survived its uncertain ordeal.

Before then, the best we can say about the cat is the non-sequitur that it is either alive or dead. But that's not really such a non-sequitur. It is entirely consistent with the laws of physics to think of the cat, before we open its box, as being both alive and dead, with a probability of 50 per cent for each state. Here's the point of the experiment: our act of opening the box and observing the cat -- taking a measurement, in other words -- is what puts the cat definitely into one of those states.

Cat, alive.

So what's the point, you want to know. What's so earth-shaking about this cat shut in a box?

There are many points, actually: the effect of measurement, the idea of uncertainty, the fact of indeterminacy (of that, perhaps another time). But probably the deepest and yet simplest point is this interesting view of the world: reality takes shape only when, precisely when, we sense it. Until then, it's uncertain. That's the Principle.

The anthropologist gets a picture of tribal behaviour only when he actually observes them, even if that changes the way they behave. We really know the fate of that poor cat only when we open Schrodinger's box.

All of us have wondered on these lines. Is my image in a mirror really there if I cannot see the mirror -- if I've turned my back to it, for example? Does a tree falling in a forest make a sound, if nobody is there to hear it?

Is there reality without observation, existence without consciousness?

Schrodinger's cat showed that the laws of physics might answer that last question with "no". That may be too extreme a view for most people's tastes, people who believe reality surrounds them without needing to be looked at. Then again, Schrodinger's cat wasn't real himself.

The Dancing of Wu Li Masters

2008-07-02T04:24:00.000-07:00

Almost two Saturdays ago I was talking to some writers at the S.H. Alattas’s daughter garden wedding reception after a feast of sayur nangka and sambal tumis udang (among other things) when I noticed a young man on a wheelchair moving among the guests. I immediately excused myself and walked towards him, “Excuse me, brother, may I know your name if you don’t mind.”
He seemed taken aback by my sudden appearance but nevertheless tried to force a bewildered smile. “Im Moeha,” came the reply.
I knew it was him. I could recognize the face easily. He was wearing a bright scarlet polo shirt. Another young man who pushed the wheelchair Moeha was sitting on, was wearing an almost identical attire.
He asked for my name and told him I am Shirzad Lifeboat. There was joy in his eyes as we hugged each other.
I supposed life is like that. You could never tell whom you will meet in the future. For instance, I met Cakapaje as just another person who sat next to me (and who cares, just few exchanges of smiles and hi and the moment you step out of the vicinity, you’ll soon forget if such a meeting had actually taken place.)
But for the next few weeks, Cakapaje seemed to be behaving like an electron spinning about an atom (and I’m sure he must have thought of me in the same way but probably with a different analogy), because we kept on crossing into each other paths. Later we found out that we are connected in a certain way. But of course I’m not at the liberty to reveal how we are connected. But I can tell you, I’ve never met him all my life except on that occasion he mentioned in his blog entry.
Sorry. I could not write anymore. I don’t know what I was writing a while ago. I must be having this damned stream of conciousness. Let me light a cigarette. Okay. Lighted one. Took a single puff and blow the smoke above my head. Yeah. I am kind of slow at writing entries on my blog. I was juggling with time trying to drink, eat pizzas and even smoke a cigarette or two while diving underwater. Let me see what should I write now. I love cats. Just the other night I saw a homeless Bengal kitten running about near a coffee shop. Maybe I should write something about cats. But then I have not seen or talked to Cakapaje for a while. He has ceased to behave like an electron spinning about an atom. And so last night he called me to ask if I’m alright. The electron is back now. I told him I am a little busy with the endless things I needed to do and promised I’ll be writing my new entry some time next week. But today, I think I just have that small space of time which I can devote to this. Unfortunately, I’ve used that space to write this note. As such, the real entry needed to be postponed sine die.

P.S. Please ignore the title of this entry as it has no bearing with this entry but rather with the next one, which is about a strange cat and some strange men.

War of the Running Cats

2008-06-05T08:56:00.000-07:00

Once upon an afternoon, my friend and I were walking along a row of kiosks near the entrance of the Bukit Bintang Plaza. We had just finished our lunch and the taste of the roasted chicken flesh still lingered stubbornly on the tastebuds. Under such circumstances, the next most logical thing to do was to head for the rooftop stalls where another friend, a Mamak who wore a silver ring with a huge gemstone served excellent teh tarik.
As we walked towards elevator entrance, a tall man with a rather dark complexion appeared among the small crowd of lunchtime shoppers and greeted my friend.
He had a New York Yankees baseball cap on his head but the rest of the dressing reminded me of the members of the some Malay youth movement – a gaudy-coloured printed batik shirt and a pair of white pants which could be easily spotted even from miles away.

The warm greetings and the casual hugging confirmed that they both were good friends. The man with the baseball cap spoke with a heavy and very pronounced Terengganu accent. His swollen cheeks indicated he was sustaining a maximum amount of air in his mouth, like he was blowing a tuba when he pronounced “pok” as he explained he was coming from the “epok” (airport). And my friend, a senior and veteran political writer, responded with equally matching accent.
He was introduced to me as Mat Tukul. Naturally I did not have the slightest idea as to why he had such a strange and unusual name. The name of Mat Perang (an early Johor UMNO personality) is about the strangest I had ever came across.
We moved a few paces away from the elevator entrance. A single beam of light from a high-intensity spotlight in the adjacent shop reflected upon his shiny pair of black leather shoes. A look-alike Tag Heuer chronograph with a steel strap glittered intermittently as he moved his right hand up and down wiping sweat from his face. “Ana jalang kaki dari Pudu Raya. Ana talipong office, khabor anta mari sini,” he explained.
Although a hammer is part of his name, he did not look like someone who earns a living driving nails into wooden planks. But of course I did not ask.
“I’ve been desperately trying to get you.”
“Oh yeah? What’s up?” asked the writer.
“I have a big problem.”
“How big?
“Very big,” Mat Tukul answered as his right hand continue to wipe the sweat which was still trickling down his face. Occassionally the swollen cheeks appeared as he pronounced some syllables from some words.
“Don’t you think Saddam Hussein has bigger problems,” asked the writer.
“I don’t have any office anymore. They chased me out after I’ve failed to pay seven months rentals. It is difficult to do my work now,” Mat Tukul replied.
To this statement of self-sympathy, the writer replied, “The Prophet (pbuh) did bigger and more important jobs and had never had any office.”
Notwithstanding those words, the writer later extended some financial help to ease Mat Tukul’s problems.
Alright. All these seem to be a story on its own. So where are the running cats.
The truth is, I really didn’t know what to write for this very posting. Reading through u lee’s profile I noticed he has read Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice and possibly all books written by Alistair McLean (that took my mind momentarily to Where Eagles Dare and Ice Station Zebra). But reading the list further, he has also read Noel Barber’s War of the Running Dogs.
That Barber’s book naturally reminded us of the Emergency which in turn gave birth to a piece of legislation called the Emergency Regulation Ordinance 1948. The British called those Communist guerillas as the running dogs.
But in 1960, three years after Merdeka, there didn’t seem to be too many dogs to chase anymore. However some domestic cats who had had ealier lent their support to the formation of UMNO in 1946 were perceived by the then Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman as cats with the souls of dogs. Among them were Ahmad Boestaman, Ishak Hj Muhammad aka Pak Sako, Dr. Burhanuddin Helmi and many others. It was for this very reason the ordinance of 1948 was repealed and gave birth to the now infamous Internal Security Act 1960.
Today, the war of the running dogs is history especially after the signing of the Haatyai Treaty in 1998 which saw the official dissolution of the Malayan Communist Party. What is still left now is the war of the running cats.
In the British colonial days as well as after the Japanese Occupation it was important for the British to protect our country is their primary source of their foreign exchange revenue. Those cats were detained because they thought Merdeka would be meaningless if foreigners were still having the ultimate control on our economy. But Tunku didn’t like it.
In a letter to the writer whom I have mentioned earlier, Tunku admitted that we the Malays are cats and they, the British are tigers.
The British have gone for good now but the war of the running cats does not seem to be over.
Admittedly, in the world of this cute felines, there are bad cats and good cats. The only problem is that those bad cats want you to think them as good, clever and caring cats by victimizing us, the ordinary cats and certain cats which they think are dangerous cats. But we think, all these bad cats wish to have all the Friskies, Whiskas, Science Diet and all the expensive cats food for themselves leaving the fish bones and sardine gravy for the good cats.

Songs About Rain

2008-06-02T00:57:00.001-07:00

AS I LEFT home this morning for an early engagement, the sky did not look too promising. Hues of grey patches dominated the eastern sky. The Monday morning traffic was sluggish and crawling at a snailish pace. A friend of mine who grew up listening to The Bangles called this ‘a manic Monday’.
The morning meeting did not turn out too well and I was on the road again as soon as it ended. “I like that rainy day feeling” but since the proposal did not materialize (or subject to further discussions),I was feeling a bit down. Maybe I should sing “Rainy Day and Monday”.
Soon there was a torrential downpour. Although I prefer to describe it as “it rains cats and dogs” (because I love cats and love to look at the husky dogs or the cocker spaniels) but a couple of years ago a friend introduced me the phrase “it rains like trucks and aeroplanes”.
For most of us the rain brings us blessings. In some African countries where the soils are impoverished, the rain is life. Perhaps that’s the reason they have rain witches and rain dances. Even their currency are called ‘pula’ which means “the rain” since rain is critical to the their economic importance. Being impotent (in whatever way) is quite possible should there is a prolonged period without any rain.
In some part of Europe, especially the northern part, rain is a bad news. That’s the reason they created the song Rain Rain Go Away. The Beatles sang (Rain), “If the rain comes they run and hide their heads. They might as well be dead…”. But the crazy banker (in Penny Lane) seemed to be happy with the rain, “On the corner is a banker with a motorcar. The little children laugh at him behind his back. And the banker never wears a mack. In the pouring rain, very strange.”
Ah… That song is my mind again. “Tika hujan turun, sayup mendayu lagu keroncong. Merdu irama dialun. Bersenandung.”
But this one isn’t that keroncong.

Where The Wild Things Are

2008-05-30T00:25:00.000-07:00

A close friend of mine, wrote me an opening line in my YM, “Hi. I’m bored reading medical journals on diabetes.”

Not too sure how to respond to that message I reciprocated with a mere 'hi' and lifted my eyes from the laptop monitor and gazed outside the window where the road became gradually deserted and there was a lazy drizzle amidst the backdrop of a shady Friday.

Returning to the monitor, I absent-mindedly typed in her YM window, “Great. That should add up to your knowledge about insulin and pancreas.”

My mind wasn’t really focusing on that impromptu topic. I was actually thinking about how a senior journalist with a mainstream English-language daily newspaper and who have written hundreds of articles on or about the local governments eventually ended up, writing literatures for new drugs. Perhaps drugs are more psychedelic than clotted monsoon drains or inadequate parking yards.

We have not met for a while now, but she and her daughter, Khalidah are always on my mind – she, for her resourcefulness and her daughter, for her imaginative mind.

One day, some years ago, Khalidah who was then lived with her grannies in Alor Star and attending her first year of schooling called her mom to ask a question pertaining to the pillar of the Islamic faith. It was about her ‘Agama’ paper in school – a multiple-choice answers question. More or less:

The Islamic faith is the belief towards (choose the most correct answer/s):

A. The God and His prophets
B. Idols
C. Some trees.
D. The Quran and the prophets.

And Khalidah selected B and C as the most correct answers. Now, that was pretty wild.

Her mom and I were laughing over late afternoon tea that day.

I didn’t blame Khalidah. Some weeks prior to the incident I gave her a book The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. In that children book the author wrote about how a large tree provided all sorts of help to a boy – from his childhood days right to his old age. Perhaps that has prompted Khalidah to think the pillar of faith also lies on some trees.

“Yeah some trees are big and mighty,” I told my friend, “and look impeding and godly.”

But I could not understand why her ustaz did not explain the existence of God via dalil `akli’ and `naqli’. He should have done that before even began to speak about the pillar of faith to the six-year old kids.

Most kids possess those wild imaginations about things they see or listen to. And not all kids have the chance to attend the Islamic kindergartens. Our religious teachers in the primary school must not imagine the kids already knew the basic.

For the kids, the entire world is the place where the wild things are and for adults like you and me, we imagine the untamed forests as the place for where strange and wild creatures roam and dwell.

At times I imagine if we could live in a world where even beasts could be helpful and friendly, or even sincere and honest. Unfortunately, even symbolically, we are not just simpy too far from such imagination, instead the ordinary people, especially those whom we have placed our trust upon them and whom we view as the giants of the society are fast becoming real beasts and have reduced us into their “big-gulps”.

I guess many things have changed since the publication of Maurice Sendak’s , Where The Wild Things Are in 1963. The changes have occurred in all kind of world, imaginative or otherwise. In our very own little world, our powerful politicians who are supposedly to be the defenders of our cultures and traditions could no longer be bothered if these once preserved cultures and traditions of ours were steadily making their way to the graveyard of history.

Will there be anything left for us to imagine in time to come? Here and now, where the wild things really are and are really wild.

Meanwhile: The video adaptation. The Universal's movie is yet to be released.

Sovereignty & The Art of Building Latrine Toilets

2008-05-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

A minister told him the Island was Temasik.He then left Riau and as he landed upon the island, he sighted a strange looking animal. The accompanying minister explained to him that the animal was probably a lion and Sang Nila Utama named the island as Singapura – singa means lion and pura means city. Much Later, the island belonged to the Sultanate of Johore until somebody by the name of Sultan Hussein decided to relinquished its ownership to Stamford Raffles, who rewrote history to become the founder of Singapore.
Of course we regained the island when Singapore became a part of Federation of Malaysia. But then due to political differences and etc, our first Prime Minister acted on his own relinquished our ownership of the island in 1965, and probably for good. At that time, we just thought about politics and no one talked about sovereignty.
Thus, if you were to look at the physical map of the Republic of Singapore, you would be able to see most physical features are named after some Malay words except the tiny rocky islands which the Malays who settled on the main and around the island of Temasik (later Singapura), from all over Malay Archipelago considered as not fit for any human purpose.
Apart from all the inhibited satellite islands, there is one which is called Pulau Batu Putih. Since the island is the size of a soccer field no one bothered to live there. But back in 1851 the British decided to erect a lighthouse on that island in view of the increased merchant shipping activities. It went on and on for a century without anyone talked about the sovereignty except in 1953 when, in response to the query of the Singapore Colonial Government, the Office of the Johor State Secretery, denied any claim on the ownership.
Finally here we were, in most recent time, disputing on the sovereignty of that tiny uninhibited island. But, as we all knew, Singapore is awarded the Pulau Batu Putih measuring the size of a soccer field while Malaysia is awarded the Middle Rocks.
Imagine having sovereignty over two clusters of rocks 250 meter apart with a varying height above sea level from 0.6 meter to 1.2 meters, depending on the tides.
Naturally we can’t build anything on this new sovereign land of ours since its surface area is smaller than the backyard of a small terrace house. But since we have spent so much money to gather the so-called the best legal brains in The Hague, maybe we ought to optimize it by building a maritime free-fall latrine toilet to be utilized by our fishermen or even by members of our maritime authorities.
It is time we show some real activities there before someone else claims ownership and sovereignty over this millions-ringgit rocky island. And of course this is also to ensure that our “win-win” situation, as our ministers (the Prime Minister included) have put it, lives up to the expectation of such word.

Pak Lomak & The Moon

2008-05-22T04:49:00.001-07:00

There were times, whenever I chanced upon the full moon riding high on a clear evening sky, the first notes from the harmonium (a portable organ similar to the accordion and which they called it peti harmonium in Malay) sprang to mind. The tune was none other than the famous work written by Pak Lomak. That first few introductory notes were then followed by the sound of the maracas and the tabla.

Although I was growing up in the era of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising and as time passed by listened to Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, They Might be Giant’s Destination Moon, R.E.M’s Man on The Moon, Grateful Dead’s Yellow Moon and learned to appreciate some other earlier songs about the moon such as The Marcel’s Blue Moon or The Capri’s There’s A Moon Out Tonight etc etc, for me, nothing could beat “bulan mengambang, Pak Ngah lah yang balik…ahai lah sayang…”

Pak Ngah Balik is a beautiful work, very melodious and had such abstract lyrics. All were written and composed by Pak Lomak. His name was synonymous with Ghazal music in the same way as Dave Brubeck was to Jazz and he was probably the earliest Malay composer/lyricist/performer to immortalize the subject of the full moon in a song.

Naturally, the full moon means so many things to so many people. The late P. Ramlee described the beauty of a girl whom he felt was unattainable too difficult to get, in his song “Engkau Laksana Bulan.” Since there is no way for a guy to get such a gal, the Malays created a proverb, “Bagai pungguk rindukan bulan”. However, if the gal fell for the guy, then it is like the “Bulan jatuh ke riba”. Whenever this happens, it’s like “Malam Bulan di Pagar Bintang”. But if the gal was to eventually think the guy was another boring creature, she would just leave him and every night he would see the eclipse of the moon.

And so I was driving home a couple of nights ago after having late night drink with some guys when I sighted the full moon riding high upon the cloudless sky. That song, Pak Ngah Balik came into my mind again. But earlier during the day, Tun Dr. Mahathir had announced that he was quitting UMNO. That got me into thinking into how the full moon must have had tremendous impact on him.

The first time Dr. Mahathir made such an announcement was while delivering his speech at the UMNO General Assembly in 2002. (Remember when he cried and Hishamuddin and Rafidah rushed towards him?). It was the 28th June and I remember that full moon shining brightly on that night.

Maybe we could have missed many more political incidents that could have taken place during the nights where there was full moon. One night when Pak Lomak came home from Singapore in 1946, he found some documents pertaining to the formation of Malayan Union being distributed and quickly summoned some people for an emergency meeting to discuss what to do to about this latest British political manoeuvre. Was it the night of the full moon?

There is no way we can find out. Maybe that incident could have prompted him to write the song Pak Ngah Balik and the central character in that short ballad, Pak Ngah could have been some guy who had gone to hunt the British werewolf in Malaya.

With the full moon around, anything is quite possible.

Fables of Dawn

2008-05-17T01:48:00.000-07:00

'Fables of Dawn' is the title of the selected poems by Latiff Mohidin (translated by Salleh Ben Joned). The above picture depicts the Mekong River taken at Luang Prabang, some 425 km north of Vientiane, the city which Latiff wrote his immortal poem on 1st Feb 1966. The only time I met Latiff in person was many years ago. He was having tea with a senior NST columnist and I was with an editor of a weekly tabloid. And as for the record, the book 'Fables of Dawn' was given to me as a gift from a friend whom in the course of our friendship had introduced me to such books as 'The Little Prince' and 'Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha'.

River Mekong

I
River Mekong
I choose your name
because i feel so alone
I'll bury my heart
in your murky depths
my right leg
in the direction of the moon
my left, the sun
I'll let my heart
be carried by your current
my name to the open sea
my voice to the mountains

II
River Mekong
your breath is so calm
your winding flow is so relaxed
on your bank
a mother weeps
calling out to her lost son
and when she merges
her face with your face
you could smile
your unperturbed smile

III
River Mekong
Let not your shimmering ripples
dazzle me
on your silt bed I can see
many blooms of blood
and stones with open wounds
as night approaches
a storm will come from the north
your banks will collapse
and your current will be stronger
than the falls of Niagara

The White Rose & The Swastika

2008-05-16T05:40:00.000-07:00

My earliest recollection of the symbol swastika is in the form of a cube soap bar used by my aunt to wash dirty laundry over a wooden jagged washing board. (Incidentally there was another brand of washing soap called “Tank Brand” ). As I grew up and learned some history in school I came to realize that this common geometrical shape is actually a symbol associated with one Adolf Hitler. Of course it was a matter of time for me to eventually know who Hitler was and his Nazi Germany or the Third Reich.
For many of us, we would remember him and his campaingns as someone else’s history – the initiation of the World War II, the remapping of political Europe, the genocide knowns as the Holocaust and many other evil acts.
Under Hitler, the swastika flag became the German national flag and later the flag of territories and nations it conquered.
This is an excerpt from the book, The White Rose & The Swastika as Jutta Marshall, the author of the book, who was born in Vienna and spent her wartime childhood under the Nazi doctrination had her first taste of school:

A middle-aged stout lady with glasses rose from her desk at the front of the classroom.
“Heil Hitler. Frau Schweighofer!” she said in a piercing voice. “And you must be Jutta. Come, I’ll show you to your seat.”
I had to let go of Mama’s hand and suddenly felt scared and very much alone among the thirty-odd boys and girls around me, all older and bigger than myself. Starting with the pupils at the back of the class the teacher then read out all our names and you had to jump and shout: ‘Present. Frau Hartmann!’
Then followed a song called Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles, which seemed to go for a long time. The tune was familiar but I didn’t know the words, so I just copied the other children as they stood looking ahead with right arms outstretched.
“Stand up to me and look at the Fuhrer’s picture!” the teacher barked at the girl next to me. Then:
“Eric, tell the new ones the name of our Fuhrer!”
“Adolf Hitler, Frau Hartmann!” like the shot of a bullet came the reply from the back of the class.
“Now give me the Fuhrer’s salute!” commanded Fau Hartmann.
“Heil Hitler! Chanted the class, all jumping up with right hands raised.

There are so many ways one can remember Hitler. Good ways. Bad ways. For those who play the piano (by ear or via musical notations), some images from the Roman Polanski’s film would probably emerge as Szpilman (Adrien Brody) played Chopin’s Nocturne in C sharp minor.

Vielen dank (for reading this piece).

Note: The water colour painting is by Adolf Hilter: “Shelter in Fournes”

Troubles Melt Like Lemondrops

2008-05-14T09:13:00.000-07:00

I remember watching Finding Forrester, a movie about a reclusive author of a Pulitzer Prize winning book teaches a young black man to harness his writing skills. As time moves on, they learn from each other as they conquer something significant in their lives. The musical score for this somewhat touching, yet inspirational movie reminds me of some great entertainers and their signature songs.

If only troubles could melt like lemondrops, then I shall think to myself, what a wonderful world.

This is a “just so posting”. The picture in this posting is from The Cat That Walked By Himself (Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling).

Meanwhile, enjoy the clip.

Sabah: Bathing With Crocodiles

2008-05-12T07:25:00.000-07:00

While strolling in some Bangkok bazaar years ago, I spotted an almost life-size stuffed crocodile. I fancied buying it for a bolster. Imagine hugging a crocodile as you sleep snugly at nights. But eventually the idea was dropped considering I was on a shoestring budget.

Crocodiles and alligators are really cute-looking animals. They would have been perfect pets if not for the fact that the reptiles are in the habit of turning humans into their sumptuous dinner treat. Just think for a moment, a deep green-coloured crocodile sprawling lazily in your living room as you watch Manchester United entertains Chelsea at the Old Trafford or the animal basking in your tiny garden terrace-house garden under the bright morning sun as you are getting ready to leave for work.

But for some people, having morning bath with crocodiles is something they need to leave with. No. I’m not talking about the Everglades in Florida or the crocodile territories in Australia. Nor do I talk about the movie Crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin, the real crocodile hunter who died tragically not too long ago (not due to crocodiles attack though), but rather about some teachers in certain parts of more isolated small towns of Sabah where tap water seems like a big dream.

I was told by a young Kadazan lady teacher who teaches in that sort of small town. Each morning she has to take her bath by dipping herself in a muddy river infested by crocodiles. It is a risky business but not too many people in Malaysia could skip bathing even for a single day.

Whenever she and those who have to bathe in the river sighted the reptiles, they would quickly leave the water.

Now this story was narrated to me last year, 2007. How do you like that? After Sabah has joined Malaysia for a good 44 years this sort of scenario still exist. Alright. Maybe, just maybe, this is one isolated case in Sabah.

But some weeks ago, a Barisan Nasional Sabah State Assemblyman for Tanjung Batu told Malaysians another shocking revelation about how teachers need to sit cross-legged as though they are practicing yoga lotus-position while teaching in the Sekolah Kebangsaan Kalabakan (about 60km from Tawau) and the students sprawling on the school floors like crocodiles. They have a school but not the basic school-furniture.

Today in the Parliament, the BN member for Kalabakan, Dato’ Seri Abdul Ghapur Salleh (who resigned from his freshly-appointment as a Federal Deputy Minister in the new Cabinet) voiced out his dissatisfaction on the Federal Government treatment on Sabah, “Sabah is still being treated like a stepchild and the complains of the people of the state entered the right ears and exited the left ears”.

Last week, Dato’ Anifah Aman (BN-Kimanis) mentioned that the story about some BN Members of Parliament wanting to cross-over reflects the sentiment of the Sabah people.

And today too, Dato’ Abdul Rahman Dahalan (BN-Kota Belud) asked Abdul Ghapur (in Parliament) if is he in agreement on the cancellation of the Penang Bridge project and the allocation be given to Sabah instead.

It seems the Sabah people and their elected representatives are beginning to feel tired on the excuse of not enough budget by the Federal Government.

Well, I guess it isn’t easy dealing with crocodiles especially when they are bigger and more vicious than those found in Kinabatangan and its tributaries.

On Empty Rice Bowl

2008-05-10T06:07:00.000-07:00

We’ve been eating nothing else but rice even way before Merdeka. Once people used to say, if you can’t fight or perform a certain task well, it is like you didn’t eat enough rice. In Malaysia, in-spite of all the talks about dieting, most of us eat rice at least twice a day. If you are a nasi lemak fan, maybe you would eat rice three times a day. For some folks in some states, rice is their standard breakfast. Not just nasi lemak but nasi dagang, nasi kerabu as well as various delicacies made from glutinous rice.

Malaysia is a rice country. We eat the ordinary white rice, the nasi tomato, nasi biryani, nasi minyak, nasi kandar, Hainanese chicken rice, rice porridge and the lesser known nasi rawan. For the nasi goreng, although we don’t have such things as nasi goreng Johor or nasi goreng Penang, we do have nasi goreng Thai, nasi goreng Pattaya and even nasi goreng USA.

Without doubt, rice is the centre of our existence. No Malays, nor Chinese, or Indians in Malaysia, no matter how much Mat Salleh they are trying to be, would be able to survice without eating rice for a long period of time. Even the non-rice eating immigrants of Malaya, like the Arabs finally adopted themselves in having rice as their staple food.

When the British were around, they didn’t think much about the economy of rice. You eat rice so you plant rice. There was no effort on the behalf of the colonial government to enhance either the yield per acre or the acreage itself. Even the pricing was left to the simple acts of buying and selling of the commodity. The long-term effect of supply demand of rice was never really on their agenda.

When we took over, we too didn’t pay much attention to this aspect of rice economy. We were happy with the statistics – 70 percent of which we produce our own and the rest relying on the importation from other rice producing countries. We thought it is cheaper to import rather than to be self-subsistent and we thought this trend is going to last till the end of time.

For 50 years we failed to correct this. We have forgotten that we cannot rely on others for a commodity as strategic as this. Now the Thai Government is beginning to talk about creating a rice cartel in the same way as OPEC does for oil.

If such cartel were to materialized, which I think it might just be around the corner now, the price of the importation of rice from Thailand or other rice exporting countries would be several times higher than even if we were to produce the insufficient balance on our own.

The question now is: Are we, the people, would have to pay for the differences in the price of rice, or will the Government allow further subsidies?

Given the fact that our own rice bowl is steadily depleting because the older generation of paddy planters are slowly dying and the new generation don’t really think it would be worth their effort economically to continue what their fathers had done, the future of rice certainly looks gloomy.

It is rather funny that while we are Merdeka from the British, we are never “merdeka” from relying on others to feed us with our very own staple food.

The Purple Cow

2008-05-09T10:35:00.000-07:00

If you have money you can make the ghosts and devils turn your grindstone. But since I don't have money, at least not the amount I would like to have, therefore I just apply myself to writing blogs.
Sighting of ghosts is a rare occurence these days, but I'm sure the devils are out there somewhere masquerading in many forms. All you need is a little imagination to see these sinister creatures. Maybe that was why Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge.
Speaking about imagination brings me to the subject of this first posting which is The Purple Cow. Maybe you think it is about Seth Godin's book on how to transform your business by being remarkable. But since I don't have any business of any kind, therefore whatever Godin has written in his book would be pretty useless, as far as im concerned. As such, the chances of getting the ghosts and devils to turn my grindstone is like sighting this chimerical purplish bovine for real.
So while you can never spot one, you can always read about some other purple cows. Here is one, written by Gellet Burges:

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But I can tell you anyhow
I'd rather see than be one