..PCB and everything Kelantanese...

..one of Kelantan well known attractions is the Beach of Passionate Love, Pantai Cinta Berahi, which the present state government, fearing its sexual connotations might pollute impressionable minds, young and old amongst them, was quick to change it to Pantai Cahaya Bulan, the Moon Light Beach, the full moon being their political symbol, after all...

...which, like the single-sex counters in supermarkets, is an exercise in futility, for locals continued to call it by its acronym, PCB, meaning Pantai Cinta Berahi...not PCB, Pantai Cahaya Bulan..

..but to the older generations like me, it is Pantai Semut Api, its original name..the Beach of Fire Ants, until sometimes in 1950 when it was renamed Pantai Cinta Berahi...and quickly translated into the Beach of Passionate Love, taking the standard meaning of the word Berahi as Passionate...more with attracting the tourist in mind, I think...

...I had a feeling that the gentleman who gave the beach its famous tag is a true-blue Kelantanese with a wicked sense of humour, or someone who had mastered the Kelantanese dialect, knows its people, the traits and customs and was taking a dig...he must have had a devilish smile on when his proposal was approved...

..locals used the word berahi, corrupted to brehi, to mean an intense liking for something..so it is truer to say that Pantai Cinta Berahi means the Beach with a Passion For Love..and that, more or less, described the Kelantanese...people with a fondness for love...for, indeed, we are more known for our amorous deeds than any thing else...

..well, if we take polygamy as a yardstick, Kelantan leads...for the period 1990 to 2004, Kelantan registered the highest number of polygamous marriages... with 5274 cases..(figures from Jakim from a study done by Utusan Malaysia in 2007)...since it is relatively easy to get hitched in Kelantan, and with the generally laidback atitude Kelantanese have for marriages, polygamous or otherwise, I daresay the number of unregistered marriages is about equal the amount registered, if not more..

..in as much as Kelantanese men having no qualms at taking up polygamy, whether openly or covertly, the women, too, displayed a certain degree of practicality when it comes to marrying others' husbands...well...it takes a willing gal before any man can contemplates polygamy..looks like in the state of TGNA, there are many willing girls... perhaps a moot point for those SistersInIslam to ponder...instead of calling for laws making it difficult for men to marry, why not draft laws punishing damsels who agreed to?....I jest, of course, but how about a jail term and rotan?..that will keep polygamy at bay...

..and I do not think that economic consideration is a factor..we have trisha-pedallers and simple village folks with no fixed income practising it as well as those men of means and money...while such marriages tend to be tumultous, women and men being what they are, there are marriages that survived...but the divorce-rate is high..leading at about 15% inclusive of monogamous marriages...

..meanwhile, at the Beach of Passionate Love, the courting goes on.......

..Bachok...tourist Islamic town..?

..I took my teenaged kids to the beach the other day..or rather I persuaded my kids to follow their dad to the beach..kids nowadays would rather do any other thing rather than follow their dad..ah..time when they held on tightly to my pants, wailing loudly, wanting to follow their daddy everywhere he went..when I told them that, they just gave me a clueless look, not remembering...but I digress..

..along the way there was this billboard proclaiming 'Bachok..bandar pelancungan Islam 2010..' it caught my eye as I drove past..not that I have not seen it before..I passed by it everyday on my way to Bachok from home and home is only 4 kms away from Pantai Irama..Islamic Tourist Town?..that was the promise during PRU12th..hmmm..I thought the slogan is at best ambiguous...at worst..well..it is a political slogan... Bachok is as islamic as any other town in Kelantan..and tourists that made Bachok a pitstop for cigarettes and ATM withdrawals hardly gave us a glance, their destination being Perhentian Islands..

..but we do have two banks...CIMB and Maybank..and the district mosque, which is being renovated with funds donated by the then TPM..he came a few days before PRU12..on a Friday..after Friday prayers and after a short speech, he handed the cheque to the Imam...I remember sitting in the back row of the mosque and thinking that the timing was all wrong...he should have handed the money very much earlier...then work would have started and completed earlier and his presence that day was to officialise the newly completed wing...the effect would have been better...as it was, it looked like a sweetener...fodder for the opposition...but the lunch that followed was sumptious...

..the two banks with Pasar Malam on Friday evenings and Pasar Tani on Saturday mornings helped kept Bachok alive..well, to a certain extent..they are popular with the locals and non-locals alike, with some coming from as far as Kuala Krai, the district where Manek Urai is...these two pasars are held by the beach on a piece of Police Reserve land..once, in the 80's, the Balai Police Bachok was there...with a row of Class G quarters..wooden buildings that could hardly withstood the onslaught of the monsoon gale..the lot of the rank and file, then...a salary of RM240.00 per month and quarters with a single room...efforts started by Tun Haniff made them very comfortable, indeed, by any standard...

..the administrative cluster, the Land and District Office, the Fire Department, along with Public Works Department and the Registration Department, is at Kg. Kemudi, about 2 kms from Bachok, the town....there is no District Hospital yet, though plans for it were submitted decades earlier under the Malaysian Plan...but nothing has materialised yet..

..roads in Bachok are unnamed...there are no roads named after Dato Awang Adek, or Jalan Nashamuddin Mat Isa, or Jalan Tuan Guru, for that matter...so, addresses are by Lot Numbers, Kampongs and geographic positions...and imaginations of the sender....'Lot 166, Kg. Kemudi, Depan Pejabat Tanah, 16300 Bachok', as an example...

..I thought it ironic that Bachok, Thai for Ban, kampong, Chak, nipah, has a population of 120,000, by the last count in 2005...almost the same as the population of Orang Asli in the country...and the Orang Asli are better allocated than us...so we shall always be associated with tobacco plantations...the only activity that brings with it immediate economic relief...but now that Tuan Guru has likened smokers to cows, tobacco growing is slowing down...with no feasible alternative in sight...

..Pantai Irama has improved...concrete blocks now lined the shore...holding in check wave erosion...a life-guard tower, manned 24 hours by men from the Civil Defence, was erected..hopefully to check the cases of death by drowning that occurred almost every year during the monsoon season...for the retailers of fried seafood and stuff, concrete structures with proper shelters were provided...there is no more the shanty town atmosphere of old..with the beach generally clean, the pace relaxed and slow, with the district mosque improved...teachings from the Holy Quran almost every night after Magrib...night prayers twice a month, Bachok is heaven and a haven for retirees like me....

..battle weary Itek..scratches and all

..Ayam with her litter..

..cats and stuff..

..when my Fourth Former daughter asked for a kitten as a pet a year ago, I said no.. no, I will not have some furry beast marauding in my house leaving a trail of urine and fur..seeing my firm refusal, she did not pursue her request...though later, I was told that she was crestfallen...and hated me for it..'It's only a kitten, everyone has a cat or two at home...why must papa be so unreasonable?' she pleaded with her mother..until one day we happened to drop by her cousin and was told whilst sipping tea and enjoying her aunt's curry puffs that their pet cat had given birth to two kittens..

..'See, papa...they're so cute...' she gushed, and placed the cat family-in-a-box next to my feet.. I looked down and saw two balls of squirming fur and a pair of bright-yellow eyes looking up at me..the mother cat was trying to tell me something..backed by her younger brother and everyone else present, I gave in to my daughter's plea, little realising that I'd be opening the floodgates ..ok, one kitten only..but in the end I ended up with the whole cat family-in-a-box..'they're still suckling'..'it is only a temporary measure'..the mother will be returned..I was coaxed into acceptance.... by the time I realised what happened, it was too late..the two furry balls grew and scampered into everybody's heart including mine..

..a few months later, the tabby, rediculously named Ayam, got pregnant whilst the tom, Itek, got into various cat fights in the neighbourhood, fighting for supremacy and territory..disappearing in the morning after a hearty breakfast of rice mixed with boiled fish and cat food...slouching and limping home in the evenings, scratched, torned and wounded, to be attended and repaired by my daughter and her mother...many a times I sat from a distance, watching them washed away the grime..applying iodine on the cuts..and marveled at how Itek meekly surrendered his wounds to both of them...

..sometimes in August last year, I woke up for my morning prayers to the twitter of excitement in the kitchen...it was almost six in the morning..mother, daughter and son were crouched animately over the inevitable box...Ayam had delivered her first kitten and was in labour for the rest of her litter..7 in all..Itek left on his daily soujourn, without waiting for his breakfast, and never returned...the excitement of Ayam and her litter turned to anxiety over Itek's disappearance..of the 7, one died..and duly buried with all the aplomb and gravity that children gave when their pet died..

..after three days, the search for Itek began in earnest...the tom that sired seven kittens had disappeared without a trace..talk about not being able to handle fatherhood...we scoured the neighbouring houses....going, 'Itek..Itek..Itek..' to the quizzical looks of the village folks on being told we were looking for our pet tom-cat..but nobody had seen him...cats are known to disappear for months when they're on mate-path, they say..he will return,  they said..my children were gutted..I began to miss him, too..so, we decided to extend the search farther across the road..Pak Hin, a wizened old man, known for his cows, confirmed that a cat that fitted Itek's description had had a fight with his tom early one morning..in the chase, both had fallen into his tobacco-watering well and drowned..he had the carcasses thrown into the river...my daughter and her First Former brother were stupefied...their mother cried..it's only a cat, I said..but I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, too...

..and from then on, we always had cats and kittens in our home..they roamed free in the garden..sometimes even on the roof...they are fed, cared and innoculated, with free healthcare thrown in..with me as ambulance driver during emergencies..but only Ayam, now spayed,  is allowed in the house..but the four Persians had their own room with room  and valet service...the rest had to make-do with the back porch, or any nook and cranny...

..

..blog on..

..it started as a lark..but later, I realised that blogging has its positive points..it soothes as it comforts..like stroking a purring cat..as the words flow it bring with it a sense of appeasement.. releasing pent-up emotions..there is this need to lay bare your soul..and blogging does exactly that..lay bare your very quick..

...it doesn't matter if nobody reads it..it may be lost in oblivion..or it may be read by anonymous readers..perhaps with a smirk..but you don't really care..it is your own private space in cyber world..a mark..a station in cyber land.. where your little idiosyncrasies and your innermost thoughts are revealed to all and sundry..with nary a care..

..my son, remp-it..

..it has always been the rule of the house, strictly enforced by me, that whoever wants to ride a motorcycle or drives a car, for whatever purpose, must do it legal...legal in the sense that  all requirements as laid down by the relevant authorities are adhered too..safety belt or helmets buckled..valid driving licence, road-tax and insurance cover.. including courtesy on the road...

..having four boisterous and hot blooded sons, I thought as a parent, that's the least I can do to combat this rempit thing..

..so I was a lil bit surprised on being told one morning that my would be uitm student son was summoned by the police for a traffic misdemeanor during a night cruise with his friends along Irama Beach..the misdemeanor?..failing to display the P sign at the back of the bike..'aw, pa..I did not realised it had dropped..gum failure..and I got no money to offer him..' he said, by way of answering my raised eyebrows..fearing my wrath, he had pleaded with the hand of the law...he apologised..profusely, I am sure..he grovelled...almost like a cat grovelling at its master's foot, but to no avail...the hand of the law, having writ, will not be stopped...I can see his anger..and I can also see him hardening up against the law enforcers..he felt the summon was undeserved..behind my back, he cursed..

..behind his back, I agreed with him...perhaps the officer should have let him off with a stern warning..show the kid that there is always mercy tempered in the mighty arms of the law..that they're human, too..that they're kid-friendly..if it is too much to expect them to be customer-friendly..

than, perhaps, the kids will learn to respect the law-enforcers..instead of avoiding them like the plague..