Thursday, 28 May 2009

..polygamy, anyone...

..it must be the season, again..men in the forties, or pushing forty, 5 or 6 kids in tow, looking for a fresh wife...don't ask for reasons why, for you won't get it...present wife may be good looking, educated, presentable, to say the least..and still, the urge to have the second wife cannot, will not be suppressed...some control the urge well..and got away with secret trysts..clandestine meetings..but ultimately the desire to have it out in the open overcomes all..wife may be gutted to the quick..what has she done wrong?..when no wrong has been committed..where has she failed..when there is no failure on her part..she gives in to her anger and fury...when scorn is not the answer..

..ahh..women...forever drawn towards married men...its ok to marry others husband...as long as others don't marry yours..

Wednesday, 20 May 2009

..selfbaked man...















..sitting by the verandah, enjoying a piece of self-baked apple-pie..watching the cats romped... a little bit lost in reverie...trying to ignore the news on Bernama TV..looks like another day of suing and contersuing...ah..the ever restless sea..there will be no winners, only losers..and for Bachok, life goes on.. measured and dictated by the seasons of tobacco growing..often punished by a few days of relentless rain..stunting the plants and shrivelling the leaves...bringing unseen tears to strong hearts.. used to toiling under the merciless sun...pumping water and hope from underground springs...but they chuckled over it 
mosques after magrib prayers...making fun of the only life that they knew..no matter how uncertain it may be...they prayed to that one God..forgive me my sins, o Allah...grant me your mercy..your bounty..

Saturday, 16 May 2009

..oh, perak..

..Perak has always been close to my heart...it is, after all, the state where I grew up..even though I am a true blue Kelantanese, my teenage years and angst was in Perak..not having a father and adopted by an uncle who was in the civil service saw me in various schools with each of his postings..starting with Clifford School, Kuala Kangsar...mid fifties and Karam Singh Headmaster..later it was to be Sultan Yusuff School, Batu Gajah, Iskander Shah School, Parit and, ultimately in 1959-1960, Anderson School, Ipoh..but Overseas School Certificate was at Methodist Boys School, KL. 

..but Perak left a very strong impression..it was where I had most of my growing up pangs..and memories of Ipoh remained vivid to this day..of a house in Caldwell Road..Ten Commandments at Cathay Theatre..Pasir Pinji and Canning Gardens..and  Cliff Richard's Please Don't Tease...Elvis' Teddy Bear..and Kediaman Mentri Besar...I cycled passed it everyday on my way to school..

..so when this 'kemelut' thing started and Nizar refused to budge from the MB's Residence...I can see in my minds eye the house...and reading about the 'kemelut' almost everyday in the papers and getting further insights from the bloggers, I thought what is happening is totally unPerakian..Perak people are nice and generous people...we mixed easily as children..and I know my late uncle get along well amongst adults...so,what happened?.. has politics changed us that much?..


Tuesday, 12 May 2009

..a matter of language..

..the missus received a letter from Kurnia Assurrance the other day..something about her car being covered under comprehensive 1st party plan..it is in english..and she could not make out any sense out of it..what with her limited command of the language..and i do not blame her...it uses legal jargon..mentioning schedule..acts...and something about the cover being null and void...unless the car is duefully inspected...i called the local office in Kota Bharu and was told in very simple bahasa that i am to bring the car to their office so that they can take photos  of it for record purposes...

..i chided the lady officer for writing the letter in English...the address is Bachok, for heaven's sake..simple village people..surely you can send them in Bahasa..so that they do not have to take it to school and have the English teacher translate it.."sorry..it is standard ISO letter that we have to use". what's the point of ISO if the target group..your pelanggan..cannot read it?..she evaded my pointed question and just asked me to bring the car along...

..and all this hype and brooha about teaching some subjects in school in Bahasa..We are too English biased in everything except speech...when it comes to letters of substance..agreements..documents..contracts..tenders...they are all in the Queen's language..so,who's promoting the Malay Language?..

Wednesday, 6 May 2009

.. a daughter in London, England...

..where shall I begin?..she was my third daughter..when she was in Year Six, Primary, and entering her Lower Secondary, her mother and I parted...it was not easy for everyone, especially her..Ida had always been independent..being the third, and left to her devices most times, she had to be...and to top it of, she was accepted into one of Malaysia's premier school for girls...Tun Fatimah Secondary School, Johore...and the general concensus was she was to go..."but I want both papa and mama send me," was her terms...setting out terms at a tender age of eleven..and I said,"ok,"..mama agreed..so,  swords and daggers sheathed, we left together for her first day at Tun Fatimah...

..and later, I was to make frequent trips to Johor Bharu..almost once a month...in my Mazda 626..a 12 hour journey...departing Thursdays and returning Saturdays..journeys made out of guilt and love that was not expressed...a few years later, I was to repeat that journey with her mama..she had landed a Public Services Department scholarship to do a degree in International Marketing...only this time the journey was to Subang Airport, Kuala Lumpur..to send her off to London..she graduated soon enough..but she did not returned..she met Tom, instead..and on a fateful day, a call came..."papa, I'm getting married"..to a native of England..to a Thomas Marsh..and will papa please delegate the power to marry her of to an Imam here in London?..and, somehow, I was not stumped..neither was I flabbergasted..matter-of-fact, I have half expected it..only later was I to wonder..will she ever returned?..



Tuesday, 5 May 2009

,,on birthdays and birth certificate...


..in truth I do not know when I was born...the exact date or the exact year..being a posthumous child, my late mother's priority was never to register me on giving birth to me...and in those times, the middle 1940's, I don't think she knew the mechanics of how to...so, I was never one who celebrates birthdays...and when later when I was about six or seven, she took me to her younger brother for him to keep, I was more intrigue by the black telephone sitting ominously on the table, than to the handing over ceremony...

..my late uncle promptly made a statutory declaration as to my birth date...the 22nd of June, 1945..and send me to school..Government English School, Kuala Krai...

..but my Indentity Card has it that I was born on the 14th of March...as shown by my IC No:450314-03-0000..that was a mystery that I was unable to solve until to this day...and my my children celebrate their father's birthday on the 22nd of May...and I am not certain how that date comes about...not that it matters to me, one way or the other...fact is I am around and in existence...so I must have been born sometimes..since my late mother was quite certain it was in 1945, at the least I am certain about the year..I can celebrate birth year...which will give me 374 days of celebration..every year...

Monday, 4 May 2009

..those amazing bloggers....

...being a newbie, i am forever amazed at the quality those bloggers out there are capable of...i have surf the blogs..followed a few...and i just cannot fathom how it is that those guys and gals out there can managed to put out such beautiful blogs seemingly just out of a hat..surely they have careers to pursue..husbands to take care..families to look after...yet they still can find the time to churn out high quality blogs...so, where do they find the time..? ..and here i am..a retiree...finding it difficult to slot some time...life is long..but  the days are short.... 

Friday, 1 May 2009

..swine, but not so fine, flu...

..one of our local politician objected to the flu being called swine flu...since it also attacked humans and other animals...that it originated and more prevalent among swines must have escaped his attention...we called it 'selsema babi'.. and i thought the term is direct and to the point...what with the muslim's aversion to the animal..but, of course, if we want to be correct, decorum-wise, we can called it 'selsema khindzer'..if it had oringinate from the cats..then we can called it feline flu...and i thought feline flu has got a nice ring to it...as against canine flu...

..but swine flu sounds a bit sinister, dont you think?