..once you are dead..

..once you are dead, you no longer carry your father's name..henceforth you will be known as the child of your mother..pakmat bin aminah..or, as in the case of my neighbour, Mok Zah, 67, who died this morning of renal failure at 5.30 am..Azizah bt Fatimah..a name she will be known as in all doa's... the name that will be engraved on her tombstone, if at all it is engraved..and the name she will be called upon on Resurrection Day by her Maker..

..and at her burial this evening at 6.30 pm, I sat with the rest of the kampong folks..giving her final respect as a woman who had borne 9 children, with eight surviving her, all of whom did well in life..with the eldest a principal of a secondary school in Bachok and the youngest a teacher in Sabah..

..fare well, Mok Zah binti Fatimah..May you rest in peace..May God forgive your sins..and May He places you in one of His gardens in Eden..

..al-Fatihah..

..something for a lazy weekend..

..Lady Kama's reminiscing about her bonfire days reminded me of  Bobby Darin's Clementine..



..have a joyful, foot-tapping weekend, folks..

..having children..

..its easy to have children..given the right circumstances, it could even be acutely pleasurable..whether once weekly or twice weakly..it doesn't matter..these days, you don't even need a husband, or a wife..but bringing them up is another cup of tea altogether..for nothing is more time-consuming, energy-sappy and resources-draining than bringing up children...we spent our money on them..we kept tabs..but we seldom keep tag..

..so, how much does a parent spend on each child up to SPM level?..a period of 17 years..if we were to put an average of  RM10.00 per day per child, ( a conservative sum, even by Bachok standard), then RM10 x 30 x 12 x17 = RM61,000.00 per child..pakmat have more than a dozen..but if we averages 4 children per family, then it is RM244, 000..not counting other costs, of course...things like medical and transport..or recreational cost..

..and after all those hectic years, and money spent, there is still no guarantee that they will turned out the way we want them to be..the rate of satisfaction is negligible, at best..for children have their own mind about what they want to be..if they want to be anything  at all..and parents' stations in life have little bearing on how they will turn out in the later years..

..I remember a lowly police constable who was the driver to his Chief..drew a lowly pay of RM240.00 per month, then... stayed in a Class 'G' barracks which had only one bedroom, yet his sons completed their education at university level, while his Chief two sons were drug addicts..

.. there is even a study by a Harvard professor, no less, a certain Danial Gilbert, who concluded that marital satisfaction decreases dramatically after the birth of the first child..and increases only after the last child left home..but closer home, Bachok, especially, we were led to believe that marital satisfaction is at its peak after the birth of the first child..personally, I noticed that my wives are at their most attractive and sexiest after delivering  their first child...there is this glow, a certain sheen to the skin and hair that oozes sex appeal..and the second child followed soon after..

..but no matter how you look at it..it takes a special woman that can take up the role of a mother..a special woman, indeed, who prefers motherhood..to Rhonda's choice..

..click on cartoon to enlarge..

..Ayam and the 6 days optional fast in Syawal..

..ever since we had her, more than 3 years ago, she had proven to be a tabby with fixed habits, more or less..

..totally domesticated, she will not pee or poo in the house.. allowed total freedom, nights she would, most times sleeps with me, occupying a portion of the bed, where the missus had laid out a folded kain pelikat ..days were spent romping around the neighbours' houses..always playful, there is nothing facetious  about her being clean and neat..

..our ritual during Ramadan suited her..an early riser, she would wakes me up with her soft meow between 4.30 to 5.00 every morning whilst rubbing her face against my feet or hands..and I would stagger to the kitchen, fill her bowl with a clutch of feed and fill her drinking bowl with fresh water..by the time we finished sahur, and I prepared myself for the morning solat, she would be at the door, waiting to be let out...outside Ramadan, the ritual was the same...minus the sahur, I would linger a little in bed, ignoring her meows and rubbings..

..and so it was that when the missus suggested we start our six days optional fast of Syawal on Saturday,  I promptly agreed..Ayam, would love it..and she did, having sahur with us in the wee hours of the morning..Auji being indisposed, son not willing..it was just me, missus, a cat named Ayam...and the cool, morning breeze  from the sea...

..little joys, little tears..

..everyone has their little moments of joy and tears..



..joy is when you meet you 12yr old daughter on the fourth day of raya..she came with her mother, stepfather,  her 15yr old aunt and her two grandparents..it was cikmat, papa and tatak time..tears is that little tears that she cried when I embraced her goodbye..

..pakmat's raya..

..raya will always be about children..and fireworks..



..as was pakmat's raya..it was a riotous first day..nay, it started the night before..as we gave thanks to Him on the last breaking of fast, saying our goodbye to the month of Ramadan..there was a tinge of sadness at the mosque after the last solat of the night, followed by a recital of the Takbir Raya, amid the loud and incessant firing of crackers that continued late into the night.. it was like Bachok was at war..the loud reports and flashes of light send Ayam fleeing into the dark..

..memories of past Ramadans and Rayas came to the mind..as a kid of Upin's age with mother..trying on a pair of new shorts she had patched up together from leftover cloth..as a youth in KL, alone in his rented room, fighting the tears that flowed on hearing the Takbir Raya on the radio, not really knowing where to go, and kampung was too far..as a man with two wives, and trying to juggle Raya between the two of them..

..after a time, pakmat no longer makes 'balik kampung' trips..for he has become the kampung his children came back to...and as Ramadan receded, and Syawal makes its way, he gave his thanks to his Lord..for that little time and that little space, when he was together with his children...and his children's children..

..until the next Ramadah..God willing...

..I am standing again..

..and so, with the end of Ramadhan near...and IdilFitri just around the corner, I am standing again to be counted..

..I stood before my wife and ex-wives..as you have forgave me before, please find the grace in your hearts to forgive me again..I am not the best of husbands or ex-husbands..nor the man you all thought I was or would be...I do not have the qualities that you all seeked..I am just what I was borned to be..a man without pretensions, trying hard to carry the mantle of caliphship and faltered trying...

..and before my children, I stood again..please forgive this old man who is standing now in front of you as your father..for I am never the best of fathers...there were things that I should have done but didn't..and some things that I shouldn't but did..and there were times when my ego blinded me to your needs...please forgive your father his inadequacies..his faults and his wrongs..for nothing mitigates my love for you, no matter how thick..no matter how thin..

..and I stand before my friends, old and new..forgive me if I did not turned out to be the friend in need and in deed..or if my words speak louder than my actions..or if I did not turned up to your expectations..for I shall always be me..



..above all, I stood in front of my God, Allah..


..I am standing before you, Lord, in all humility, seeking Your Forgiveness..for all my failures and sins..for my misdeeds and transgressions..for my weakness, which are many..as against Your Mercy which is Boundless..Forgive me, Lord, this humble servant of yours.. who tried his utmost to bask in Your Light during this Ramadan..


..selamat hari raya aidilfitri..

..save the last dance for me..

..I am not a Michael Buble fan..at the risk of being lynched and skinned alive by legions of his female fans, Zen included, I have to say that I do not think much of singers who made a name for themselves by singing covers..no, for I grew up with the Drifters and Dean Martin..but for this song, I do not mind Michael Buble's version of it..heck, sometimes even old songs need to be restyled with a new beat..



...more so old men like me.

.. Sungei Kelantan..

..scenes along the bank of Sungei Kelantan..

..our legacy...for our children's children..

..who's minding the environment?..

..53 years on........

..we are too busy calling others heretics..

..busy slinging mud at each other..

..to score our political points..

..finger lake, Pantai Irama..stifled to death..
..where  once the water was green..

..finger lake Pantai Irama..to hide the scene a fence
was erected around it..what you cannot see cannot hurt..
..on the left is the beach..

..Sungei Kemasin, Bachok..yes, this is a river..
a river slowly dying.. once it was
free flowing blue water...

..Sungei Kemasin, Bachok..a river strangled..

..Sungei Kelantan..the colour has been yellow for the
past two decades..right from the source of Nenggiri
to the estuary of Kuala Besar..should be renamed
the Yellow River of Kelantan..no prize for guessing
why it was so...

..when we should be throwing mud into the river..

..instead of at each other..

..have you ever..

..I wrote this more then a year ago, when Ayam, our pet tabby delivered her litter of seven...

..have you ever wake up at five in the morning to pee, drowsy with interrupted sleep, you hear through the reigning silence noises at the back..only to discover that your pet tabby is in labour..? and for the next hour and a half you sat with her, through her labour and deliveries, stroking her head and womb, giving words of encouragement...and hearing the wheesh sound as a kitten emerged..?..seven in all..? and she looks up to you plaintively, licking her litter as she does..?

..Lord, with just one favour, You filled an ocean, held up the stars..and filled this cat's womb with 7 lives..


..sometimes cats showed more human traits than us..

..desert moon..

.. we all have our Desert Moon..a place and a time we wished we can go back to..



..wishing for those times when we were younger..yearning for those places that gave us joy and exhilaration...or that someone who was special..when love was just an ember..and life itself was tender..always magical..

...if there is one moment in time that I can go back to, it has to be 1957, when I was barely 13 and in Batu Gajah, Perak..school was just a walk down-hill from where home was..a huge, double-storey bungalow on Owen Road..and the object of puppy love was a girl named Hariah, a perpetually grinning kid from the next class..

..on the day Tunku shouted 'Merdeka!' in Kuala Lumpur, a place I had never been, I was one happy kid..Hariah signed my autograph book..

..Happy 53rd Merdeka Day, every one..

..May it be as joyous and as happy as it has always been for me..throughout the years...

..Merdeka..Merdeka..Merdeka!!!..

..cats and such..

..there is always something about cats..

..that endears..

..Ayam, not too happy at Pakmat's reading of June Malik's blog..

..Pakteh doing the rounds with wife..a body-guard of sorts..

..Mekbu, our blind tabby..

..no, Cat-in-Sydney, I did not have her spayed..

..for I do not have the heart..

..her joy romping with her kittens is too much for me..

..let her be..for she cannot see..

..but can feel..

..Ayam, when Mekbu was but a kitten..

..life as a polygamist..

..it is not easy..when you have two wives and try to live out your life between them, it is more like a high wire balancing act without the poles..it is easy to fall..

..they say the first year into polygamy you have to act deaf, sometimes dumb..blind, too, to the harangues and tirades from your first..most time you have to be thick-skinned..to the undertones and soft whispers whenever you are in company..for the minute it becomes known that you have two wives, your moral values, your integrity, even your sanity comes into question..

..I remember when I had two..

..I tried as best as I could to be fair..spending alternate nights between the two..and trying to be punctual..yet trying to spend more time with the first and less time with the second, for they are children this side and none yet on the other..it gets tricky, too.. there may be functions that you have to attend with the first on the days you should be with the second..it was one big juggling act..only with fire-sticks..

..you have to take care of your job, too..and give a little space for yourself..so, in truth, your are juggling between four needs..

..a sense of humour helps..enough to keep your wits about you and see the funnier side of things as you rushed to the other side as she called at two in the morning to tell you that your child had a fever or a fall and need immediate medical attention, and you were then still within the warm embrace of your second..

..P.Ramlee more or less nailed it when he said: 'Hidup susah...mati pun susah.."

..there was a time..

.after some time,  life becomes humdrum and almost routine..after all those adjustments in the early years, you reached a plateau where most things are serene and calm..there are no blips in the radar and no storms in teacups..you just got used to each other..whilst most things are done in a tandem, labelled and categorised, there are no sudden rush of blood to the head or a fluttering of heart-beats..there are no excitement, either..even sex becomes routine..

..but once in a while..a touch becomes as fresh as a newborn's cheek..a whiff of familiar perfume suddenly intoxicates..and a smile becomes salacious..



..for there will always be a time when something in the way a wife looks...that will take a husband's breath away..yeah..

..your ex..

..sometimes, in my conversation with my children, their handphone would ring, I would query with my eye,  they would cup the phone and simply say, 'Your ex,' meaning their mother....and I would be a little bit nonplus at their nonchalance..I never  thought of her that way..definitely I did not go around referring to her as my ex...somehow it does not sound right..


'..what do you tell mama when I called..?'
'..your ex,' was the reply, straight-faced..


..sometimes I wished my children would called a spade, a spoon..

..nst and me..

..reading the NST has become a habit to this old coot..an addictive habit..no matter what other dailies that I have read, (almost all, 'cept for the Chinese and Tamil dailies), I must finished if off with the NST..a day is incomplete without it..seeing that I first begun to read it when I first learned how to read..and that was a lil bit more than 50 years ago..

..pakmat going through Chuan's copy, relaxing in front of his gold shop..

he and his wife were busy preparing paper nuggets of silver and gold..

for the Hungry Ghost Day on the 7th of the 7th month of the Chinese calendar..

..no matter who is helming it, no matter the slant, ( I simply ignored it)..I just continue reading it..for the news that I already knew from Malay dailies which I read earlier in the day, to its features and articles by its regular columnists like Kak Teh and Awang Goneng..they are excellent..and kept me abreast with most things happening around me..I think I became a bit knowledgeable because of it..

I depend on it for general information, on health, lifestyles and trivia..most times I agree with it..sometimes I don't..once I even wrote to it..and saw my letters published..but now I am just content with reading it...

..I loved reading the trivia part..like today..where it claimed that husbands who earn less than their wives are more likely to stray or be unfaithful..apparently there is less tendency for men to stray or be unfaithful if they are earning more than their wives..hmm..they should carry out such studies in Bachok...where generally the women are bringing in the rice packets..with the husbands content to loll about with some cows and goats..

..my wife is earning more than me from her little hair shop..but than, I have done enough straying..

..Friday's news..

..news these days are more gory than tv or the movies..it is easy to gets depressed when reading them..instead of enlightenment, for news should be enlightening, we get into bouts of depression... we are told of father hacking wife to the death, daughter slashed off her two fingers..daughters, nieces, granddaughters being raped by their closest kins..not once, but over the years..and it is normal to read now about infants thrown everywhere like disposable napkins..children splashed with acid..children battered and hammered..

..maybe we should also ban newspapers for having too much violent content..or have it PG-rated..

..I think we failed..maybe we are paying for the glory of development and modernisation with a society that has lost its moral values..in our hurry to be top-gun, we forgot human development..we readily embraced new technology with not a thought towards social technology..we have our submarine, and our values as a society took a dive..we have become a hedonistic society..seeking all that is pleasurable..there is dollar in our eyes, and cold in our hearts..

..this old coot pined for the good old days..when there is warmth in a friendship and a general bonding among fellow humans..when creed, colour or race does not really matter..and children respect their elders...

..meanwhile, on the way back from work..

..a stop at Bazaar Ramadan, Beris Kubur Besar, Bachok..

..for ordinary folks and old coots like me, they are a Godsend....to Chuan, the goldsmith and his family, too...they loved Ramadan, not because they fast, but because they had a gala time choosing and buying all those lauk pauk and kuih muih..

..it is feasting time, but in a limited way..we can change our menu every day and we do no have to spend RM100 per head..generally for a family of 5, it is RM15 to RM20 per day..cheap and delicious... 

..but you must be able to resist the smells, the aroma, the fumes..and the tantalising smiles that came along with .."colik, be, se ria jah...ko nok sup perut..?.."

..even old geezers are called 'abang' during Ramadan...

..a burial..

..she was not a celebrity..hardly a diva or a star..outside her family circles and a few close friends she was unknown..but to her five children she was a mother they had loved dearly, their pillar of strength..to her husband, she was a wife who was ever ready to lend her support and money into his business ventures..

..on the 3rd of Ramadan she was warded..an ailing diabetic, she went into a coma and died a few minutes before midnight..it was her last Ramadah..

..for it was from clumps of black earth that we were created..onto it we shall return..and unto Him we submit..
..for He is the Most Benevolant, the Most Gracious, the Most Loving..

..Al-Fatihah..

..Mamat & Mimi..

..sometimes, in my travels around the blogging world, I came across blogs put up by singles living in the cities..most are successful in their career, highly educated, but without a mate..they had their share of being matched-make, whether knowingly or unknowingly, which more often than not, left a bitter taste in their mouths.. and had numerous relationships that ended before it could even started..most are cynical towards men or women, whatever the case may be..they may cry their little tears..but through it all, they managed to emerge stronger, keeping their wits around them with a roguish sense of humour..they focussed their energy on their job, keep tag with their families, maintain their sanity within a circle of close friends, and travel whenever there is an apportunity..

..for jodoh is not something you can fished out of a hat...and neither can it be forced...

..as in this tale..........Mamat & Mimi...

..they went to school together...with homes in adjacent kampongs....it was puppy love for Mimi..but for him, it remained and it grew..on completion of their SPM, Mimi went on to college and got a decent job in the city...Mamat dropped out and settled himself to a life in the village..with a few goats and some cows..and part-timed at a motorcycle repair shop..

..in the city, Mimi fell in love with a slick young man with a sleek, new car..he proposed and she accepted..on the day of the wedding, a cow bought by her father from Mamat with a generous discount, was slaughtered..guests thronged her house and feasted on it..gulai kawah mixed with young coconut-shells..the local imam arrived for the akad nikah ceremony..the witnesses were ready..but the groom did not arrived..frantic calls were made..but still the slick young man with the sleek new car did not show up..it later transpired that the man was already married..his wife had discovered his little scheme and had thrown a brick at him as he was driving off..it hit him on the forehead..he was rushed to the hospital..

Mimi, resplendent in her wedding dress, was gutted..but her father was a resolute man..livid with anger and pale with shame, he told the imam to wait awhile..he kick-started his Honda K70 and rode to Mamat's house..whilst nursing a broken heart, Mamat had taken a nap on his rickety verandah..he woke him up..

'Would you like to marry my daughter, Mimi?'
'Yes..'

.. together they rode back to the awaiting imam..Mimi assented to her father's query..and they got married and lived as happy as any other couples in the village could be..

..Ramadan's reflection..

..once again that night he was at the mosque...he clasped his hands in a doa..a doa he repeated from the last Ramadan..

..his cup no longer runneth over, he knew not when it will runs dry..but until then..

.

''O Allah...

..I thanked Thee for the time You have given me..the last Ramadan was Your Blessings to me..and here I am at the door of another...let me in in, Lord, into this month..that I may savour it in peace and in harmony...with my family and Muslim brethren...and forgive me my sins..

..grant me the will to be charitable that I might seek from You Your bounty.... the grace to overlook and forgive others' faults..that You may overlook and forgive mine..

...let me be magninamous that I may seek from You Your blessings..

..and as I rested my body from food during the fast, rest also my mind from dwelling too much on worldly pursuits..fill my nights with Your Light and my days with Your Guidance...

.. accept all the little deeds that I have done..that I may strived to do more..

..above all, O Allah, accept my repentance.. I have commited great sins..and You are The Great Forgiver..."

..and again that night, he raised his hands in prayer..that Allah may grant him the space and the time for him to savour yet another Ramadhan...InsyaAllah...God Willing...

..Tuesday's anecdote..

..they say a rolling stone does not gather moss..but if you travelled long and lived long enough, you gather stories..sometimes, a story like this:..

..there was this lady who had a cad for a husband..even though he had a decent job, he was on the verge of losing it through drinking, gambling and womanising..always short of money, and never getting any from him, except, sometimes, a slap and a kick, she took to doing odd jobs within the neighbourhood, washing clothes and  minding babies..enough to keep her two children in school..through it all, it never occurred to her to ask for a divorce..to suggestions from sympathetic friends and relatives, she just smiled..even the local imam quoted her as an example of a lady with iman..a lady of piety who never missed her solat, with an unwavering trust in the Lord..

..time passed..

..until one day she went in a huff to see the imam..she wanted a divorce..and wanted it immediately..

..why, asked the perplexed imam, thinking, perhaps, she had reached the end of her tethers...
..does he still gamble?..no, not anymore..
..does he still drink?..no, not anymore..
..womanising?..no..
..solat?..never misses..even does the night solat..
..money?..he gave half of his salary..
..oh..he still kicks you around..no..never raise a finger now..
..then, why?...he has taken on another wife..and that, I cannot stand..

..loco parents..

..re: New Sunday Times' editorial, Ogos, 8th 2010..

..now they want us to be loco parentis..in the place of parents..standing in for the parents..imploring that bringing up children is everybody's responsibility...to stem in the tide of indiscipline and other misbehaviour in schools and everywhere else..

..after 20 over years of sparing the rod and spoiling the child, we now realised the child is, indeed, spoilt..after 20 years of abandonment in mimicking the west, and abandoning our very own values and culture, they want us to be loco parents, Spanish, this time, not Latin..

..after banishing corporal punishment and banning the rotan, you tell us that it is a team effort...sheesh..since when has it not been a team effort?..my time, the father will bring his child to a guru..'this is my child..teach him..and cane him if errs..or whatever punishment you deemed fit..as long as it does not disfigure him...

..then, everyone plays a part..from parents, teachers to elders in the village..we kept our eyes on the young ones..the children got whipped, yes, they got caned, and they became better because and in spite of it..

..and you want the bus driver to chide a child for not sitting properly?..nah..he would not do it..he would not risked being hit, slapped and kicked by a loco parent...similarly the teachers, reduced to being impotent entities..

..the big picture is our education system is in shambles..come to think about it, we don't even have a proper education system or policy..it has been politicised to an extent that what is good for the children is not good for them..we do not have the backbone to withstand a little bit of pressure..we gave in easily..here today, gone tomorrow..gone yesterday, back again today..even an old man like me is confused..and grumbled..what more the children..

..and we want to bring back the cane?..bring back the whole system of the 50's I'd say..

..little children..

..when a house is bereft of little children and infants,  life tends to flow along languidly, with the dust settling silently on shades and tables..and food cooked impulsively remained untouched..although nothing is immaculate, the furniture is seldom trampled upon, and there is no fear of glassware falling and breaking..the monotony is only broken by the cackle of a rooster or the bleating of a wandering lamb unable to find its way out..

until,sometimes,  the daughters came a-visiting, along with their children..and a house settled within its own repose and quiet, was once again alive with the shrieks of children and the wails of infants..

..they commandeered the whole house..from the bathrooms to my bedroom..and pakmat sat back and relaxed..enjoying the cacophony and relishing the shrieks of paptok!..papatok! ..ah..the scampering of small feet..little mercies are made of these..

..its Friday..

..sometimes you come across a song from your past..a melody that  have you transported into another time, another place...and you remember a face..some words, gestures and a smile that was almost whimsical..and you wondered of  the things that could have been..





Sepanjang jalan ke Pulau Pinang
Laut mengimbau sayu
Ombak ombak ini hatiku
Berhasrat tiada sepi

Sepanjang jalan ke Pulau Pinang
Hujan memberi lagu
Angin menampar
Setiap ruang angkasa
Berhiba awan pilu

Aku antara insan beribu
Airmataku antara laut lepas
Laguku hilang di angin menderu
Pecah di pantai terhempas

Sepanjang jalan ke Pulau Pinang
Hatiku terjun ke air
Mencari tempat tempat bagiku
Aku seorang pelarian

..life's musing..

and impromptu response from me to comments by that veritable magi of cybersphere, Tommy Yewfigure and that exquisite cyber belle, MekYam,  that I thought deserved to be expanded and posted here, as a note, a billet-doux, from an old man called pakmat..

..salam Tommy and MekYam..:)


I always ponder on life's regenerative process..the old making way for the new..the brevity of my time..death served as a constant reminder of journey's end..and the birth of my grandchildren as a start of a new future..toddlers and children move me..for I see in them a future that I will not be a part of..as that coconut left ignored at some corner of my garden sprouting roots and leaves, fighting to grow into some distant time, oblivious to the turmoil on that little patch of earth it is part of..but there is no stopping time..


..and decades from now, my grandchildren's children will try to look back into their not too distant past..and perhaps locate through the mist a flame called pakmat, who once shone a light into their present..and perhaps catch the fading laughter and tears of my time that echoes into their time.. they may ponder on their past as I have on their future..for in the grand schemes of things, we are all connected..through time and through the cosmos..

..but this playful strife between the sexes will continue..and Tommy, you indeed have this ability to bring out the best in the fair sex..and MekYam , you quoting Coleridge gives me goosepimples..for I am, indeed, an old man, easily moved by words..the power of words..and the imagery it evokes never failed to astound me..

..ahh..to have both of you, and likeable friends,  over coffee with snacks and bites in some verdant corner of this earth..and ramble and muse over experiences of joy and sadness..for our time will pass...like candles in a final flicker...

..resting..

..I have been  resting from blogging for the past two weeks..doing nothing except listened to my body..listening to the creaks and groans of old bones..and the soft growl of the stomach..there is this ache in the left shoulder that I ignored..but I got the message..that  I am no longer what I used to be..

..I listened, too, to my wife..and she was telling me about items and things in the house that have served its time, ber, beyond economical repair, but still taking its place in the house..she said it archly, but  I knew she was referring to the old washing machine that gave up on a spin, the transistor radio in the bedroom that still emits it red led lights but no sound, table lamps that became decorative after the bulb would not light up and some bicycles and wheelbarrows rusting outside..

..I hope she was not referring to me...hmm..

..but I followed my fellow bloggers' postings...and enjoyed them silently, with a guffaw here and there..Zenda's protest against KLORR and her favourite bukit..she climbed so high just to wave a red flag?..most wives did it within the safety of their bedrooms..Puteri Kama and her oilriggers..well, there was once a man and a woman..man served in the kitchen whilst woman studied for a degree..against family's wishes got married..two kid later woman wanted out..man not her drum of oil..leaving man gasping in the open sea, fighting the oil spills..Justiffa and her 18yr-old..18yr-olds these days are ripe and ready for marriage..Pak Idrus at his Melaka retreat..and the Siamese twins conjoined at the bottom of the Meow Factor ..and others, of course, that appeared in my blog-roll..but I did not respond with comments..no..I was busy listening to my body...and an ear to my wife..

p/s
..but I watched with elation Tommy's entry into FB.. take care on the tricycle, Tommy...dont forget to hang that L-plate..

..street kids..

..yes, lets put  the blame on the parents..it is easier..after all they are not our children..and we are better  parents for we do not have children who prefer a life on the streets rather than the safe sanctity of the home..never you mind we are never home..and home life to to our children  is only interactions with the nanny and the cook, and perhaps, the driver..and perpetually on the net..for mom is seldom home..neither is dad..they are both busy with their career and the constant chase for the additional rm..

..we never asked whether it is the other way round..had it ever occurred to the Hon. Minister, that in some cases, it is the children who had abandoned their family?..what is a parent supposed to do if their child refused to continue schooling, refused to come home, and preferring instead a life on the streets?..and mom working as a cleaner in a hypermarket and dad a van driver pushing goods all over the place except home?..chained them and locked them in?..

..it is a difficult world that we are living..and for city dwellers who can barely make ends meet, harder..what with the cost of living skyrocketing along with the prices of basic necessities..

..it is a symptoms of a decaying society..removing the kids from the streets will only address the symptoms..but then, since when politicians can look beyond the rise of their eyebrow?....

..degenerative parents and polygamy..

..for the past few days, the NST ran stories about street children who lived in abandon building of the city..children who dropped out from school and family and became denizens of a jungle where it is all concrete..children who made 'pest infected buildings' their home..

..one of their feature writers, Chok Suat Ling, blames it on the parents..Dysfunctional kids are the result of dysfunctional parents. she further wrote that ..'family values and ties are disintegrating..All one needs to do is scan the newspapers....the headlines say it all: Parent sues children..daughter kills mother, stabs father in stomach..newborn burnt to death in garbage bin..senior citizens dumped by son at bus stand...MP takes actress as second wife'..

oh..oh..MP takes actress as second wife..?  come on, CSL..that's a bit like hitting below the belt for us polygamists..and I think an unfair poke against the MP..I mean grouping his marriage to the actress under the same section of the Penal Code as that of daughter killing mother and stabbing father..newborn burnt to death in garbage bin...and senior citizen dumping son at bus stand..

..I see him a little foolish with the actress, yes, but I am sure he will try his utmost to keep his family values and ties intact..and I am certain he is far from being a dysfunctional parent..

..oh, well, to quote Aminah Assilmi, a newly convert, who added a disclaimer to her Syahadah due to her initial ignorance..I bear witness that there is no god but God and Mohammed is His Messenger...but if my husband takes another wife, I will castrate him...

..