Car rescue, Faizul, Aik Kheow and other things.

16.3.2015.

Faizul invited me to his daughter's wedding when we met at Ramli's son's wedding early this year. When he later sms'd me, I sms'd back "no card, no come". The card came by courier,  to make sure I received it. 

I mentioned it to Sam when I called him about something else, so Sam called Faizul about it, and that's how Sam got invited. That was fortunate. Otherwise my car might still be stranded at Kamil's Petronas station this morning.

Knowing the Sunday evening traffic to KL, I told the wife to get ready to leave for the Dewan Endon, Putrajaya, for the function, by 6 p.m. As usual we were 20 minutes late. I still had to fill up the car first, so we went to Kamil's petrol station. But after filling up, the car wouldn't start. So I called Sam, knowing he was coming to the same function. He said to try this and that, which I did, to no effect, so he said he'll drive up to help.

By now it was almost 8 p.m. We exchanged several calls to give directions, but Sam still managed to drive past the petrol station because he said the signboard was obscured. Anyway he finally came, fiddled with the gear shift as he turned the electronic key, and presto ! the damn thing started. So that was the trick.

Dekna had come earlier to collect her mother and they went home. Sam and I decided we should still attend Faizul's kenduri. So we went back to the house to fetch the wife.

Hanif, my s.i.l. had laboriously drawn a map to Dewan Endon. Sam pored over it under the reading light as we entered Putrajaya, but like the last map Hanif drew when I had to fetch Dekna from work, this map fared no better. After realising that we had passed some spots for the second time, we surrendered and stopped by the roadside to ask a guy who had also stopped his car. Sam got down, but he got another guy in a second car to finally take us to the Dewan, driving behind his car. That was about 9.30 p.m.

Li Aik Kheow  had twice called during all this time. He had arrived at 7.30 because he said the invitation was for 8. I related my predicament and asked him to wait, and that was about 9 already, things haven't started yet.

Faizul, Sam , Aik Kheow and I go back a long way. Around 1985. Faizul was the longest. He started working under me when I joined Angkut as GM in 1985, but I knew him when I joined Felmil in 1980, when he used to represent Angkut at the weekly sales meetings. Aik Kheow was one of the northern transport contarctors for Angkut. Sam was in Port Klang in 1991.

When I joined MISC in January 1991, I was stationed at the North Port, Port Klang. After about a year, as we expanded, I asked Faizul to join me and serve at Butterworth, our new branch. To recruit more sales staff for that branch,  I had personally interviewed and recruited Rozanna. As fate would have it, Faizul, at that time divorced from his wife, not long after that married Rozana. So you could say I gave him a job and a wife ! When the news reached Felda HQ (at that time the Chairman of Felda was also Chairman of MISC), words indirectly reached me that someone at the top didn't like this particular situation,and it was said that either one of the couple should leave. I commented to several of my senior staff that in that case all the couples (and there were many from among the more senior staff) in Felda should do the same.

If Faizul didn't join me I think he'd be one of the top guys in the Felda Group; but basically he'd stay put in Felda. Having moved to Butterworth and doing the transport work that was different and in the new environment, doors opened to his enterprising mind and training. Now he's a shareholder of the new company he's with, resides in up-market Bukit Jelutong, and drives a spanking new BMW 7 series.

Aik Kheow said he's going to China in a few days. He seems forever going to China. He'd had a heart procedure last year I hadn't heard about. His wife also told mine that he'd had a prostate operation as well. But at 64 he seems outwardly robust enough. I told him he's one of two old Chinese friends who have maintained regular contacts with me.

I'm glad I came, very late as it was. I even met Kamil, the owner of the petrol station where my car stalled, and I told him about it. You see people with growing families, all moving forward. We look back with fond memories, perhaps, and cannot escape thinking about what might have been. We should savour what we have.

On our way back to Seremban we lost our way again.

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1MDB - the sequence.

13.3.2015.

In December I posted my first take on 1MDB. I'd said the PM must quickly come clean on this. Today is March 13. I need to jot a continuation on the story.

At the local UMNO Branch committee meeting several days ago I'd asked for, and received  a unanimous agreement to my proposal at tabling a motion on the subject of 1MDB at the next AGM, to be brought up to this year's Divisional AGM. I have already prepared the draft  since.

I'm wording it carefully so that my motion would not die prematurely. The tone is the acceptance of the PM's assurance that a full audit by both the company- appointed public auditors and the Government's National Auditor would be immediately done, and all wrongdoers would be prosecuted.

Since then substantial material has surfaced:

i. Several newsworthy names have come out.

ii. The Second Finance Minister has admitted the "unsustainabilty" of the company.

iii. Large funds have left Cayman Islands but are parked in Singapore.

Unsurprisingly, the opposition parties have gleefully jumped at the rich exposed vein.

I'm keeping track of the story, and will decide on what to include in my motion. I'll stick to my original proposition that the PM act now and do the right thing, or a big mess waits for him at GE 14. 

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Amok, my beloved auntie.

2.3.2015.

This afternoon, Monday 2nd March 2015, after Asr prayers, I joined the mourners who sent  Amok, my beloved auntie, to her final resting place at Kuala Jempol, Bahau. She was 87. The same age as mom.

I spent many school holidays at her house, before I went to boarding school. When Padir and I graduated from the University of Malaya, our photos in gown and mortar board hung proudly on the walls in the sitting room for many years.

When Amok got married to Pa' Bai 70 years ago, they remained childless for several years, so much so they adopted Abin, a relative's daughter from Melang, before Basit was born. Abin is short for "binti" - Pa' Bai went to a madrasah "pondok religious school" in Kelantan and was enamoured with Arabic. Her given name is Natrah, after Natrah or Bertha Hertogh of the infamous Natrah riots in Singapore in 1950.

I visited Amok in hospital about  two weeks ago on learning that she had broken her pelvis after a fall in the house. She had an operation a few days ago, and yesterday several relatives visited her at Fadillah's house in Taman Puan Chik. This morning she died.

This house next to the Kuala Jempol mosque is not the first house. I remember one Hari Raya several of us - me, my mother, Acik and others I can't remember - going in a taxi along the muddy, unpaved Terusan road to Amok's little house on pillars. Then they moved  to this present site, but it was a very modest wooden house with a low roof in front, and a rickety, swinging, wire-netting half-door. Much later this present large house was built. Amok used to have a "rumah kepok" for holding all the padi and rice Pa' Bai received as payment for teaching religion, or alms during Ramadan. So here was Pa' Bai, no padi field but plenty of padi !

I remember one particular visit when I stayed for a few days and befriended Yusof who stayed a short distance across the laterited former railway track. We rode on his buffaloes, and I had my big toe pierced by a bamboo sliver. Amok put some ointment on it and after one or two days the wound dried and the sliver came out.

I also remember an old photograph with Amok, mom and me against the flower bushes at wan's house in Bukit Temensu. I wonder where it has gone.

When dad died, Amok spoke sadly about him being more than a brother-in-law. She remembered dad asking her "Bong (short for Obong, Amok's nickname) let's look for some sweet potatoes." This was during the Japanese Occupation.

Mat Cit said, on the way to the cemetry, yesterday Amok was talkative, and gave no signs of anything wrong after the operation at  Tunku Najiha's Hospital.

Her second son, Zubit, led the funeral prayers and read the talqin. I recited the Surah Yasin from the little booklet as the shroud was lowered into the grave. Datuk Khalid Yunus read out loud the Surah Yasin from memory at the same time. Before I left the site, I just stood over the grave for a while, thinking of dear departed Amok.

Now there's only Acik left. She's 78.

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Amal

22.2.2015.

Saturday 21st February 2015 marks an auspicious day in the young life of Amal, Calit's only child.  Except for Yan, this is the last of the Yunus clan to get hitched. Soon, perhaps, Calit becomes "atok"!

I got to officiate the ceremony, witnessed by brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts, and first cousins from both sides of the family, something I'd done many times for various nephews & nieces. Usually in the past I'd carried sheets of scribbled "pepatah petiteh" to scare the visitors. For starters I would have dramatically said in very authentic ( "pokat" - thick ) nogoghi dialect:

Sakit bermulo

Mati bersobab

Awal berpumala'an akhir berkesudahan

Melompek nak bertumpuan

Menconcang nak berladasan

Mengompang nak beralahan

Memagar nak berpintu

Kedarek Adat Perpatih

Kelaut Adat Tomonggong

Masuk kandang kambing mengembek

Masuk kandang kobau menguak

Lain padang lain belalang

and that would have sent the already nervous leader of the entourage into a tail spin.

Instead of perhaps continuing:

Bercakap siang pandang-pandang

Bercakap malam donga-donga

Datang nampak ghoman

Balik nampak belakang

Apo hajat tuan kesini ?

I said let's simplify ("singkap daun ambik buah" - lift the leaf and pick the fruit).

He said they were here to ask for Amal's hand for "W" ( Amal had pasted a sign "W & A" outside. I asked two of her friends before the visitors came why W & A ? When they were puzzled by the question, I said if it was "A & W" people might order waffle and ice cream !) Actually he used more words, from his written notes, but that was the gist of it.

So I simply replied that the query usually comes with "cincin tanya". I might have said:

Cincin sobontuk menanyokan ibubapak

Cincin duo bontuk oso sekato

Oso sekato kato dibalikkan

Tak oso sekato cincin dibalikkan

Untung lelaki ditanyo-tanyokan

Untung perempuan dinanti-nantikan

and that would have really floored the poor bugger !

So instead I just said show us the ring, which they did, and Ina officially consented to the proposal, and I asked to say my piece, and the future m.i.l. slipped the two rings on Amal's finger, and the gifts were exchanged, and the dua was read, and everyone was invited to the prepared reception. That was it.

Actually there is much more to all of that.

This is of years of love and tender loving care for a precious  only child,  seen through the fond upbringing and the tedious schooling and the priceless shared moments in life, and now this private bond has to be shared with a stranger ! It's not a frivolous passing episode. It is  a momentous life-changing occasion for both parents, to let go, and yet to open up to a new life chapter that promises nothing but hope.

We all cherish this sort of moment in our lives, and as believers in the Islamic faith, we pray that for fragile, fragile Amal and the young man she has chosen to share the rest of her life with, God would Look upon their union with Compassion, Amin.

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Kak Ngah has left us too soon.

20.2.2015.

Kak Ngah Bang Sudin was 55. That's too soon to meet her Maker; so much life to live for, things to do still, and future grandchildren to dote on -   all  not to be. She succumbed to the long-suffered illness about Asr yesterday, Thursday 19th. February, 2015, just eleven months after the passing of her father. In the last days of her life she had said her dad was waiting for her to join him. She even looked more and more like him.

I went to the Tuan Hj. Said Muslim cemetry this morning with No. 2 Son and later Ari and Thareez joined us, to see if we could get a spot next to the father. The caretaker came an hour later than  he had promised Ari, but all's well that ends well - we got the burial spot right next to Bang Sudin's. They had to use the MPS JCV though, to break the tarmac already laid there. Klemot was happy with the news when I stopped to tell her on my way home, after leaving the workers to finish the job.

Kak Ngah's last post was that of a Professor at the University Pertanian, having done her doctorate in the US in the late 80's. She went to TKC, just like my sister, Dekma, my daughter, Dekna, and my niece Aza,  and most recently Acam's granddaughter. Kak Ngah  did her first degree in the US.

I first met her after I got married in 1971. When we went for a two-week holiday in Orlando, Florida in the late 80's, she was just completing her Ph.D. in neighbouring Georgia, and she drove over with her family to join us at the resort we were staying at not far from Disneyland.

When she got married, I forget the year, we all went to the groom's at Bidor, Perak. She bought her first house in Kajang. Some years ago she moved to a bigger house in Bangi. This was where she died.

The family decided to lay her to rest in Seremban, where most of her mother's kins are, but more importantly, where her late father is buried. Her remains will be prepared for burial this morning, and funeral prayers will be held at the Masjid Dato' Kelana Petra after the Friday prayers, before taking her to be by the side of her beloved father until the Day of Resurrection. May they both find peace in their wait.

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The Permatang Pauh and Chempaka bye-elections.

15.2.2015.

"To study first" and "let's not contest" are two early and  glaring statements coming from the "UMNO corner", to use the boxing jargon. That's a shame.

The two seats were vacated by two very different personalities for two completely  different reasons. Replacements must be immediately found, or the rakyat's representative would be void. It's not about respect or otherwise for  the previous holder.

In the Kelantan case, PAS shouldn't worry about retaining the seat. It held it for nearly three decades. UMNO also shouldn't worry about it. If it loses again no one would be surprised. It cannot be because of a show of respect for the dear departed. There wasn't much shown when the poor fellow was alive.  Or fear of a threat to the much-hoped for UMNO-PAS "reconciliation". Hopes and dreams are ingredients of fantasy.

In the Permatang Pauh case, the only study left would be to find a credible candidate. That wouldn't ensure victory, but it's a good starting point. But fighting for a person is different from fighting for a movement. The one is straight forward. The other monumental.

The legislative system the country has chosen dictates that vacated seats must be filled, and no buts. The political parties have to field their candidates. Otherwise the political missions they claim to have stood for for more than half-a-century  becomes hollow.  

This idea of "looking good" gets carried away. We must look good and sound good. What about being steadfast in sincerity ? We are sincere in our fight for the good of the majority, and we are determined about it. Not everyone will agree to our style. To even think so  is  absurd. We have a good track record  in the "short" 50 - 60 years, comparing well with the international experience of far bigger countries with far longer histories. Even communism is practically dead. The multi-racial mix of Malaysia is like no other. That there has been one black spot of racial rioting is in fact remarkable for such a complex, young  country that still has a lot to learn..

Don't throw aside judgement, sure. But this is past that. UMNO and BN and all the political parties aspiring to provide leadership for Malayasian citizens must offer themselves as choices.  To not contest the bye-election is a betrayal. It's cowardice.

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Anwar.

10.2.2015.

Md. Nor Zakaria used to say once a dog eats shit, if it can't eat it again, smelling shit will do.  I don't know if there's truth in that, because if it's true, that's the mistake Anwar made.

When he got away with Sodomy I, people chuckled that he got away with it. Anwar chuckled, too. As the sitting judge at that time himself said in a public forum recently, "I believed he did it, but I'd to decide on the basis of the law, and the technicalities faced meant that I had to acquit him."

A Malay saying goes "the mousedeer can forget the trap, but the trap doesn't forget the mousedeer !" Anwar went back to his old habits and got caught in Sodomy II. 

He must have cursed himself. Remember he ran to the Turkish Embassy, saying someone's trying to kill him ? If there was any knee-jerk reaction from someone  caught pants-down for the same stupid sex crime,  this fairy tale of attempted murder was clearly one.

In the light of the Western acceptance of  public homosexuality, should it surprise us that the US, for instance, condemns Anwar's prosecution because of his sexual preference ? The Bible prohibits it, but that hasn't stopped  the US Authorities from allowing it. Unfortunately for Anwar, Malaysian Law doesn't allow it. 

It falls in place that the theory of the Anwar "rocket" that Mahathir shot down looks credible to US Congressmen, who had too often seen such drama in their volatile politics. The facts seemed simplistic, that Mahathir, after receiving the reports for a period of time, finally agreed to meet the newsbearer, verified the accusation, and believed that his protege was in his eyes immoral, and cannot be allowed to be the PM. There's no conspiracy. Nothing like the one Anwar hatched to topple Ghaffar, and nothing like Anwar's failed campaign against the "cronyism" politics of Mahathir.  Sure, with Mahathir's help, Anwar came like the typhoon. It's poetic justice that it was also Mahathir who pulled the rug from his feet.

Typhoon is "angin". Maybe now it's "masuk angin ?" But Sg. Buluh is no "makan angin". Anwar sure "naik angin"  I think.

The future of PKR ? Who knows. Even "Tuhan Harun" had his followers ! Wait for 2020.

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