1st January 2012 - post Canberra sojourn

Good morning world! And a happy new year 2012!May the new year bring lots of good tidings to all of us, and the world at large.

I was up early this morning, having gone to bed at 11pm and awakened at midnight with all the loud fireworks announcing the start of 2012. I was supposed to be at an official event ushering the new year but opted out at the 11th hour. I was just too tired and didn't think I could cope with the crowd and NOISE at the event. Just as well, and it was not the first time I spent new year eve alone and in bed!

I came home late Wednesday night after a 10-day most pleasant, quiet and food-laden holiday in Canberra, Australia. The quiet holiday was indeed a balm for my rather frenzied working life. I left Canberra 15 years ago after a two and half year posting and clearly it had not changed that much today. Excellent quality of life and services still prevailed  and you get value-for-money on whatever you spent. Outsiders may find Canberra deathly boring but at this stage of my life I could live in Canberra if I had all the necessary personal infrastructures.Glad to catch up with friends Willie, Don, Mac, Tony, Nora and Halim, Zuraidah, Salman, Molly and Richard, etc. Regretfully, many had also gone away for Christmas and New Year holiday. Thanks Willie (my dear old schoolmate from English College Johor Bahru who has lived in Canberra for 40 years) for your generous hospitality.

My  rather fast-paced life started again upon my return home and I am glad I won't have to go to work until Tuesday 3rd January ( followed immediately by a working visit to Jogjakarta 5-8 January). Thursday was spent in my Putrajaya house which I had not gone to for nearly a month! I had phoned up Mehboob to clean up the garden and it was nice when I got there. The rainy season had ensured the plants  were doing well. I had ordered a bedroom set which was delivered in my absence and having looked at it I realised I could have spent a little more for quality! Cest la vie!

Leisurely morning on Friday followed by some site visits with my charge and then Friday prayers. Late afternoon my brother Long and wife from JB arrived to spend the night at my house. Later brother Wes and wife too arrived and after Maghrib prayers we all trooped down to SUBAK Restaurant at Sungai Pencala for our niece Nur Annanina's  (brother Ngah's daughter) wedding reception. She married American Michael (?) in the US last year and they have now settled down in Las Vegas. It was a most pleasant evening with good company, nice food and music. The best comment heard was the warm reunion of the four brothers. Alhamdullilah!

Long and Sis left at noon next day for their much-needed private holiday (destination Ipoh and Pangkor) amidst a hive of activity in my house with Ayu doing the internal cleaning and Irfan doing up the garden. I took Anna and Michael, and nephew Andreas for a Japanese lunch and they came home with me for coffee. Ayu and Irfan only left after five and I was really tired by then and still had to go to that new year event. Well that didn't happen thankfully.

2011 was a wonderful and great year for me though there were times when I felt so stressed out and pressured with my work responsibilities. They are all just memories now and in fact were the essential spices for my life. The private travels I undertook, though I would always include some official element in them  (Jogjakarta, Perth, Surabaya, Bandung, New Delhi and Canberra), in between these busy schedules, were the balm for my frenzied working life.

I am looking forward to a great 2012. Once again, happy new year everyone and God bless.

Happy New Year 2012

Happy New Year 2012 everyone. May you all have a great and fulfilling year ahead.

Penang-Johor Bahru-Singapore whirlwind

Whirlwind of a week! Early Wednesday morning flew to Penang for a meeting with the 'maestro'. Was home at 8.30pm!

Next day in the afternoon flew to JB and had a couple of hours walk in the old town, plus of course the compulsory visit to my tailor Mun Onn where I had another order of six batiks shirts to be made. Evening dinner and a meeting with the MB in 'Saujana' where I snapped the photos of our four past Sultans posted here. The MB was most cordial and pleasant, made me feel good to be a Johorean.

Next day after breakfast, was driven to Singapore, my very first entry into Singapore via the new CIQ (haven't entered Singapore by the Causeway in years - I simply dread it). Not all that efficient I must say and on the Singapore side the queue was long and very slow and tedious. And the young Malay woman at the immigration booth took like 20 minutes to clear some 7 passports of the car in front of mine and when it was our turn clearly showed she was trying to be overly-efficient and not in the least bit friendly (worst still the Malay women at the Changi airport immigration who cleared my passport and was totally impersonal and indifferent as she could possibly be- what's wrong with all the Singaporean Malays!!! Superiority complex or what? Big deal being immigration officers!). It took me 40 minutes to get through the Singapore immigration and customs! Talk about being welcomed and efficiency!!      

A two-hour visit to the Singapore National Museum  to see the "Dreams and Reality" exhibition brought all the way from Musee D'Orsay Paris (and a thorough briefing by American volunteer Helen who really knew her stuff). Then a rushed visit to our High Comm to say hello to my friend and colleague Hussein and I was off in a heavy downpour to the airport. Again home at 8.30 pm.

At last a free day to do my packing for my travel tomorrow night for 10-day holiday(finally) to Australia. Canberra here I come! 

Nostalgia Johor Bahru

I have just returned from a 24-hour visit to my old hometown Johor Bahru (JB) where I was born and bred. I left for University in KL in 1971 and had since never actually lived in JB again except the trips home during term breaks and the regular visits to my parents after I started working. Mother passed away in September 2006 and after my return to Malaysia in January last, I made one trip to JB for the annual family reunion and had never again ventured there till yesterday.

Short, very short as it was the visit was full of nostalgia. JB had grown so much but the old town still retains its charm, messy as it still is today! But it seems more compact and somewhat tidier. Lots of development going on, hopefully things will get better.  

I visited my parent's graves. Regretfully they are quite far apart and I had to drive from one to another. My father's grave had undergone a make-over and was newer and neater (he died in 1996). One of the marble tombstones of mother's grave (she passed on 1n 2006) was uprooted and I could not do much but leaned it against the box. I wish the Religious Department would do more for the upkeep of the cemetery. It is always terribly overgrown with weeds and the soil erosion is bad, and there was always heaps of rubbish here and there around the cemetery. Shame with all the financial resources they have they could not even make the effort to look after the place and upheld the dignity of the departeds' resting place.

I drove around to the neighbourhood where I lived with my parents in two different houses (Nong Chik government quarters) from the age of 6 to 20. They have all been razed to the ground to make way for newer development. And the family land in Air Molek is now used as a paid parking lot and some food stalls and gradually being squeezed by other development. My eldest brother Long is adamant about not selling it and making some arrangement for a joint-venture development. Well I hope the day will not come when the government will just make a compulsory acquisition of the land and we will all be under compensated of the land's actual value.

I also stopped briefly at my 'almer mather'  Maktab Sultan Abu Bakar (English College) where I studied from 1965-68 and took some photos and spoke to one of the teachers who promised to invite me to give a "motivational talk" to the students one day. 

Then there was the compulsory visit to my tailor "Mun On" at Jalan Trus. I had been patronizing that tailor since 1967 and nothing had changed about it, except those days I would pay RM3.50 to have a shirt made with my own material and today it is RM70! I still could not find another tailor who will do my short-sleeved batik shirt according to my liking as they do, that's why I kept going back to them all these forty years plus!!! Amazing isn't it! Anyway this time I deposited four batiks materials to be tailored and as a goodwill gesture they charged me only RM 60 per shirt! Hoong Po or Wan J will have to collect them and bring to KL once ready.

JB, oh JB! So nice to have a place to go back to and reminisce about all its goodness!  

Goin' Back

I think I'm goin' back
To the things I learned so well
In my youth

I think I'm returning to

Those days when I was young enough

To know the truth


Now there are no games

To only pass the time

No more colouring books
No Christmas bells to chime


But thinking young
And growing older is no sin
And I can play
The game of life to win

I can recall the time

When I wasn't ashamed
To reach out to a friend
And now I think I've got
A lot more than a skipping rope to lend

Now there's more to do
Than watch my sailboat glide
And everyday can be

My magic carpet ride

And I can play hide and seek with my fears
And live my days
Instead of counting my years

Let everyone debate the true reality
I'd rather see the world
The way it used to be

A little bit of freedom

Is all we lack

So catch me if you can

I'm goin' back.....

See video : http://youtu.be/gV1bnDqhMws
                  http://youtu.be/gvE2mppEDfg



I first heard this song in 1967 sung by Dusty Springfield. I was all of 16 years old then and the song touched me so profoundly with its beautiful lyrics by Gerry Goffin (melody by Carole King) about the loss of innocence that comes with adulthood along with an attempt, on the part of the singer to recapture that youthful innocence. Since then the song has always remained one of my eternal favourites and it has been recorded by scores of other singers over the years, the latest being by Paul McGrath, ex-Ireland football legend. And now 45 years since I first heard that iconic Dusty Springfield version I heard a new version which touches me even so much more. A month ago, my friend Hoong Po gave me a new compilation CD of Diana Ross, and surprise, surprise track 21 was "Goin' Back" and it was such a beautiful rendition. I even found a video of Miss Ross's version on YouTube. Surprising, the recording was made in 2001 and I had not heard of it. Thanks dear HP, Miss Ross, Carole King and Gerry Goffin. "Goin' Back" is forever....

Eid Mubarak Aidil Adha

Salaam and greetings! Been so busy to write anything of late! Just back from a 5-day Deepavali break in New Delhi and was sick all the time there! The air was so horribly polluted there but had a great albeit quiet time with Seng Sung and Julia all the same. Home with a bagful of goodies as well! India is so fascinating and colourful, dirt and dusts and all....

Selamat Hari Raya Aidil Adha all.
(Foto is of a batik "Segala puji hanya pada Mu" I made a few months back - all praise to Him!)

Latest artworks

Voila, my latest artwork, pastel and acrylic on canvas, just completed - it took some thirty minutes and very dirty fingers and hand, and stained kitchen table and towels and all! Don't know if it will even qualify for Pak Yusof Ghani's KALAM exhibition next month!