Time magazine ranked Paul Ponnudorai among the world's best guitarists...

Paul Ponnudorai died this morning at age 51. I'll bet there'a a huge bunch of ace musicians on the other side waiting to jam with him. Paul was undoubtedly an absolute phenomenon - a musician's musician, with an innate musicianship he honed to virtuoso heights. And yet he was always approachable, friendly and generous with his time. 

We never really know how precious some lives and their unique gifts are - until they're gone.

Love you, bro.

A young Malaysian's answer to Dr M's dirty politics of divide-and-rule...

Dr M, you are wrong!

by Azrul Mohd Khalid | The Malaysian Insider

JULY 5 — I was quite disappointed to read of Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s prediction that the upcoming general election would be more focussed on race and ethnic issues than ever before.

I think you are wrong, Dr M. Speaking as a product of your policies and far-sightedness in the creation of a Vision 2020 generation, I am happy to inform you, Dr M, that you have actually wildly succeeded in pushing us towards the formation of a more united, integrated and mature democratic Malaysian society (remember the Vision 2020 concept document?).

Through the programmes put in place under your leadership, the opportunities for education and learning provided by your administration, and through the shared experiences, heartache and pain that we have had over the past three decades, you bear much responsibility for the current state of affairs which resulted in the evolution of our people.

Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters

And the evolution is a good one. When you look at the young people today below the age of 35, there is much to be proud of. We used to gripe about how apathetic Malaysians in general were about the state of the country, how they often took for granted that which they are able to benefit from, and did not really want to participate in the political process. Well, things, as you well know, certainly have changed.

Though we are not quite there yet, we are getting ready to leave racial identity politics behind. We see the possibility of a new Malaysia. One that concentrates on addressing the real issues affecting Malaysians such as alleviating poverty and economic hardship, reducing unemployment, addressing corruption, improving livelihoods and preventing crime. Whether you are Melayu, Cina, India or lain-lain, it just doesn’t mean much to people any more. Everyone is in the same boat and we need to work together.

We should be wary and turn away from these guys who scream, shout abuse, and threaten violence in order to get their way. These are the people who claim to be the champions of speaking out and defending the rights and privileges of their race yet are the same ones who are still robbing these same communities and the rakyat blind for themselves and their families.

They do this while securing sweetheart deals and line their pockets with public funds. They distract us from the bread-and-butter issues by abusing and misusing religion to promote bigoted and racist agendas against those of other ethnicities and religions.

These are the ones who are obsessed in continuously speaking about race and are racist themselves, who jump at shadows, yell “traitor” and point to others at every single turn, offer luxury cars to encourage the intimidation of others, threaten physical harm and insist on maintaining the status quo for the benefit of the privileged few.

Look around you, Dr M. Does it sound familiar to you? If all you hear is race, it is because you surround yourself or are surrounded by people who are terrified of positive change and are only looking out for their own selfish interests. Maybe it’s time to find a new group of friends.

Meanwhile, we are moving on.

There has never been a prouder moment for Malaysians to be Malaysian. We have progressed far from my parents’ generation of “siapalah kita” to the current one who answer back “kita adalah rakyat Malaysia.” We are experiencing an empowered sense of shared destiny and a common vision.

If you had been at the rally on July 9 last year and the many rallies organised around the nation this year, particularly the one on April 28 at Dataran Merdeka, you would realise that this generation is neither an apathetic one nor are they troublemakers.

If you had been there standing and sitting with us and seen the peoples of Malaysia from all walks of life reflected in the faces of those gathered there that day in solidarity, you would realise that this is a group of people who care and love their country and who want to see a better Malaysia. You would have been proud of us.



When you see people standing in solidarity and unified together for no other reason than that they care about an issue of mutual and common concern which affects all Malaysians, are you not proud that we have looked beyond race?

Isn’t this what we sought to be and do? Are we forever going to be chained by the divisions created and cast by our former colonial masters? We cannot afford to be forever mired in racial identity politics

Today, to talk about race is to be selfish, narrow minded and to lack vision. A leader of today’s Malaysia must rise above race and communal politics. To remain relevant, the ruling coalition must learn to adapt and to accept the dawning reality that the old rules are increasingly fading into obscurity. It must reinvent itself or risk being obsolete, as some political parties are already finding out the hard way.

We need to move beyond the dinosaurs of the past who are fossilised and only know of the importance of race and their own selfish concerns.

We are moving on.

This will be Malaysia’s proudest moment when we take the first tentative and courageous steps towards a future where the divisive race-based politics will be increasingly less of a factor.

Perhaps the coming elections will be about race. It will be the beginning of how race ceases to become the unifying factor for people of this country. It will be the starting point when Malaysians began to see something greater than themselves and reached deep down and found courage in striking out into the undiscovered country, leaving the baggage of race in the dustbin of history.

Azrul Mohd Khalib works on HIV/AIDS, sex and human rights issues. He is becoming cynical and is in danger of losing his sense of humour and mind. 

Warp & Woof ~ an unpublished chapter from "Tanah Tujuh"

The Orang Asli are certainly not alone in “remembering” that many of the imbalances in the world today stem from a series of cosmic-scale catastrophes in the planet's traumatic past. Nor are they the only ones who portray the guardian at the portal of death as a dog. The Egyptians depicted their guide to the underworld as a dog-headed god, Anubis. (And the Greeks called their god of the dead, Pluto, which Walt Disney turned into a cartoon canine).

Speaking of dogs: Sirius, also known as the Dog Star, is in the constellation Canis Major. Now: why would a West African tribe called the Dogon (a contraction of Doggone, perhaps?) residing near Timbuktu, in the Republic of Mali, know so much about the Dog Star? Dogon starlore features prominently in The Sirius Mystery, a 1976 study by Robert Temple, which reports that the gods of Dogon legends originated from Sirius.

Temple was amazed to learn that the Dogon chiefs were able to sketch star maps showing the orbital paths of both Sirius A and Sirius B (its dwarf companion whose existence was first reported in 1844 by the German astronomer Friedrich W. Bessel but wasn't “officially confirmed” until as recently as 1970).

According to ethnographic studies conducted with the Dogon, their tribal elders had known about their Sirius connection for at least 700 years. Their explanation was simple: a Sirian spaceship had landed in the desert, dug a deep hole, and filled it with water. Out of the ship had emerged some dolphin-like beings - who jumped into the artificial lake and began trading cosmic gossip with the Dogon witch doctors.

My own theory is that Nibiru was once a planet of Sirius B - before the star imploded and became a dense dwarf, Somehow the Nibiruans managed to steer their planetary spaceship out of harm's way - but found themselves “gatecrashing” our Solar System. Captured by the Sun's gravitational field, Nibiru bumped into a few other celestial bodies (causing unimaginable havoc) before ending up in a highly elliptical 3,600-year orbit (which takes the 4th-dimensional planet far out into Deep Space and back into the Solar System every 1,800 terrestrial years).

The Flower of Life - a modern mystery school founded by Drunvalo Melchizedek in the Hermetic tradition - teaches that Sirius A and Sirius B are linked to our Sun by an interdimensional portal or Stargate carrying a heavy traffic in cetacean intelligences. (Ea - also known as Enki, Poseidon, and Neptune - has traditionally been associated with the dolphins. The plot thickens. My own research indicates that the Earth connects Sirius with the Pleiadian Family, of which our Sun is a vital component. Tiamat - our planet's original name before the Catastrophe - means “Maiden of Life.” This is a significant clue to the ultimate purpose and destiny of Gaia, our beloved “Mother Earth.”)

Sirius - known to the Egyptians as Sept and to the Greeks as Sothis - was sacred to the great goddess Isis. When her husband-brother Osiris was murdered by their brother Set and despatched to the Underworld where he became Lord of the Dead, Isis managed to extract semen from her deceased husband (with a little help from ibis-headed Thoth, the Keeper of Arcane Mysteries) and conceived a son, the hawk-headed Horus. Osiris thence became the symbol of fertility and resurrection, while Horus took on the role of the Divine Child, personifying the New Aeon.

Thoth was known in Sumeria as Ningishzidda (“Lord of the Artifact of Life”). He was the younger son of Enki. (The controversial Zecharia Sitchin, for one, is convinced that Thoth was also worshiped in Peru as Viracocha, and in Mesoamerica as Kukulcan/Quetzalcoatl. This belief is supported by a very ancient document smuggled out of Peru in the 1920s, which has since been translated and published privately as The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean by Doreal of the Brotherhood of the White Temple. Its contents are far too fantastic for it to be a forgery.

In Egypt, Thoth was sometimes called Tehuti (“Master of Balance”), son of Ptah. He is credited with the design and construction of the Great Pyramid (which he materialized from the 4th Dimension with the help of his brother Ra and a High Adept and former Atlantean King named Araaragot*). In Greece, Thoth was venerated as Hermes Trismegistos (“Thrice-Greatest”); he initiated Pythagoras into the mysteries through sacred geometry and the Kabbalah.

Isis and the Ape of Thoth

The Egyptians depicted Thoth with an ibis head to signify his patronage of precise knowledge and esoteric wisdom. They also associated him with the baboon - symbol of the genetic union of Dog and Ape (Sirius and the Earth). I have reason to believe that Thoth was actually the Adamic progeny of Enki/Ptah - pioneer god of primate gene-splicing - and perhaps the first human Adapa (Adept) to attain the secret of Immortality.

Thoth became Divine Archivist and Chronicler of Tanah Tujuh (The Seventh Planet) after he retired from an illustrious career as “Headmaster of the Enki'ite Mathemagickal Mystery School.” In the light of this, Drunvalo couldn't have found a better mentor than Thoth the Atlantean. Thoth had made initial psychic contact with him in 1972 and then “disappeared” - after scrutinizing his candidacy. Drunvalo and Thoth established a two-way communication link on November 1st 1984, which was operational till May 4th 1991, when Thoth finally departed Earth with a group of Immortal Masters - having served as a tutelary god to humanity for 52,000 years (which is, after all, only 14.44 Nibiruan years).

_______________

* Ra (the Sun God) subsequently seized power in Egypt, displacing his brother Thoth (the Moon God), who then went into South American exile and became a cult figure. Meanwhile, Araaragot was preoccupied with establishing the Trans-Himalayan Brotherhood in Shamballa. The Age of Aries was heralded by Ra's disappearance from Egypt (where he became known as Amen-Ra or “Ra the Unseen”) and subsequent re-appearance in Babylon as its national god, Marduk (“God of Gods”), circa 2024 B.C. This power struggle between the younger Enlilite and Enki'ite gods precipitated an atomic war that effectively wiped out Sodom, Gomorrah, the Anunnaki spaceport in Sinai, and millions of people and livestock. Marduk decreed that Nibiru be henceforth called “Marduk” in all Babylonian texts.

DAVID DEIDA ON LOVE, SEX & SPIRITUALITY (12-PART VIDEO)

David Deida lets it rip in Byron Bay, bringing great humor, wisdom, and light to the perennial issues surrounding love, intimacy, sexuality, and spirituality. This 12-part series presents the entirety of the professionally produced video Spirit Sex Love, which offers a lively demonstration of David's teaching methods and an introduction to his teachings on sexuality, spiritual growth, and true intimacy.

Nuggets of wisdom from David Deida...

“Everything you do right now ripples outward and affects everyone. Your posture can shine your heart or transmit anxiety. Your breath can radiate love or muddy the room in depression. Your glance can awaken joy. Your words can inspire freedom. Your every act can open hearts and minds.” ~ David Deida, Blue Truth: A Spiritual Guide to Life & Death and Love & Sex

"Spiritual practice is the capacity to offer your love even when you feel hurt, closed down, tense, angry, misunderstood, or hated."

"Masculine anger is always because you are feeling constrained, trapped by life. Feminine anger is always because you are feeling unloved."

"The simplicity of it is this: give everything you have to give in every moment, completely."

"We eventually learn that emotional closure is our own action. We can be responsible for it. In any moment, we can choose to open or to close."


[Brought to my attention by Melissa Lin. Thanks very much, Mel!]

TAK BOLEH BOGEL (NO NUDITY) IN MALAYSIA (HERE WE GO AGAIN!)

Spencer Tunick

Another unpublished Letter to the Editor... 

It’s been ages since I felt moved to write a letter to The Editor. The urge to air my views in print has been building up since the Nude Squat furore erupted (seems like the only “legitimate” way you can see people naked is to arrest them first). City Hall’s declared intention to penalize folks caught smooching or even holding hands in public was irksome news to me (some of my fondest memories involve exactly that). But the final straw was the email I received announcing that free screenings of international films organised by Kaki Kino at FINAS have been suspended till further notice, after a shrill complaint about uncensored “babak lucah” (nude scenes) appeared in a leading Malay daily.

Imagine a lush lagoon, festooned with giant ferns and flirtatious mermaids. A man and a woman, both well-tanned, are strolling hand-in-hand along the sandy shore, gloriously naked. Is that not a veritable vision of paradise? Granted, the couple could also be modeling chic beachwear by Jean-Paul Gaultier (but that would be too much like a glossy magazine ad).

Now imagine a fast-motion sequence showing Tokyo commuters at rush hour - all respectably dressed in office apparel and suffering from gastritis. Or a slow-motion montage of KL traffic after a heavy afternoon downpour. Cut to the gory aftermath of a car bomb attack in Baghdad and then crossfade to a wide-angle closeup of an American-made Israeli bulldozer, demolishing a Palestinian neighborhood, as terrified women clutch babies to their hearts and wail in despair. Hellish scenes, for sure - but they would get past the censors, no problem.

Why is this so? Are we being indoctrinated to perceive pain as okay and pleasure as not? Is it any wonder that crime reports are getting more gruesome by the day? Maybe it’s time to reassess what sort of messages we’re being programmed with.

There’s no way I can conceive of a kiss or a hug, regardless of who’s doing it and where, as being indecent or offensive. These are signs of love and affection. Are these warm feelings WRONG? Folks who react negatively to romance and sex were probably deprived of cuddles as kids. They’re likely to inflict corporal punishment on their own children as a matter of routine. Those who express alarm and outrage at the sight of female nipples are undoubtedly some inorganic lifeform in human guise that never experienced the life-sustaining comfort and nourishment of mother’s milk. How do you think a baby would react to seeing a bare breast or two on the screen? Lodge a self-righteous report with the religious police... or gurgle with happiness?

Spencer Tunick

All it takes is a bit of common sense and reason. There’s nothing shameful about our bodies. Fat or sinewy, hairy or baby-smooth, the body is our sovereign domain, our physical home. Naked or adorned with sparkling gems, bodies are magnificent by divine design. Everybody loves being naked. In the bathroom or the bedroom, being naked means you’re enjoying a hot shower or some hot sex. Or maybe you’re just relishing a good poop or your private space after a marathon immersion in public affairs. What’s so scandalous about that?

We live in the hot and humid tropics. The sort of place where clothing is merely a fashionable option. You won’t find too many nudist colonies in Alaska or Tibet. Arab women have traditionally had to cover up to protect themselves from desert sandstorms, camel farts (possibly radioactive since Gulf Wars I and II) and temperature extremes. Were it not for fear of their control-freak husbands, don’t you think they would celebrate being in their own skins if they were magically transported to a balmy beach in the South Seas? Talk about “inappropriate attire”... being wrapped in thick cloth from head to toe on a sweltering day in the city sounds like a portable sauna to me. But to each his or her own - I’m happy in my sarong and flip-flops.

Spencer Tunick

I have to be honest with myself. I love looking at beauty, and women are embodiments of the Great Goddess, deserving of admiration, love and respect. If a naked woman walked past me in the street, I would certainly turn my head for a second look. And I’d feel absolutely no guilt or shame about doing so. Nor would I - uncontrollably overcome by animal lust - drag her by the hair off to my cave and show her my etchings. Unless, of course, she handed me a perfumed note with precisely such a request. Even so, I’d rather she walk back to my cave on her own two feet than drag her all the way. I have a different concept of exercise.

Immaturity has its place, I grant that. However, let it not be exalted as the arbiter of our behavior and our moral code. There’s no immorality in portraying the human form in various stages of dress or undress in the adult cinema. What’s truly immoral is imposing on others our own limitations and limiting beliefs. Do we really value the grotesque hypocrisy censorship encourages? Are we to blinker our cinematic vision (like the proverbial katak under a tempurung) in a knee-jerk reaction to the poisonous outpourings of a pusillanimous prude?

Sincerely,
Antares
Kuala Kubu Bharu
27 April 2006

[First published 12 January 2007]

Excerpt from an open letter to Akmal Abdullah, deputy editor of Berita Harian (published 1 August 2006)

Dear Akmal Abdullah, I am not particularly pleased that you exist. Why is this so, when we haven't even met and you don't know me from Adam? But is that so surprising - considering your predilection for campaigning to ban movies you haven't even seen? Well, Akmal, I think you ought to be banned from paradise - unless you wise up and 'fess up to having been an outright obstruction. Akmal Abdullah, you stand accused of suppressing art and denying life. Have you anything to say in your own defence? When you look into a mirror, are you happy to be the person looking back? Do you see a frog trapped under your own obscurantist coconut shell? Will you repent and henceforth channel your energies towards being creative rather than destructive? Or will you dig in your reactionary heels and doggedly remain a blight on the face of the earth with your acute case of 'cemburu kampungitis'? The Chinese have an instructive saying about this: "The midget does not grow taller by chopping off other people's heads."

Please heed these words if you'd rather be greeted by decent folk with a pat on the back instead of a kick in the butt.

KAM RASLAN ~ Portrait of a Malaysian Author/Filmmaker/Humorist

Antares: Did you desire to become a filmmaker or writer - or both - as a kid? Or were your early ambitions entirely different?

Kam: Film came first, but I realized straight away that if I wanted to make a film I’d have to write it as well. So although the initial spur was film they went hand in hand. I got the film bug when I was around 17 and it hit me hard when I watched a Russian movie called The Mirror directed by Andrei Tarkovsky. It’s a beautiful hypnotic movie and it’s very un-Hollywood - but it suggested to me that film is capable of something exceptional.

Writing for film is a strangely technical exercise that I’ve only really begun to truly understand very recently. Part of my difficulty with writing for film has been that I was inspired by the epic movies of David Lean, who directed Lawrence of Arabia and Dr Zhivago. I can find myself at the computer wanting to write, “The Red Army cavalry charges across the vast Russian Steppes and crushes the anti-Bolshevik Tsarists.” And then I immediately realize that I can’t afford that unless I can do it with a couple of Bangladeshis and Jit Murad. There are also other technical film narrative story-telling aspects that I won’t bore you with, but after a while they felt like constraints and I wanted to find a way to tell stories that could be realized and accessed immediately. So I started writing fiction and suddenly it felt liberating. Suddenly I could write stories that traveled continents and were set in the past. Also film is a slave to plot momentum, and character can become secondary. If you read the script of Die Hard there is nothing about the central character that you haven’t seen before and the only thing that makes it exceptional is Bruce Willis’ performance. With fiction the character can take over more and can say or, more especially, think things that are not necessarily plot related. But everything I’ve learnt from film has been vitally important, especially the desire to keep the story going and being concise.

A: Your elder brother Karim is an established writer. Does that make your relationship competitive or supportive?

K: I’m the youngest of three brothers. I’ve always looked up to them although we grew up quite separately. Johan is the eldest and he’s the chairman of Price Waterhouse Coopers in Malaysia and then there’s Karim, who’s a writer, lawyer and political consultant. Karim has been writing for a long time and is well-known for his Asean-wide political commentaries as well as his short stories. He has also, I believe, finished writing his novel. Karim and I write very different stuff so I don’t know if there can be any competitiveness. He’s always been very supportive and believed in me even before I did. One area that was a small cause for concern for me was that Karim wrote fiction long before I did and I always felt that was his area. So when I started writing fiction I worried that I was trespassing on his turf but he’s very supportive. All three of us look quite similar so I’m constantly being mistaken for one or the other. If somebody says they’ve read one of my articles in the paper I’ll wait to see if they liked it. If they did then I’ll take all the credit but if they didn’t then I’ll say, “I think you’ve mistaken me for my brother.” Sometimes I don’t bother to correct them at all because it might embarrass them and on one occasion I happened to be standing next to a notable Tan Sri who told me that he had decided to award his company’s business to me. I really didn’t know what to say because unless he wanted me to wash his cars then I really couldn’t have been much use to him. I think I shouted “Fire!” and ran away.


A: How have both your parents influenced you? Would they have preferred your opting for a less "nebulous" profession?

K: Our father died when I was four years old so our mother raised us alone. I can’t imagine what my father would have wanted me to do although I suspect it isn’t what I presently do. He was in banking at the time of his death and throughout my childhood I told people that I wanted to be a banker, even though I had no idea what that meant - anyway, that doesn’t seem to be a problem in Malaysian banking. My father’s influence came through his absence and through my imagining of him. Through his absence I grew up quite independently and have by and large discovered the world for myself. But he did leave behind the sense that he was somebody important. Throughout my life I’ve met countless people who don’t know me and didn’t know him but knew of him and respected him. It gave me a sense that one must achieve something big. It’s a blessing and a burden. But he was an avid photographer and he did leave behind hundreds of photographs and two movie cameras that I was obsessed with. I know that I was drawn to film because of those cameras and because they created a connection to him.

But I was raised by my mother so she has had a big influence on me. She worries about my financial state but she’s stopped suggesting I “do something in computers.” As I get older I become more like my mother and whenever my hair grows long my wife calls me Dorothy because I look like her. My mother is always apologizing for my hair as if it’s her fault. She plays the violin and tried to make me learn but I rebelled. It’s an impossible instrument. But the fact that I was always around classical music has had an enormous impact on me because I think it’s given me the patience to be able to appreciate not only things like Wagner but also slow Russian movies. But having said that, I was a very surly teenager and would disappear into my room and listen to David Bowie but recently my mother told me she’s a fan of Bowie. She’s full of surprises. She’s also very independent minded and has always let me make my own choices in life. She’s originally from South Wales and when she married a Malay in the 1950s and then moved all the way over to Malaysia it took either courage or foolish romanticism. I think that dichotomy is what I’ve inherited from my mother. And the hair.

A: As an Anglo-Malay educated in England, do you experience your genetic heritage as advantageous or disadvantageous in terms of "fitting in" with the Malaysian milieu? Do you sometimes feel estranged from the local social and political context?

K: Calling me “Anglo-Malay” makes me feel like an old bungalow overlooking Port Swettenham. When I first returned to Malaysia I was concerned about “fitting in.” I’d spent very little time in Malaysia growing up and worried about my lack of Malayness. It took me quite a while to realize that there is no genetic cultural inheritance and that I am what I am. And that is a Malaysian. My friend Dato’ Hamid likes to think of himself as a Malayan and I would go along with that too. I think there are over 20 million different Malaysias and over time I’ve found mine. There have been several epiphanies along the way but one was a story that a friend told me. She was standing at an isolated phone on the east coast when a girl walked up. The girl called her boyfriend in KL and he obviously told her that it was over. The girl pleaded and listened, put the phone down and walked back along the long, empty road. People are always more than how they are defined by their IC. Human stories, that we can all understand, happen everywhere.

A: One of your literary trademarks has been an acute sense of irony expressed as dry, sardonic wit. Does that come naturally or was it a conscious decision to write in that style? Have you tried other forms of writing, e.g., poetry, scifi, horror, journalistic?

K:  I have tried, sometimes too hard, to be humorous whilst talking about serious issues. Expressing public opinions can sometimes be tricky in this country and I need to couch my words so that people will “get it” but without necessarily being overt. In trying to find another way of saying something I think I’ve discovered for myself some interesting connections. Besides, reading people’s rantings can be dull and I only want to write stuff that I myself would want to read. I don’t want to appear arrogant but if there is one trait that I know I do have it’s a sense of humor. I am quite funny. I don’t know where it comes from but I can remember the first time I used it. It was one of my first days at school in England when I was 5 and only a few bewildering months after having left Malaysia. Suddenly the rowdy English kids picked me up and were about to carry me away to beat me up. I had never been in a situation like this before and my mind raced to think of a way out when, I’m ashamed to admit, I blurted out, “Hey, do you want to hear what a Chinese person sounds like when he’s angry?” I did a quick impression of our old Hainanese cook, Ah Chong. The kids started laughing and put me down and went off and beat up the school’s only Chinese kid. (I made that last bit up, but it would have been funny - in a dry, sardonic kind of way.)

A: Having spent the last 10 years as a scriptwriter and film director, does that tend to make you a visually oriented novelist? Do you, for instance, see your novel being turned into a movie?

K: Actually, it’s over 20 years, but, yes, I think it does help make me be aware of the importance of the visual. But to be visually concise because movie scripts waste very little time on description. I think that, very often, long descriptive passages are unnecessary. The reader needs to know where they are, what it looks like and what it means but often that can be simply stated as, “It was a big, scary-looking house.” People interact with and are influenced by their environment and I want to show that. I have a relatively long descriptive passage in one of my stories that describes the east coast monsoon but I did that because the monsoon is an essential backdrop and even a character in the story. My film background has also taught me the importance of sound and I’d like the reader to be able to hear the story as well as see it. But what I enjoyed while writing was being freed from film constraints. I wanted to be able to write an unfilmable epic without worrying about the money. If any movie producer read a script that said “The monsoon covers the land as far as the eye can see” they’d throw it away because it would mean waiting for the rain that might not come, and I know from experience that if you point the camera at the rain, it doesn’t look like it’s raining. So I think that the novel can be turned into a movie in the reader’s mind but I never wanted to write it with a view to filming it. But if anybody wants to, then please make the cheque payable to “Cash.”

A: What was the interval between the conceptualization of your novel and its completion? Were you working in a disciplined, regular way - or only when inspired?

K: This was a tale of blood, sweat, toil and tears. I wrote the first story in 1999 and finished the last one at the precise moment when Italy equalized in the World Cup final of 2006. One story alone took five years to write and it’s only 3000 words long. After I wrote the first story I realized that I could write a lot more and it took a while for it to coalesce in my mind. I tried to be disciplined but I failed every time. It was hard work but much later, when they were serialized in Off The Edge magazine, I read them again and I couldn’t see the blood, sweat, toil and tears at all. The stories seemed to flow easily and I couldn’t believe that I had written them. The only way I could make it easier for myself - and I recommend this to any aspiring writer - was to break the story down into small scenes. Then I tried to write one scene each day and tell myself that I had achieved something. As for inspiration, that has always come in a flash and the whole story reveals itself in an instant. Then five years later you’re still at the computer trying to convert it into words. I know that Karim is much more disciplined and I wish I could be too.

A: How would you describe your worldview? If you possess no specific worldview, would you care to explain why?

K: I’m a secular humanist and I believe in liberal democracy. Because of where I grew up I consider myself to be innately middle-class - a race of people who, in this country, are easily pushed around. Malaysia’s politics of race means that nobody will stand up for middle-class aspirations because that would create a connecting thread between the races. Instead, for instance, Malays with universal middle-class aspirations find themselves trapped by somebody else’s definition of what it is to be, for instance, Malay. To step outside that is to be a race/religion traitor. Our notion of democracy has boiled down to the majority vote but democracy is also about minority rights and the rule of law. Perhaps because I grew up in a country where I was the only Malaysian for miles around I am interested in the minority but not just the obvious racial or class minority. Many of us, even when we are amongst our family or community will feel separate or alienated for some personal, emotional reason. I am interested in those moments and I am drawn to what it is to be outside.

A: Would you consider yourself prone towards pessimism or optimism? Does thinking about the future inspire in you despair or hope?

K: I always think that things can be better, which is a form of hope or optimism. All of us can do something to make things better, but I don’t think many do. I’m always astonished at how we can absorb rubbish into our lives and imagine that that’s just the way things are and we accept it. We’re too scared to be angry. I’m very worried about the future of this country. I certainly believe that “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” After a brief moment when it looked otherwise our style of democracy is now entrenched. It’s like a train that’s waiting at the platform about to leave for the next stop but latecomers keep rushing in and the conductor keeps squeezing them into the train. The train will never leave. My only hope is that the rest of us, who know that we have no choice but to go to that next station, will build our own train.

A: Are you already planning, or have you begun, on a new novel? Any hints about the subject matter?

K: Now that I’ve finished the book I miss Dato’ Hamid. I imagine that he’s on holiday somewhere in the South of France or tending his orchids but that we’ll meet up again soon. One of the stories in the present book is a murder-mystery and I’d like to do another where somebody is murdered at an MCKK Old Boy’s reunion.* I’m also toying with the idea of the Dato’ being at the fall of Saigon but I’d really like to do one with him in Africa. The problem for me is that I wrote the last stories on the basis of what I already know in life but if I’m to write anything new then I need to have new experiences. I fear that the Malaysian market is so small that I’ll never be able to generate enough income from here so I must sell outside. The book I’d really like to write is non-fiction looking at post-conflict nations. News organizations always report a conflict but leave when it’s over. I’d like to see how people have resolved conflict and learnt to live with each other. I’m thinking about things as diverse as The Emergency, the American Civil War or Northern Ireland. But to write something like that I’d have to sell it overseas because no Malaysian publication would have the resources to pay for it. I guess the next thing should be a movie but I get worried thinking about telling the man with the money about how it’s set in Kuala Kangsar in 1917.

A: How has marriage affected your work as a writer?

K: I feel like I’ve known my wife all my life but we’ve only been married for a few years. She’s very patient with my slow rate but wanting to achieve something for her, or for us, is an important spur. She’s always able to contradict or inform my assumptions and, however painful it might be, we learn the most when we are wrong. Knowing her and her family has really broadened my horizons and their opinions and insights constantly reappear in my writings.

A: Have you discovered your life purpose... or given up the quest?

K: A long, long time ago I woke up suddenly in the middle of the night because in a flash I had understood my life’s purpose: “I must learn how to feed my body through the process of photosynthesis!” Since that night I’ve not really tried to think about it. I’d like to be able to write books that people want to read and I want to direct the movies that I want to direct. To be honest, my quest is to do what I want to do. And this might sound strange but with the Dato’ Hamid stories I want to show that the history of Malaysia is more interesting and epic than reading the papers might suggest. There are stories in between, alongside and behind. We may not be aware of it but we have all been part of a great big, global drama. Ultimately I want to do a piece of work that’s as perfect as a Beatles album. But that’s impossible.


________
*MCKK = Malay College, Kuala Kangsar, elite residential school established by the British Colonial government in 1905 to groom the sons of ruling class Malays for public office.


[First published December 2006 in The Hilt]

KAM RASLAN ~ A Movie You Can Read ~ by Antares

First published December 2006 in The Hilt...

Meet Kam Raslan, college dropout, filmmaker… and now, first-time novelist. Physically, Kam is an unlikely cross between Keanu Reeves and Woody Allen. Mentally, I’d suggest Fyodor Dostoevsky overlaid with a strong hint of John Cleese. Mother: Welsh, fond of classical music, a violinist and closet fan of David Bowie. Father: Malay, successful banker, passed away when Kam was only four.

Educational background: Kam went to some excellent schools in England and flunked all his exams. Remembers seeing his mother with her head in her hands after he failed his ‘O’ Levels, and all he could say was, “I’m going to the pub.” After screwing up his ‘A’ Levels, Kam’s friend at a film school asked him to help out on a shoot, as sound recordist.

The very first day of the shoot, Kam fell in love with filmmaking: “I suddenly discovered something that I understood and something that I was good at.” That was 21 years ago. He has since worked on films in London, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, and even Los Angeles. In the 1990s Kam directed a lot of commercials and was making good money… until he wrote a magazine article dismissing Malaysian adbiz as a load of crap.

Not exactly a smart business move - but perhaps it forced Kam to concentrate on writing. He was kept busy for a period scripting material for the Instant Café Theatre. In fact, rumor has it that Kam wrote the bulk of the skits for their 2nd First Annual Bolehwood Awards - which ruffled quite a few bureaucratic feathers and almost got the show shut down by City Hall.

Kam paid his penance by scripting and directing several Malay TV dramas, none of which he seems keen to discuss in any detail. More recently Kam Raslan’s byline has graced the pages of The Edge as well as Off The Edge (which serialized several chapters from his forthcoming novel).

When I broached the possibility of an interview and personality profile for The Hilt, Kam was pleased with the prospect of some publicity for his soon-to-be-published book - but unsure if he wanted to be identified as the author. You see, Kam’s first novel is a personal narrative attributed to a retired civil servant named Dato’ Hamid. Kam wants his readers to believe that Dato’ Hamid is a real person - not just a fictitious character assembled from components of various personalities he has known or heard about.

After a brief exchange of SMSes, Kam agreed that it was quite pointless to assume the role of ghostwriter - and far too complicated to spin a yarn that Kam Raslan was only the Dato’s spokesman and facilitator. Might as well accept all the credit… as well as the possible censure from certain quarters who may be acutely discomfited by Dato’ Hamid’s published confessions.

Kam’s approach to writing is distinctly more cinematic than literary, in that he prefers to set the scene and then allow his characters to reveal themselves through their words and deeds. This makes his book a painless pleasure to read. By eschewing verbal embroidery and highfalutin stylistics, Kam draws the reader straight into his tale - just as a well-crafted film instantly immerses us in the action and the atmosphere. The naturalism that Kam has achieved in his story-telling grants us a privileged glimpse of a world within a world - that of the upper class Malay in the context of post-colonial Malaya’s rapid evolution into the multi-layered complexity of a multicultural, multiracial Malaysian nation. Dato’ Hamid’s stories engagingly reveal the foibles and follies of the Malay elite, and offer a rare insight into the sociopolitical and psychological factors governing Malaysia.

“What’s the title of your book?” I asked Kam. “Umm, still thinking about it…” he said, wondering if I had any suggestions. I SMSed Kam: “Call it HAMID, in bold 3D font like BEN HUR, with a subhead: Confessions of a retired civil servant.” He shot back an SMS: “Funny, I was thinking along the lines of Ben Hur myself.” Later I Googled the Arabic name “Hamid” and found out it means “praiseworthy.” Definitely a name that looks good carved in stone.

[Note: In 2007, a few months after this article appeared, Kam Raslan's debut novel, Confessions of an Old Boy, was published by Marshall Cavendish. It proved to be a runaway bestseller.]

Ideas about the Nature of God...

Well, ideas is all most of us have about the Nature of God - and the word "God" itself is pretty loaded with all sorts of false notions (that God is male, has an only begotten son, disapproves of human sexuality, hates alcohol, spurns the flesh of pigs, the list goes on...).

Let's say that some ideas about God resonate on many levels - from the cellular to the cosmic - while others are just plain ridiculous.

It's really a question of maturity.

God of Nature

When a 2-year-old says something silly, a sensible adult response would be to laugh with the kid, not at the kid. However, when it comes to institutionalized religion, we often find rabid septuagenarians ranting and raving in an utterly stupid manner - and because they have Ayatollah/Cardinal powers and can order your head chopped off or worse, people tend to keep quiet and avoid arguing with them.

The good news is: even if you believe the most preposterous things about God, it doesn't disqualify you from being as lovable as anyone else in the eyes of God.

How so? Simply because God isn't caught up in semantics and exists not just as a bunch of ideas - but, indeed, as the nuclear intelligence within every atom and also as the totality of all existence itself. Whatever anyone thinks of God... God is most certainly never petty.

Is the truth the same for everyone? Definitely not! 

Our human apprehension of "truth" constantly evolves as we acquire experience and expand our vocabulary.

A 9-year-old girl would look upon truth quite differently than a 90-year-old great-grandpa. And we're still talking about the realm of human experience and understanding - what about non-human consciousness?

It's not healthy to get addicted to anthropocentrism when dealing with the nature of God.

The Original and Ultimate Essence of Being caters to amoebae as well as nebulae - elemental, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, angelic, archangelic, deific and so on - it's All-Inclusive and All-Embracing.

Truth is just another way of valuing one's Integrity. Only those with a wholesome attitude can know the Whole and be mindful of being an integral aspect of the All-in-One and the One-in-All.

As you achieve Integrity or become an Integer (instead of a Cipher) you will experience Existence as a holographic construct, and your Core Self as a perfect fractal of God.

Celebrate that!

Mother Nature by Father God

September 16, 2010 2:02 AM