Black November

I will forever remember November 2021. Everything that can go wrong have gone wrong. It was this month that a potential business deal went sour when a trusted friend and former colleague failed to deliver. He led us on a merry go round for a month promising that something good will turn up. In the end he just faltered and everything went south. That was a lucrative deal that would have been a game changer.

Due to curiosity, I answered to a few investment deals on line. It was fine at the beginning in fact I invested a lot of money and made a lot of money. However my trader grew overly ambitious and got me to trade on counters that was supposed to be based on strong fundamental research. Cut a long story short I have lost everything.

Then another potential business also went south when a former staff decided not to proceed with the venture. So I am saddled with a good offer. Great ideas. Great plans. But no one to run the show or to look for land. My friend is waiting for an answer for me

BUT for some strange reason I am very calm.

NO real sleepless nights.
NO tantrums.

NO banging the head on the wall.
No nothing.

It was a lot of money that I lost but I remember this behaviour of people from Terengganu, mujur. Mujur is akin to at least.

So while I was losing my money

AT LEAST I still have my health.

AT LEAST I still have my family.

AT LEAST I still have my parents.

AT LEAST i still have my wife.

AT LEAST I still have my children.

AT LEAST I still have my houses.

AT LEAST I still have my good paying job.

The irony was the job was what got me into this in the first place. I was facing a tough time, getting a little jaded, even felt like throwing in the towel. But something happened. I was going through my team's Appraisal and as I guided them through the review it struck me that I am being selfish. While I may be facing various challenges, they have never abandoned me. In fact they supported me through it all even going through the rubbish together with me. It's just a difficult patch that I am going through.

And my greatest AT LEAST. AT LEAST I still have friends. And one in particular, my dearest friend from my school days. We've known each other for over 40 years. He came through. He always come through.

Nostalgia

I read an article recently that said every adult have their inner child in them. This got me thinking that our years as children or as a child is in fact the shortest time we have. The rest of ours is about maturing and growing old. For that we have years and years ahead.

So today I am just going to reminisce my much younger days, what I remember the most. What do I remember the most? My father was in the army so we grew up at the NAAFI. What's the NAAFI? It stands for Navy, Army, Air Force Institutes, a cooperative of sorts set up by the British Army. It's a shop that sells everything foreign. So we look forward to go to the NAAFI. These days in Malaysia they have changed it to PERNAMA but it's just not the same. 

What do I like about the NAAFI? My parents were strict about consuming aerated drinks, soda or cola. So the only time I can drink Cola or Coca Cola in a bottle is when we are at NAAFI. They have this old dispensing machine. I put in 50 sen (Malaysian cents) and out it pops.

It looked something like this. It's all red in colour. This is almost like it except I remembered that the door was more rounded. So it looked all fat and inviting. It dispensed this bottle of goodness. 

Imagine an icy cold goodness, almost encrusted in ice like layer. We then opened the bottle with the bottle opener at the door and drank it out of the bottle like in their ads sometimes even singing the song from the ad.

Of course at that time we either caught the ad on tv that only had 2 Channels or at the movies.

I managed to find one of the original ads on You Tube. That's the song and it was a great song. Fantastic how Coca Cola is still able to   permeate in my memories all this time.

 Well, that's it for today my little memory as a   child. I was probably 5 or 6 at that time. Yes, it   was not good for children to consume such stuff   but it was my little treat. And off course the others   are the Cheese Balls.

 :Lovely stuff.

Hail to the new Chief

The triumvirate only lasted for 3 days. Today at the Board Meeting a new Chief was anointed with a creation of another position to support the Chief. Both these positions were filled up by my colleagues. I have good relations with the new Chief while the other can get prickly.

Anyway a new era have begun and in his few words he have stamped his mark and molded the organisation in his name. It seems a bit taxing but I believe it will work.

Teardrops and hail to the chief Part 2

As my tears dropped yesterday, so it will drop again today for a totally different reason. The chief executive that I reported to will be leaving us. I have worked with him for 3 years to the day. Today I will have worked here for 3 years.

We had a special management meeting chaired by him for the last time. The moment he sat down at the head of the table his tears started to flow. It is difficult for him as well as for us. While I have served for 3 years, he have helmed this organisation for 12 years. He is about to leave his baby.

Quickly he officially informed the management team his new assignment and being his usual self he quickly dispensed his final advice as the chief and his words of wisdom for every unit that reported to him. Soon after the meeting became a teary fest as one by one shared anecdotes about him, wishing him the very best and stating what they will miss the most about him. For me I will miss his comments, his sharp rebuke and most of all his steady hand guiding us and leading us. (Even as I write I am getting moist again.)

I don't think I will ever get a boss like him again. Tears dropped freely that day. Soon the rest of the staff were called in and everyone crowded into the main meeting room to listen to the chief's final words as our chief. Then the management had our last group photo followed by the rest of the staff who wanted a photo with him. We broke up for lunch treated by the chief, great stuff as always. I lingered on as long as possible. Soon we lined up the hall way to send him off with a final clasp of our hands.

Farewell Boss! I envy the organisation that will now get your wisdom and your firm steady hand.

This organisation is now led by a triumvirate.

Teardrops and hail to the chief!

It was an ordinary Wednesday morning, I got up as usual to get ready for work and was in the bathroom when I overheard my wife getting a phone call from my mother. It was just before 6 am. It's unusual to receive calls at that time unless there is an emergency. As I later found out there was.

My brother-in-law have lost his father that morning. His father have already been admitted for a week. Due to various complications his left arm needed to be amputated. But he already have additional complications from a weak heart and kidney. And to amputate they needed to stabilise that first. What a Hobson's choice! It is no choice at all! Allah being kind decided to be what was best, to take away a kind man from us and the world.

I knew him even way earlier during my sojourn in a small company in Terengganu. Then he was conducting a few executive training programmes and what an effective trainer he was. Little that I know that one day he will be my sister's father in law. He left an indelible mark on me as a trainer and as a relative.

Knowing that my brother in law was alone at the hospital to manage everything, I decided to drop everything to be by his side. I sent a message to my fellow Management Team that I won't be coming to office, the same message made its way to my team and I was on my way to the hospital. Of course I needed Waze, a wonderful app if you were to ask me.

I got there and of course there were no more parking space within the hospital compound. So I had to look for parking spots outside, soon I found one and as I later found out how prescient I was! It was right next to the Forensics Department where the body will be brought to.

I rushed to the ward on the Fifth Floor, Ward 5A, 9th Bed, and there he was serenely lying down. I hugged my brother-in-law. Soon after the hospital staff came to bring the body to the Forensics Department to be cleansed and placed in a shroud as required by Islam. I have been involved in many funerals before, but this is the first time that I am fully participating in cleansing the body. I have carried bodies before and place it on the cloths for the shroud.

This is a link on how to bathe the body. Bathing the deceased the Islamic way.

The ritual was led by an ustaz (religious teacher) that made the process as simple as possible. The most important is to maintain the modesty of the deceased. So he is always covered by a sheet. Then a few of us were tasked with washing the deceased with a cloth, soap and water. He was then rinsed with water mixed with kapur barus (camphor), dried and placed on the cloths to be shrouded.

He was then transported in a hospital hearse and brought back to his home. Since my car was nearby I was able to get to it quickly.

He was taken back to his house where there were many visitors and later proceeded to be taken to Masjid Kampung Klangate for prayers and for burial.

After the prayers my father who was with me opened the passenger side of the door and somehow the door will not latch! Had to create a makeshift latch so that I can bring it to the nearby Ford Service Centre. My father then brought me home. I arrived home at almost 5 pm and I was thoroughly exhausted. After chatting with my mother who was at home with my wife, I had a quick lunch and quickly dozed off until nearly 8 pm. Woke up, performed my prayers and before I knew it I was asleep again. The sleep was quite disturbed by the day's events and what was going to happen tomorrow. Tomorrow we will be saying farewell to a formidable man.

Musicals

Reading that Stanley Donen the person responsible for Singing In The Rain have died (stanley-donen-director-singin-rain-dies/) made me suddenly crave for musicals. After watching Singing In The Rain with the awesome Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. This is a clip from the movie, 

I continued watching South Pacific starring Mitzi Gaynor and Rossano Brazzi among others. The music and the song is very familiar to me as many of the songs were taught to me by my mother. I guess I share the love of musicals with her.

This is a clip from South Pacific. 

A week before I watched Bohemian Rhapsody, a biopic about Freddie Mercury and Queen, I am a big fan of Queen. The story is both inspiring and tragic. He is by no means an angel and neither was he a great example, but knowing what he wants and working hard to get it, that's amazing.

I managed to even visit his statue in Montreux and took a photo with it. This is not my photo just borrowed it from another website.

And I have also watched We Will Rock You the musical theatre production in London at the Dominion Theatre. I was alone but I had a grand time it was like being in a concert. Everyone enjoyed themselves and danced in the aisle. /we-will-rock-you-tickets. It's back! When I was in London with my family they were not showing. So we went to see Mamma Mia instead. We went to the Novello Theatre mamma-mia.com. It's still available. My daughter danced in the aisle watching Mamma Mia.

I enjoy musicals, and with Mamma Mia the musicals in Hollywood is back. And I love them all!

In Malaysia we have our share of musicals, and my ultimate favourite is Cuci The Musical. Fronted by the talents of Awie, Hans Isaac, Afdlin and AC Mizal.

It's absolutely brilliant. It's in our Malay Language or Bahasa Malaysia, so for some it may not be easy to follow especially if one is not versed in our language. Theatre in Malaysia have a good following but is still not very well developed, there are not that many venues available and very few is able to capture my attention especially with original compositions such as Cuci The Musical.

There's also stand up comedy like Lawak Ke Der with many especially Harith Iskander. This was held in Istana Budaya. This is one of Malaysia's great funnyman. Another one is the Malaysian Association of Chinese Comedians (MACC). Another funny group of people. Douglas Lim and friends. This is their web page https://macc.peatix.com/.

Challenges Too

It was quite prescient of me using the title Challenges in my previous post. Yesterday I met my senior in school that have his own challenges. A few years ago he met with a serious car accident that disabled him. He now uses a wheelchair to move around. He was my enigmatic Cadet Leader back when we were in St John Ambulance Malaysia. He trained and guided me well. He have not lost any of his magnetism even though he can no longer walk.

He remains passionate of his new venture the OKU Smart Farm in Semenyih. It's located opposite the Volkswagen Showroom in Semenyih. I used that as a landmark and it got me there.

Using a closed green house system, he and his friends have created an integrated urban farming concept. I have always been excited about urban farming and I had the opportunity to visit one.

That was how I spent my Sunday yesterday.

I want to see how I can play a bigger role in this and expand this concept to provide healthier alternatives for Malaysians. The leaves I had yesterday tasted amazing.

Dr Billy Tang

I am driven by the drive and passion he has and I am further inspired and encouraged by the commitment and support given by his classmates, my schoolmates and seniors from Methodist Boys' School Kuala Lumpur, a truly great school.

When I feel I am facing challenges, others are facing their own challenge.And even more so. Just received news that the wife of another friend is now in ICU. She had a stroke.

Challenges

Yesterday was a challenging day. My mother went for CT Scan to scan her brain for potential swelling. We have made a decision that whatever is the outcome of the scan we will not do anything if it requires surgery. At her age and doing brain surgery is very very risky. However, I pray that we have made the right decision because she is still suffering from vertigo and spells of intense headache apart from her many other ailments.

While she was undergoing the scan I was chairing a meeting to elicit information to initiate a project in Mersing. Instead a rear orifice (RO) as always decide to use that platform to look for weaknesses and mistakes instead of helping. My patience with this RO is wearing thin and we have crossed swords before. It is time to move on but where to.

Early last year I was thinking of quitting without anything to fall back on. Just can't stand all the horse manure that was going on. Only pleading by my dear friends to be patient changed my mind. No one could make me change my mind at that time. I was seriously thinking of moving on and working on something else. But that something else is not clear. My attempts online so far is not bearing fruit. Probably because I am doing it the wrong way.

Trying it again with Clarity https://clarity.fm/ because I really want to share my knowledge and experiences, all those years of being knocked down and about. I would like people to know this so that they can do even better than I did.

A few weeks ago I saw a post on Facebook about a friend whose wife, who is another friend was going through MRI. Today my wife told me that the wife is going for brain surgery tomorrow to remove a tumour. The tumour is located where it controls sight and speech. Very critical. Praying that all will be well. 

The organisation I am with now is facing it's own challenges, so there are challenges abound everywhere.

In December last year we were in Melbourne. Lovely place. Original intention was to visit the cattle farm there to learn cattle farming as we wanted to begin our own here. However, the person we dealt with appeared to be shifty and we were almost victims of fraud. We were told that there were many scams in Australia especially involving fellow Malaysians duping other Malaysians. I will tell the Melbourne story in another posting.

Games.....

The fractious game of race relations is not a game and should not be played yet time and again with multiple examples anywhere and everywhere in the world politicians continue to play with this with undesirable results If we look closely at any conflicts in the past and present issues of one race always rears its ugly head.

Simplistically, if we delve into Syria's conflict, beside the issues related to Shia and Sunni, an issue that is seldom mentioned in the news are the different Arabic race or sect that follows one or the other. It is all about race.

Even in the UK, the previous Northern Ireland conflict, apart from being about Catholics against Protestants it is again about race. Mainly about the Celts against the Anglo-Saxons, an altercation that have been carrying on for thousand years. Of course I am over simplifying things but through the ages it have been shown that time and again leaders and politicians will play the race card especially when they perceive they are in a fix, boost up their popularity and all hell breaks lose.

It is my fervent believe that "The Wall" is just another race issue disguised as an immigration problem. Being paraded because Mr. President is or may be having a problem.

I love history and I love learning from history and through the years there are so much to know and learn. I love Civilisation VI. I am not good at it but I love it all the same and it marries my 2 loves. Strategic Games and History, I am thinking of how to create an income out of it but....

Anyway, in one of the persona I chose, I chose Gitarja. A Queen. No, I am not over reaching my feminine side and no I am not metrosexual. I don't dress like one and I have a paunch that I am trying to get rid. But I digress.

Before playing Civilization VI I have not heard of Gitarja. So relying on the trusty Google and Wikipedia this is what I found.

Copy and paste from Wikipedia.

Tribhuwana Wijayatunggadewi, known in her regnal name Tribhuwannottunggadewi Jayawishnuwardhani, also known as Dyah Gitarja, was a Javanese queen regnant and the third Majapahit monarch, reigning from 1328 to 1350. She also bears the title Bhre Kahuripan (Duchess of Kahuripan). With the help of her prime minister Gajah Mada, she pursued a massive expansion of the empire. Tradition mentioned her as a woman of extraordinary valour, wisdom and intelligence.\

 Okay I have heard of Gajah Mada, an illustrious Prime MInister. But I've not heard of Gitarja. I then read on.

Dyah Gitarja was the daughter of Raden Wijaya, the first king of Majapahit, and his consort Dyah Gayatri Rajapatni. Gitarja was a member of the Rajasa dynasty, rulers of Majapahit and its predecessor Singhasari Kingdom. From her mother's side, she was also a granddaughter of Kertanegara of Singhasari.She was the eldest of Wijaya's offspring, her younger sister was Rajadewi, both are the daughters of Queen Rajapatni, while her half-brother was Jayanegara, the son of Queen Indreswari. According to Nagarakretagama canto 48 stanza 1, her half-brother Jayanegara succeeded to the throne upon the death of her father in 1309, while she and her sister gained the title of Bhre Kahuripan (Duchess of Kahuripan) and Bhre Daha (Duchess of Daha) respectively.According to the Pararaton, King Jayanegara desired his half-sisters to be his consort. The practice of half siblings marriage is abhorred in Javanese tradition, subsequently the council of royal elders led by Queen mother Gayatri speak strongly against king's wishes. It was not clear the motivation of Jayanegara's wish — it might be his way to ensure his throne legitimacy by preventing rivals from his half sisters' suitors.Nevertheless, Jayanegara went further to prevent his half-sisters courtship by confining Gitarja and Rajadewi in kaputren (ladies quarter) of the palace, locking them in a well-guarded inner compound and denied the two princesses' contact and access to the court and public affairs. This confinement went on for years until both princesses grew mature and passed their suitable age for marriage in Javanese tradition. This has alarmed their mother, Queen mother Gayatri that desperately tried to free her daughters from captivity.I have also heard of KIng Jayanegara and reading on.
Princess Gitarja ascended to throne under her new regnal name Tribhuwannottunggadewi Jayawishnuwardhani, which means "The exalted goddess of three worlds which the glory of Vishnu radiates". Tribhuwana governed with the help of her spouse, Kritavardhana.^[1]:234 She became the mother and predecessor to Hayam Wuruk, the fourth monarch of the Majapahit empire.

 I know the father, the brother and the son but not her. Why is that? Is it my own prejudices or is it how history is written? Favouring the male.And this got me thinking, how many auspicious women were not captured or properly written in history because of our own prejudices. The people behind the throne or leadership or sometimes maybe the throne themselves.

Both sides of my family played important and key parts in history. Some of them are written in history while others played their own roles in various events. Most of the stories told are of the male exploits. BUt what of the female? The ladies? I am sure they played their own pivotal roles because even if the man may the lord or the king, the women or the mother is surely the head of the household.

Thank you Sid Meier's Civilization VI, you have surely educated as well as entertained me. It's the most difficult game I have ever played though and I have barely won in my many many many attempts.

Gitarja the Majapahit Queen in Civilization VI

Why did I bring up Civilization VI here? This game actually is a good teaching aide on race relations. And race relations have always been a problem throughout history. Humans of different race, colour, creed, class, stature, education, religion, language, culture just can't seem to get along.

But where did that come from? Where did we learn it from? We were taught from small? From young? Were we conditioned? I don't know about others but my background is very diverse. I went through various types of school exposed to multi race, culture and religion having nuns and priests as my teachers once. Having different races as my friends and some my best friends. We didn't have a problem then. There were no racial slurs or racism. There were no ill treatment because of our race or religion. So how did it begin?

Yes I went through college for 3 years where the majority was a single race but still when I went home I will still keep in touch with my old friends. Yes, we do drift apart now and again but on the whole we remain in touch. Again our race, language, culture or religion was not a problem.

So why is it a problem now? Is it a perceived problem or is it real? Have we been conditioned? Programmed? Or is it a real concern.

How do we make it right again? Or can we make it right? Go back to what it was before. Many says this, but what was it before? Before there were no prejudices? There were no racism? It's all the politicians fault? Or is it us that have this never before laid bare prejudice that is now naked for all to see?

And again I promise to write more so much more as I need to stop now. This is my musings in the beginning of 2019. I will write more or at least I hope I will.