Don't believe the newspapers

The pastor entered his donkey in a race and it won. The pastor was so pleased with the donkey that he entered it in the race again, and it won again. The local paper read:



PASTOR'S ASS OUT FRONT




The Bishop was so upset with this kind of publicity that he ordered the pastor not to enter the donkey in another race. The next day, the local paper headline read:



BISHOP SCRATCHES PASTOR'S ASS




This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the pastor to get rid of the donkey. The pastor decided to give it to a nun in a nearby convent. The local paper, hearing of the news, posted the following headline the next day:



NUN HAS BEST ASS IN TOWN




The bishop fainted. He informed the nun that she would have to get rid of the donkey, so she sold it to a farmer for $10. The next day the paper read:



NUN SELLS ASS FOR $10




This was too much for the bishop, so he ordered the nun to buy back the donkey and lead it to the plains where it could run wild. The next day the headlines read:



NUN ANNOUNCES HER ASS IS WILD AND FREE




The bishop was buried the next day.



The moral of the story is: being concerned about public opinion can bring you much grief and misery, even shorten your life. So be yourself and enjoy life. Stop worrying about everyone else's ass and you'll be a lot happier and live longer!

Filem Negara KL Class trip 19/6/1975

Class trip to Filem Negara KL 19-6-1975.
Tengok Othman buka dada!

MB Perak oratory skills

It seems Nizar has honed his skill as an orator. I remember during University days ,UK back in the 70's, he was always trying to polish his oratory skills by forcing himself to speak in public forums and Islamic gatherings. After 30 years, he is up there among the best! You be the judge.......

Praying Sejadah: see to believe!

Kisah dari Oman .....
Mengikut cerita, ada satu malam di sebuah masjid di selatan Muscat , Oman .
Orang kampung mendengar suara orang membaca al-quran. Bila di siasat tiada pun orang didalam masjid tu. Siasat punya siasat...ada sejadah tengah duduk (macam tengah solat) sedang baca quran..

Subhanallah... Yang Maha Mengetahui... Allahualam

My first Sail Fish (Ikan Layaran)

The 20 kg sail fish was caught after a 30 minute battle which drained all my energy. A sport fisherman would consider a marlin or sail fish caught, as a 'license' and every sport fisherman worth his salt would dream to do a battle with this kind of fish once in his lifetime!.

Photos taken in Andaman sea 1-1-2004.

21/12/1975

Note behind photo indicate that it was taken 21/12/1975 before departure to Port Dickson campsite.

Gone Fishing

I am off to Sedili for a week of fishing bliss.
Will be back soon.

Konfrontasi 1962-1966 as i remember it.

Most of us would surely remember this era. Although we were kids then, we still feel the threat of a looming war, especially those living in Johore. The Government propaganda machine, TV and radio harp on this confrontation issue on a daily basis. Songs were taught in schools to us kids belittling Sukarno (I can still remember the songs).

Rumours were spreading like wild fires of the Indonesian Army invading us when news of some Indonesian Paratroopers were caught in Labis and Pontian. In fact the Indonesian Paratroopers who parachuted into the jungle surrendered because they were starving to death. Sukarno told them that the kampong folks would greet them with open arms and would help them to topple the government.

Sukarno was a great orator and once, he spoke for seven straight hours in front of the Indonesian crowd non-stop. Apart from Sukarno, only Cuban Fidel Castro and Anwar Ibrahim (!!!! haha) could captivate and manipulate their audiences with their oratory skills.

In my kampong it was a maze of activities when the Mat Salleh's foot soldier (Australian and British) make their rounds with their rifles. Sometimes i would try to chit chat with them in broken English. There were of course the feared Gurkhas with their Khukris and those hulks from the Polynesian Islands.

The Indonesian Confrontation (or Konfrontasi in Indonesian) was a small undeclared war fought from 1962 - 1966 through which President Sukarno of Indonesia tried to destroy the newly created nation of Malaysia. Sukarno was facing internal political struggle, so by invading Malaysia, their public focus was diverted.

Sukarno argued that the new nation was in fact just a way of maintaining British colonial influence in the area.

Indonesia had recently gained control of West Irian (formerly West New Guinea) from the Dutch, giving it a shared border with Australia in Australian-controlled Papua-New Guinea. Australia did not want any armed conflict with Indonesia on its border, but it also wanted a strong, united, anti-communist Malaysia.

But when Malaysia was created, Indonesia declared its opposition and hostility to it.

Indonesian President Sukarno was a militaristic, tough, nationalist, who was also trying to balance two great powers in his nation - the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), and the Army. He hoped that his opposition to Malaysia would keep both of them together and in support of him.

During 1963 the Indonesians sent small parties of regular and irregular soldiers to wage terrorist and propaganda actions in the former British areas of Borneo (Sarawak and Sabah). In 1964 they stepped up their actions to include raids on the Malaysian peninsula.

The Australian government was reluctant to commit its troops to actions against Indonesian soldiers, but finally decided to do so when repeatedly asked by the Malaysian government.

The main focus of Australian attention was in the Malaysian areas of Borneo (Sabah and Sarawak). Fighting was in difficult terrain and in an oppressive jungle climate. The troops were sited along the border to protect population centres from enemy attacks. But they also made frequent though secret incursions into Indonesian territory, forcing the Indonesians to defend themselves rather than be an attacking force.

There was very little press coverage in Australia at the time, because of the sensitivity of the operations and the cross-border activities. The Australian troops were all sworn to secrecy about having entered Indonesian territory, and it was not until 1996 that the ‘invasion’ was publicly admitted.

In 1965 Indonesian army leaders staged a coup against Sukarno, and massacred thousands of PKI members. Once firmly in command, they stopped the policy of Konfrontasi, and recognised the new nation of Malaysia in 1966.

The coup leader, General Suharto becomes the new dictator of Indonesia for more than a decade before he was toppled by the people's revolution a few years ago.

After Habibie, Megawati, and now Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Indonesia is still not better off from the days of Sukarno and Suharto. With a vast archipelago and thousands of island spanning thousand of miles apart, some provinces are now tinkering with their idea of independence and autonomy.

Kesavan Ragunath ex-SMSJ in the news

The Malaysian Bar Council is steadfastly going ahead with a planned public forum on conversions to Islam, despite mounting opposition from top leaders from Umno and Pas and threats of a massive street protest outside the legal body's headquarters here tomorrow.

Ragunath Kesavan, vice-president of the Bar Council said that they have taken all precautionary steps for the forum by holding it inside their auditorium in Leboh Pasar Besar and regulating participation. Interested parties are required to register to enter.

The police have been informed and will be on standby in case of any untoward incidents, he added.

"This has been on the cards for the last two to three months. These are issues which are alive and relating to people who have suffered from this conflict of laws. We need to look for avenues for them to voice their grievances as well. ," said Ragunath.

"It may be controversial, but that doesn't mean you don't talk about these issues. If it is emotive, if it is sensitive, we still have to talk about discuss these things. That is our position; you need to discuss!" he stressed.

"What we're saying is, it's not an issue of conversion. We're not questioning Article 121 (1A), we're not questioning Article 3 of the Federal Constitution on the status of Islam. When you have two jurisdictions, the civil and the syariah jurisdiction, obviously there will be conflicts of law.

"When you have conflicts of law, you need to resolve these conflicts. This is what we're looking at: How do you resolve these issues? That is all."

Speaking on behalf of president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan, who is out of the country but will be back to participate in the forum tomorrow, Ragunath said that efforts have been made to get differing voices from both the civil and syariah jurisdictions. "We've got people from both sides, with different opinions. And we want to find out one understanding of the problem. Also, we want to find out why people have such an opinion. We need to know also, you see. And we want to put forward our views. Because the first way to reach an amicable solution is to understand each others' views."

"Anyway, we're mature and democratic enough. And further to this, yesterday, the prime minister was reported to have said in the newspapers, 'Have more dialogue'," said Ragunath.

He is sceptical of closed-door dialogues, because such measures severely restricts the number of participants. "When you say closed doors, who's involved?" he scoffed. "You need to get the stakeholders to attend."

The half-day forum, open to members of the public, will start at 8.30am and end at 1pm and is divided into two sessions. Part 1 will have family members of those who have embraced Islam share their real life experiences over conflicts brought on after conversion.

The second part will be a discussion from the legal aspect, with a detailed examination of Article 121(1A) of the Federal Constitution and two court cases, that of R. Subashini and S. Shamala. This session will be moderated by lawyer, Zarizana Abdul Aziz, from the Penang-based Women's Centre for Change

Among the panellists are Dr Wan Azhar Wan Ahmad, who is the director of the Syariah Law Centre at Institute of Islamic Understanding Malaysia (Ikim). Others include lawyers Ravi Nekoo, K. Shanmuga and Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla.

A fifth panellist, Dr Naim Mokhtar, a former syariah court judge and current syariah prosecutor with the Federal Territory Islamic Religious Department, will no longer be participating, Ragunath confirmed. No reasons were given for his withdrawal.

The Time Tunnel

Let me take you all a trip down memory lane to year 1966. Most of us were 8 year old then and in standard 2 . The confrontation (konfrontasi) with Indonesia had just ended and England won the Football World Cup. TV was only recently introduce and films were mostly in black and white. There was one series that really stuck into me until now - The Time Tunnel. As an 8 year old kid, i would always be in front of the TV, Wednesday evening to watch the Time Tunnel. Time Tunnel really fired my imagination at that time.

If some of you can't remember, let me recap the storyline.....

Doug and Tony; what guys! Two happy heroes who roamed through history punching out everyone in sight in very well choreographed slug-fests that took them to such far flung settings as Troy, the Alamo,the Titanic and even the Moon. A teenage adrenalin rush of epic proportions, Robert Colbert and James Darren gave us 30 action packed hours between 1966 & 1967 and for this we must be grateful. We knew it was all implausible nonsense but what sublime nonsense.

As the season progressed, our heroes entered into a gunfight with Billy the Kid, searched for Tony's father during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fought in the War of 1812, become imprisoned on Devil's island, and landed on the scene at General Custer's last stand. By mid-season, more far-out plotlines found Tony and Doug rescuing Ann from futuristic kidnappers, fighting space aliens in 1885, and following a criminal through several centuries into a beehive of the future.

The series ended in 1967 after 30 episodes. Although there were other good series like Sea Hunt and Land of the Giants, personally to me, the Time Tunnel is still the best TV series until now. For those of you who missed the 30 episodes, a company in the US is selling it in DVD format. Try to google and order online.

Muhammad Aman and his new KOMODO bus.

Congratulations to our businessman friend Muhammad Aman (he is on the right of the pic if you can't identify him after 30 years!) for producing a new bus in Indonesia.
Muhammad Aman-please explain a bit on your new business venture.

She ain't heavy, she's my sister!

From RMC to SMSJ

After LCE, i received two offers, SMSJ and RMC. I was interested in Army life as my favourite uncle (who is a few years older than me), was in the Cadet Wing, RMC. Often during his monthly breaks, he would tell fascinating stories about life in RMC.

So after attending one week of trials at the Royal Millitary College, Sungai Besi, KL , and the final interview in front of the Army Generals, i was accepted as an army New Boy at Boys Wing RMC. I was barely 15.

It was a total shock for a kampong boy like me. The standard of discipline was very high and the ragging horrendous. The seniors would push your face inside the toilet bowl and flush it. They call it the "Royal Flush". You were told to memorise all the seniors full name and their dog tag numbers, all 70 of them in your Company. (I was in 'D' Company). If you forget one name, you have to go down on all fours and start 'pumping' 100 times, non stop or until you collapse.

There were other appalling and grisly ragging done on the new boys which i will not penned it down here, and these ragging would go on throughout the year. I would say that the seniors were sadist and they enjoy seeing the suffering of their juniors. These ragging were supposedly done to instill the esprit-d-corps and toughen us 15 year olds.

Every evening, we have to run 5 km cross country, and the last guy on the line would have their butt kick. So nobody wants to be last and everybody ran so fast that at the end of the run, we'll all collapse in exhaustion!

With all the ragging and tough trainings, at the end of the day, dinner was a pleasant affair with nice foods and drinks. At 10 pm, all lights were out and they force you to sleep!

After a month there, I still cannot cope with the tough army life. I cannot study and always felt sleepy in class. Even the teachers would ask us to do 'pumping' in class if you answer them wrongly! I was told, if you fail your MCE in RMC or only manage grade 3, they will force you to join the regular Army and send to the jungle to fight the Communist guerrilla. I went to see the Camp Commandant a few times to quit RMC, but always get the same negative answer.

So after deliberating the pros and cons, that eventful night, i pack my bags and 'cabut' through the back door. It was 2 am when i sneaked out of RMC, through the jungles and lombongs behind RMC in the dark of the night with only the bright lights of Serdang town in the distant as my only guide. No compass or torchlight as i inched my way through the jungles , swamps and lombong to the main road of Serdang and reach it about Subuh time. The strange thing was that i did not feel frightened nor worried about anything during the ordeal, as long as i can get far away from the college. All muddied and wet, I hailed a bus to KL (the driver look stunned seeing me all muddied!) and managed to hitch the 8 am train to Segamat. From Segamat i took a taxi to Muar and reach home sweet home about 3 pm.

My father received a call from the RMC Camp Commandant in the afternoon about me missing from the roll call that morning. My mother was really glad to see me all healthy and hearthy, as she was really dead worried after receiving the news. In fact, years later, friends told me that RMC engaged a few helicopters to search for me behind the jungles and lombongs, afraid that i lost my way and drowned. There were also road blocks done by the Military Police at Sungai Besi, and as usual they did it too late! I was already on the train to Segamat then. Actually all my plans were done to perfection!

My father who was then in tears, ask me whether i want to go back to RMC as the Army will be sending some Military Police to escort me back to Sg. Besi, if i agree to it. Of course i say no. (i was told, a few escapee that was unfortunately caught by the Military Police, were put into isolation rooms for two weeks at the guard house!- Yes, they do that to 15 year olds!).

I was out of school for five months while my father wrote to Jabatan Pelajaran Johor to appeal the SMSJ offer that i rejected earlier. Thank God they accepted me back and i was so happy to go back to school again.

Looking back 35 years, I have never regreted my actions to quit RMC (heck, i might be a four star General by now!! haha). Until now, my father would narrate the same story to my son, niece and nieces about the exploit of their 15 year old father/ uncle in 1973!

Bergaya di Chimney 20-8-1975

This is a classic photo. Behind the school outside the compound there was an old chimney, most probably owned by the rubber estate. On that day, if i can remember correctly, we went out in search of some plant specimens for our Biology lab. We were learning about some parasitic plants living in another plant (O my god, so many parasite and vulture politicians nowadays!), and we were ask to get some specimens by Mrs Tan.

All look very slim, because of our high metabolic rate, although we were eating like an ox then. Everybody showing their best side, posing for the picture. I think we use Lee Meow Choon's camera, a China made Seagull. Must worth a fortune now if Lee still keeps the camera.

Makan Ikan sebulan pun tak habis!

My Black and White cats

Cats are adorable !!! My Birman and Persian cats were stolen(can you believe that!), so it's kampong cats for me since. I'll let it roam the streets, and nobody bothers. The 2 months old baby cat (centre pic) is the lookout cat for the other too. When it's food time, she'll miow miow and the Black and White cats will come running, but they will let the baby cat chou first! We Humans should learn that hehe.

Have a nice weekend!

Hopefully kita tak jadi macam ini! haha

Trip to Utusan Melayu Publication, KL 21-06-1975

This is a classic photo. The boys were wearing jeans while the gals in their school uniforms. I still remember the Amco Jean that cost my father a fortune at that time! Nordin and Ghizan look smart and macho! Tengok our belt buckle zaman dulu, hehe.
Soyah tersengeh aje while Yut in very serious mood!

Now even if you pay me Rm1000, I will not go to Utusan's office, for obvious reasons. haha.

This piece from Dr. Nora..........

Assalamualaikum WBT

Setelah sekian lama saya mengikuti semua emel dan blog yang dikirimkan secara pasif, saya terpanggil untuk memberi maklumbalas setelah membaca tazkirah Dato Ahmad Reza (I hope I got that right), interaksi yang amat aktif tentang durian dan cerita cinta monyet kak ida. semua ini telah mengembalikan kenangan manis pada satu ketika dulu.

my dear sisters kat SMSJ - kak ida, izan, kak sham, yut and naha and soyah (just talked to naha yesterday and yut & izan sometime back) if u all r reading this i bet u will also remember the 'great' once upon a time crush that i ve on u know who lah.... Sometimes I wonder where that guy is now and looking back, funny how i could have gone crazy over a guy without even thinking about what the future holds for u. As a result my MCE suffered lah juga, thats why i could not go and further my studies overseas like you all semua and I was so frustrated.

But God has other better plans for me. When I finally got to go, I wasn't going alone. I was there to accompany dear late hubby with three kids in a row and we had a wonderful 3+ years in London and I also managed to continue my studies there.

maaflah kalau saya ambil masa dan ruang untuk berintraksi dengan u all. Looking back, the twenty years that I spent with Allahyarham bringing up the children together were the best years of my life. Allah took him away in a blink of an eye. He was not sick at all and the last time i looked at him, I was telling myself - "he's looking radiant and good looking" and that was barely 2 hrs b4 he dropped me to get back to his patients in Hospital Seberang Jaya ..but he never arrived there alive. he was 47 and like Zai who loves fishing, he loved outdoor life so much - mountain climbing and jungle tracking was his passion. Golf was out because ' it destroys the environment'. He was at the peak of his career and have so many plans for his career tapi kita hanya merancang - Allah lah yang menentukan segalanya.

That was about three years ago. so, bila cakap pasal durian ni, terkenangkan Allahyarham yang amat suka makan durian and he would buy satu guni and force all of us to eat with him. anak2 cuma suka sikit2 saja tapi disebabkan abah mereka, we will all go to Balik Pulau and the owner akan kopekkan satu persatu mengikut urutan- species mana yang perlu dimakan dulu and followed by the next one. In later years the plantation owner buka gerai kat bawah sikit - near Equatorial hotel so we don't have to drive the winding road to his plantation. saya jarang beli dan jarang makan durian - since then.....

The death of someone close to you will bring u nearer to God - dan saya sentiasa berpesan pada diri saya that akhirnya kita juga akan pergi meninggalkan semua yang kita sayangi dan ia boleh berlaku pada bila bila masa saja. Jadi, kita pun kenalah bersedia & berusaha juga ke arah itu semoga kita semua akan mati dalam IMAN & TAQWA. Life is no longer like it used to be tapi Alhamdullillah, saya dapat kekuatan dari keluarga dan kawan kawan di sekeliling. Anak2 semuanya masih belajar but on the day that he passed away, I thank Allah that i ve been blessed with 5 children. Its a challenge bringing them up but Insya Allah, I hope they will turn out ok. seronok bila baca kawan2 yang dah punya anak yang bekerja dan bermenantu. Yut, your daughter looked so lovely and resplendent in the pic.

Seronok juga mendapat tahu semua kawan2 telah berjaya dan hidup gembira bersama keluarga. Sama samalah kita mendoakan kejahteraan hidup kita semua dan ALFATIHAH untuk kawan kawan yang telah pergi mendahului kita. Semoga Allah mencucuri RahmatNYA ke atas roh Allahyarham/Allahyarhammah

Sekian Wassalam

Nora

PS this is the third time im sending this email. The other two kena tendang balik. If anybody ada terima the same email, i aplogize. I think Bahau punye tak boleh sampai.