Along came the monkey from its tree & the frog from its well..

Honestly, it's been a really #$&!)*# sh*t and crap past few weeks thanks to an overall sense of helplessness brought about by politiking, endless bickering, back-stabbing and a general undermining of my confidence, capabilities and credibility with me fending the onslaught off with what little shred of dignity I have left. My friends and I often wonder why we continue working our asses off to make the powers that be look good and in return we get footprints on an already weathered face.. *sigh* 

Then there's the gloomy markets .. go home check the papers.. lay offs here, there and well just about everywhere, inflation, disposable incomes, credit card debts.. *double sigh*

Switch on the box to catch up on the world, and what do you end up with, endless bickering, back-stabbing and general sense of ineptness in what is seemingly a crippled sense of government. Switch the channels, all one sees is those global stock exchanges in red criss-crossing across the fancy graphs on screen.. *triple sigh*

Seriously, if there ever was a need to have an occupational hazard department, a psychologist and a friendly samaritan on hand, now would be good time... SERIOUSLY. There's certainly a case to be made for the onset of a wide-scale depression!

love this one..

Anyway, the earth's gravitational pull has been incredibly strong for me of late as I've been really feeling down in the dumps lately, if my status updates are anything to go by. Until today. Relief came in the most unusual situations. I was looking up a kanji online (since the translator is so friggin expensive!) and chanced on a Japanese proverb site purely by accident.

The first one was:

壁に耳あり、障子に目あ り

the walls have ears, the paper doors have eyes..

Sounded like a chinese proverb i've chanced on before .. I was like Sh*t!! that's a good one to describe the crap going around my life lately.. one day I vented my frustration and ended up in tears.. someone noticed, and the fact I was crying went round the office faster than you can say "hold on.".

I scrolled down the site and chanced another one:

猿も木から落ちる。

even monkeys fall from trees

"Yeah man!" I thought out loud. I can only do so much with what limited resources I have access to. Anyway, I don't proclaim to know everything and will definitely make mistakes. No one is perfect damnit. Even the powers that be make mistakes mah..

by this stage I was on a roll and then I chanced on:

井の中の蛙大海を知らず。

A frog in a well does not know the great sea

Sometimes, people are simply satisfied to pass judgement based on their own narrow experience, never knowing of the wider world outside.

Nuff said.. and all I wanted to look for was 勝者 and 信じ..

Inspirare.. my award goes to my Grandpa..

I recently had the privilege of attending an award ceremony and it was arguably the most interesting, emotional, intense and inspiring eye-opener occasion for me. The cynic in me naturally countered the soft, warm and fuzzy feeling in my heart with my head saying it was just the mood of the occasion, the music and an acute lack of sleep being the guilty offenders..

Whatever it was, I had the chance to exchange a word or two with some of the recipients, including one man who stirred something in my memory. I remember leaving the venue utterly moved and thinking of my own Merdeka Award recipient.. my late grandfather.

About 15 years ago, our family mourned the passing of my grandfather from my mother's side, although I cannot ever say that I was particularly "close" to him. My admiration of him stemmed from a kind of fear yet I love him dearly. After some time, the family uncovered some of his priceless treasures that he had kept locked away for decades. To my dismay, some of these eventually ended up in the trash before we got our hands on them!

Of those that did survive, I inherited four books from his priceless library - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poems, Plato's Republic, Sophocle's Oedipus the King and Homer's The Iliad - all in mint condition as if it had just rolled off the press.. He had the books specially commissioned and were leather bound with gold trimmings.. truly spectacular and I treasure these..

Meanwhile, my photographer sister inherited his collection of photographs, slides and other photographic paraphernalia.. Little did I know then how valuable his photographic collection is! As a kid, I remembered thinking about why his films were in the fridge, what the humidifier-thingymajig was for and why he wouldn't let us (or rather me) touch anything.. As my sisters and I rumaged through the dusty old shoe box where his slides eventually ended up in, I realised that the slides contained photographs that were astounding and relevant to the history of my own country.

My grandfather was no average man, this I realised even as a child. Though I never really quite understood the man since I was the anti-establishment rebel with absolutely no bloody cause (still am) I never really made that much of an effort to be utterly honest. I was also slightly intimidated by him. Anyway, years later as we ploughed through what remained of his treasures, I came to realise how significant his contribution really might have been.

And I never really knew the man! What little I know was made up of bits of my own memory and stories from my mother. My curiousity to learn more about this elusive man has since grown. From what little I know, I think he lived his life pretty much under the radar.

A quiet and unassuming man, I also remember him as a strict man - a man who ensured we sat with our backs straight at the dinner table. I recall his house in Bangsar, his massive library and a framed photo of him as a strapping young man donning his hat cocked to the side standing next to his horse. I also remember his massive chest that was always kept under lock and key. Every Eid, we would go over and I would find myself staring at that chest, wondering how to pick that bloody lock and uncover the mystery!

Years later, we found out that the chest had in fact contained his neatly folded uniforms, coat of arms and an array of service medals, to name a few. My grandfather was Australian and an officer in the Army. After serving his time in the ranks, he was eventually posted as an officer in the colony to other places in the empire like Merauke in New Guinea and Borneo.

I learned that over the years, he had played an array of different functions including his role as the district land officer in Sarawak and Terengganu. The man I knew was a quiet, private and contemplative man. He never talked much about his past particularly the years preceeding the 1940s. Neither did he ever talk much about his family.

In the last remaining years he was with us, he paid us a visit while my sisters and I were in exile in England. I remember he came with a long list of people he had wanted to meet. That list included friends, acquaintances and fellow colleagues.. It was as if he knew something for it wasn't long before he left us.
A decade and a half later, a combination of circumstances has somewhat stirred something in me. Earlier in the year, we at PETRONAS were given desk calendars and the visuals were made up of photographs by the late Sultan of Terengganu, Almarhum Sultan Ismail Nasiruddin Shah, who was an avid photographer. Of the twelve that were shortlisted, there was one that caught my mother's eye one evening, oddly enough it was the photograph for the month of November (my birth month!). Though it wasn't such a big photograph, she eyed it rather inquisitively before suddenly dropping her fork and spoon, for she had identified a man in the photograph.. It was indeed our grandfather!

Though my reasons are unabashedly and shamelessly personal, this man inspired me in his own way.. so my award goes to my late grandfather, David "Daud" Wilson.

Taklamakan, Edits, Headaches, Previews BUT ... (part 1)
Friday, October 3, 2008 at 5:37pm
Right about this time for the past few years I get myself in a knot over the editing part of my job for one of our teams, which is always in two parts; the first being scripts for a TV documentary and the second being the coffee table book. The past couple of years have been... hmmm.. a tad difficult. I do pity the writers, producers and photographer who have to face me asking for a that quick approval in the shortest amount of time possible. Incidently, they never ever get it..

Miraculously, it always happens within a couple of weeks of the Eid-ul-Fitri celebrations.. My patience is usually already precariously thin during the fasting month despite my best attempts to swallow the urge to unleash my infamous vicious tongue-lashing at whoever crosses my path at that time.. To those who have had been unfortunate t'is the time for forgiveness so I am truly sorry, it is NEVER personal..

By the time I'm done reviewing the drafts, there's absolutely no trace of the original, as the pages are filled with red, orange, blue, yellow, green and purple marks running diagonally, vertically and horizontally across each page. At some stage of the process, I usually end up writing it from scratch. But, when Jimbo the photographer comes by with the book hot off the press, I sit there with my jaw on the floor thanks to his bloody awesome photos! I momentarily forget the pain and agony of going through the captions alphabet-by-alphabet, sentence-by-sentence and simply marvel at the end product.

This year, in my attempt to be slightly level-headed and a bit calmer, I reflected, probably due to the fact that the team went on quite an unusual trip. Granted every expedition is different and has its own strange and bizarre characteristics. Instead of grumbling under my breath as I sort to check and recheck the facts, I learned something in the process. Either that, or I am getting older...
Go in and you will never come out...

On the eve of Eid, I found myself editing the portion of the book when the team crossed Kyrgyzstan into China, skirting around the fringes of the Taklamakan Desert. At some point some of us doco geeks might have chanced on places like the Gobi desert through Discovery or Nat Geo. But Taklamakan? Come on, raise your hands if you have.. Located in the Northwestern part of China in Xinjiang, Taklamakan in the native Uyghur language loosely means - "go in and you will never come out"..

So I wikipedia'd it. Not only did I learn what it means, but that it's also one of the world's sandiests deserts and a cold one at it. Because it is so cold and so dry, the remains of those who dared ventured in are so well mummified.
The guys and gals on the team didn't venture in too far, but stopped in several towns located at the edges of the desert along the infamous Silk Road - mankind's very first superhighway between Europe and Asia - including the town of Kashgar, a town that dates back 2000 years!

Thousands of people be they farmers or traders descend onto the town's market religiously every Sunday for every year since, not just to trade but for an entire gamut of other reasons too. Who needs E! when one can get that gossip on Mr. So and So with Ms. This-That at that madam selling the clay teapots at the end of aisle 5. Thanks Jimbo, your photographs really made me feel like I was there!

Of the pointy past, Khufu and the Nubian Kings

I didn't go but I do have a thing for deserts. A few years ago, I had the chance to work with the team as they crossed another desert.. the Sahara in North Africa. Sure, it was incredibly hot to the point that you couldn't stand outside no longer than for a few minutes, otherwise the soles of your fancy sneakers would simply evaporate. Seriously..

After a week acclimatising, you do get used to the 50degree temperatures and the sand in your hair even after a shower. You get used to the sand being EVERYWHERE! So, off I went into the desert and stumbled on the collection of pyramids built of dark stones in a place called Bijwaria. More popularly known as the Black Pyramids of Meroe, the pyramids were the resting place of the Nubian kings. Living in New York years ago, I remember hanging out with some Hip Hop folks who used to address the pretty ladies as their Nubian princesses... eh? I thought..
Everyone knows Egypt's pyramids, famous thanks to the coverage it gets everywhere. Everyone at some point has heard of the Khufu's Pyramid in Giza just outside of Cairo (and yes, it is pretty amazing to see it when driving down the highway and boom.. there it is..), the Sphinx, the boy king Tutankhamen and the curse, Ramses the Great's temple for his beautiful wife Nefertari, and the famous bust of Akhenaten's queen Nefertiti, but I sure as hell knew nuts about the Nubian kings..
Sitting in the hot baking sun, I found out that round about 1000 BC, the collapse of the New Kingdom in Egypt saw the re-emergence of the Nubian Kings from Kush (now Sudan) as the rulers of Middle Nile and they ruled Egypt. History is always something disputable either for the fact that facts are scarce or misinterpreted over time.. I haven't delved any deeper but I will.. It was a true sight to behold when driving down the sandy highway just looking out into brown-ness for hours on end only to come across this magnificent necropolis seemingly out of nowhere.. it was simply breathtaking.. and it wasn't the stifling heat with the temperatures hovering around 47 - 50 degrees celcius either..
We drove on for another half hour and came across the remains of what was the palatial home of the Nubian Kings. Sadly, like the tombs of the great Nubian kings, there was nothing left bar the few structures that once held these great monuments aloft.

Everything was either looted at the turn of the 20th Century by so-called "explorers" or destroyed by the onslaught of the Saharan sand storms or ransacked through the centuries by invading marauders. There was really nothing left bar a hazy memory handed down through generations and a handful of evidence that couldn't stand up in a court. Honestly though, there is still something there.. Call it X-Files if you will, but I left feeling incredibly small and humbled..

Part 2: Timur the lame aka Tamerlane, Samarkand..

Hat's off.. an encounter with courage and will.. (1)

Hat's off.. an encounter with courage and will.. (1)

Sunday, May 4, 2008 at 10:17pm

I wouldn't be brave enough to declare myself as one who really followed this man's career in detail but I admittedly became somewhat of a fan of a particular Italian race car driver by the name of Alex Zanardi.

An admiration developed not just due to the results he had achieved out on track, or that he had defied the plethora of conceivable odds post one of the most horrific accidents I've seen since Imola 1994. I became an admirer rather because of his grounded sense of resolve and determination.

When I was presented the chance to meet Mr Zanardi, I was awed at the prospect of just being in the same room as this man. And whatever those journalists tell you about him as a person is absolutely spot on. Mr. Zanardi doesn't just have a sense of humour but super human resolve. He was and is never seemingly deterred by adversity be it by design or by default -even in spite of his near-fatal crash at Lausitzring in 2001 that saw him lose both legs.

Effectively, sympathy and well-wishes flowed in from all corners of the earth, particularly when headlines declared his single seater racing career was over. Those in the media who even dared predict his recovery would never have imagined that Alex would indeed ever set foot (forgive the pun) into a race car let alone race again!

Barely three years on from that Lausitzring horror, Mr. Zanardi returned to his first love, racing, at the wheels of a BMW touring car to race at Monza in 2004. A year later, Alex won his first race since the accident, ironically at Oschersleben, a circuit near Lausitzring! In November 2006, he defied even more odds returning to F1, driving a specially modified BMW Sauber F1.06!

He said, "I know that I won't get a contract with the F1 team, but having the chance to drive an F1 racer again is just incredible!" When I met him in Munich late last year, Alex was talking about his participation in a world-famous marathon declaring, "I finished 4th at the New York Marathon with the handcycle & you know the Italian Olympic committee asked me to represent Italy at the next Olympics!

I would have to train between the races, but that would definitely be a challenge!" He claims that he jests but I bet he would actually give it a shot! Perhaps we may see his name in bold on the entrants list at Beijing or at the next one.. who knows. Being Italian he is full of expressions and I especially enjoyed his joyful persona and grounded sense of humour, mostly about himself.

Unassuming and humble, his is a rare quality. There wasn't that feeling of everything being for show, staged or put on for the cameras. His sense of humility could certainly give a few folks in the motorsports industry a run for their money!As we walked towards the arena for an event, I realised that the organisers (who shall remain nameless) had built a pedestrian ramp with an almost 90degree incline that us able-bodied found difficult to climb.

Some of us grumbled to get across and when we finally got across to the arena, there was Mr. Zanardi, all smiles and trading jokes with the younger drivers who did complain about that blasted ramp..

hat's off Mr. Zanardi!

What's eating everyone's shorts??!!

More than 3 dozen years ago, upon the discovery of a tomb in China, a team of archaeologists also uncovered an intact manuscript from the Warring States period buried in the tomb. It is believed to be the Lost Art of War written by Sun Tzu II, or Sun Bin - a lineal descendant of the master himself, Sun Tzu.

I've had this Lost Art of War on my shelves for more than 8 years, and it had been sitting diligently all that time bar the one occasion that I moved it when I moved house, 6 months back. I thought to myself, there must be a nugget in there I could use one day..

I did indeed pull one out quite recently, to use as my favourite quote on my profile: "One who leads with inadequate knowledge is conceited. One who leads with inadequate courage has an inflated ego. One who leads without knowing the way and does battle repeatedly without being satisfied is surviving on luck."

Of late, I have been attempting to watch the news on every conceivable channel and there were all these procrastinating politicians from all sides of the political spectrum with their loose tongues and heavy behinds melted into a comfortable chair speaking to the legion of adoring TV and print journalists.

Everyone it seems is talking to TV cameras, tape / digital recorders, and even telephones complete with the bluetooth, babbling rhetoric on re-building, re-doing, un-doing, re-shaping, re-forming, re-elect, re-group, re-unite, re-act.. Despite the nausea that was creeping up from the depths of my stomach, I carried on with my dinner amidst the monotonous drone that eventually turned into white noise and merged into the sound of the ceiling fan.. when I thought, hang on a minute - what the heck happened to RE-ALITY and RE-AL work?

Where the opposition and the folks that run the publicly elected offices share something in common is that I think they have lost their minds. Shut up already with all the "re-whatever" and get on with the RE-AL work-lah? Talk talk talk talk.. politicians endlessly crooning over the TV microphones, schmoozing up to the reporters, I am pretty sure that all that media courting should be considered obscene and ought to be censored by parents of children under 18.

Somebody PLEASE slap on a PG18 on Buletin Utama please! I just wanna know, when the hell is everyone gonna actually start working? On one side - Stop it already with the media courtship, "we will do this.. that.. " .. OK, fine, whatever. Question - when exactly will you start work, that is provided you can get off that comfy chair at the media conference?

On the other hand of the scale - there's one particular fella who's only apparent job right now - irrespective of his prolific resume and impressive catalogue of promises on undoing the wrong that had been done - is uploading endless videos on the internet.. right.. hmm.. are we NATO here? No Action Tape Only? or perhaps a combination of the WTO for PLO, Will Tape Only for Paid Leave & Overtime?I wonder who would fall under Sun Bin's list of destroyers:

- Self contradicting opportunists, pretenders who obscure the good and elevate the bad? or

- Those who put on the appearance of austerity and desirelessness in order to get something?

Sometimes, I wonder what would a Socialist do if he/she were thrown into the melee now? Mr. Castro, any suggestions? Bottom line.. just get to work already?sigh.. now that's off my chest.. now I can move on. thanks.

Sun Bin's Lost Art of War - http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0062514059/105-4156338-6577264?SubscriptionId=0AM07842GGE1QVDN6KR2

In the chaos, the head wanders..

Despite being buried under heaps of emails, that usually accompanies the hectic kick-start of the motorsport season, I suddenly found myself wandering about in a field of thoughts. So I revisited a blog I posted somewhere else and thought I'd bore the living pants off anyone who'd be crazy enough to plough through this..

As I sought that one ounce of creative brain cell that I had left, I also found myself browsing mindlessly through a catalogue of emotions this morning. I let my mind drift along endlessly from one half-formed thought to another, juggling indecisiveness and incoherence as nothing and everything seemed to collide together in a state of utter confusion. Apparently, the brain tells me that my heart's in need of something, but strangely my heart tells the brain otherwise.

The two have never seen eye to eye before in the past anyway, but just this once, both share one thing - doubt.

As a member of the sex that experiences a different emotional charge every 3.5 seconds, it seemed highly likely that there had been a head on collision with the heart, but the head didn't have time to process it as the next wave of emotion was already at hand to throw the proverbial spanner to the works. Alas, the state of utter, unadulterated, pure and undefinable confusion. I entertained the thought of love - it's strange, complex, intriguing and quite an uncontrollable thing, if it can be called a "thing".

Perhaps it is an idea, a concept? I've always thought it to be a collective of many different things, made up of an infinite number of parts. For instance, I "love" my cd player, as it churns out Catalani's "Ebben? ne andro lontana" that makes me want to open the floodgate of tears late in the night.

I adore my Ipod as it belts out Mozart's "der holle rache" in my ear in a desperate attempt to lift me out of sleepdome as I crawl in to work every morning.. that is until it runs out of juice.. naturally. The fact that I really "love" the smell of Lavender in late spring, then leaves me wanting more for the rest of the year. I go absolutely bonkers when I hear Joshua Bell (and now Akiko Suwanai !!) play Sibelius, and you can hear Mr. Bell hold his breath under a note and release it only when he is absolutely sure that it has been played just right. My heart swells in pride when I know every ounce of sweat that went into a particular project I "love" goes as it is supposed to go.

Oh .. and that adrenalin rush as the heart longs to jump out of my throat as I tear past the start-finish straight of a race circuit just a whisker under 240km/h.Perhaps I am too much of a thinker or just plain stupid, but if all of that spells dependence, desire, passion and satisfaction - call it what you will - does it spell love..?

I wont even begin to pretend I have the slightest clue, because I haven't the faintest idea. This morning, as I wandered rather aimlessly through one back alley to another in my head, I began wondering about this particular "feeling" my head says my heart feels for another soul. I did think it might have been "it" or perhaps my head tricks me.

But, I can't hear Catalani or Ms. Damrau hit her inhuman notes in my ear nor was there the slightest hint of lavendar in the air. I couldn't hear that almost silent note as Sibelius had sought to perfect.. instead my heart didn't feel like it wanted to gasp for air out of my throat but rather sunk flat to the edge of my foot, heavy... Then began that throbbing sensation like the start of mild migraine pounding at the edge of consciousness.. Safe to say, I am still clueless..

On the bright side, that ounce of creative brain cell appeared like an apparition and I got my stuff done.. On the way home, I then thought about what indeed did Rusalka sing to the Moon?