The Little Lady Has A Mind Of Her Own

You can find me here now most of the time https://www.flickr.com/photos/66481161@N00/

You Can Find Me Here

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Life Is About Waiting In Line

You waited in line to be born. From this point on you will be doing a lot of waiting in line to get something that belongs to you. Or you wait in line for your turn to receive BCG jab, or to obtain your report card from your class teacher. You wait in line to be caned in front of the entire school population because you were not smart enough to get away for locking the librarian until he was black and blue trying to undo the coil of wires you had tied around the doorknob of the school library. You wait in line to board an airplane. You wait in line to clear immigration. You wait in line to get a taxi to the hotel. While you wait, you check your phone. You amuse yourself with Instagram, Flickr, Facebook or whatever. Before you know it a full hour of your life has been spent playing with the phone. You haven't gained anything in terms of knowledge, or faith for the hereafter. And then you wait in line for the medical check up. You wait in line to get the pathologist report that you got cancer. And then you wait in line for the chemo. And then the line moves up a notch and it is your turn. Only this time, it is your turn to die.

Life if pretty much waiting in line. And checking Instagram and Whatsapp until you realise it is too late to turn back time because folks have already wrapped you up in layers of white cloth since you are now a lifeless guy who used to wait in line.

Baseball Cap, Harvest Hat And Hijab

The hijab became popular somewhere in the late 70s or the early 80s, or was it the middle 80s.  One thing for sure, it wasn't part of the dress for Malay women in the 50s or 60s.  Back then the women went about town with Holywood style hairdo.  There was no pressure from culture or religion to cover the hair and women were free to do their hair any which way they like.  My cousin used to run a hairdressing salon that kept her busy all day but brought her much fortune with enough money to invest in property and land.  The hairdo went well with the type of dress popular back then where women wore Baju Kebaya and Batik Sarong, flowing skirts with 4" belt and matching shoes.  They also carried matching handbags.  Shoes and handbags are still part of Malay women's dress but the skirt and Baju Kebaya have long been forgotten as these are deemed unIslamic.  A woman in baju kebaya, the kind worn by the flight stewardess of our national carrier, can be a little revealing and sensuous to those with extra imaginative mind, I reckon.  I think an extra imaginative mind will find Burqa sensuous too.

You don't see Malay women in kebaya anymore but you will see them in baju kurung and hijab everywhere you go.  Those who don't don the hijab are considered unIslamic and arrogant as they are categorised as being unhappy with how a woman should dress in public, especially in matters concerning exposing her hair for all and sundry to see.

How times have changed. 

Make Some Money. Be Here Every Ramadan

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Once you've tasted Ramadan in Mecca, you'd never want to spend Ramadan anywhere else in the world.

I grew up believing at the end of the road is where I'd meet the woman I would love with everything I got.  She's the prettiest anyone had ever seen, with hair so golden and lips so red that folks would say to  me something like, your missus is Elizabeth Taylor in real life. And the end of the road where the sun shines real bright, I grew up believing, is where my home would be.  Somewhere far from Dungun, some place with a name like Ireland or something because I don't want to have anything to do with Dungun anymore what with folks behaving funny and laugh at things like if you are a child like the rest of the children in the village, how come your father has never came home?

Meet Me At The End Of The Road

The stories I've told.

There are more stories I have to tell.  Stories that have taken a new meaning now that I've started to understand a thing or two about things that I thought I knew something about.  Stories that make me laugh so hard in the middle of the night that neighbors might think I've gone to the dark side, having lived  all my life this way.  Or how about stories that take me back to the end of the road where I started.

Meet me at the end of the road.  We might get started on beautiful things.

Hi

Low Profile Kinda Folk

No need to hold on to my arms as if you're not going to let it go come what may; walking into a restaurant close to midnight after feeling kinda hungry being together in the room of a nice hotel overlooking the water fountain in the very heart of Jakarta. Middle age folk like us can't be seen walking too close to each other as if we are conjoined at the chest, feeling so much in love that those around us don't matter. Middle age folk like us usually walk kinda further away from each other, not talking to each other all that much at the table but that's not what I mean. I don't feel too comfortable walking this close with you into a restaurant giving folks the impression that we've just discovered love and the rest of the world can very much go on its business while we walk about as if you are the new middle age Juliet and I am the new middle age Romeo.

We shouldn't be seen to be too in love in public to be walking too close to each other that I gotta calculate every step to avoid stepping on your toes that could could do serious damage to you. No, neither am I saying that we should be walking two miles apart from each other. Let's just walk at a comfortable distance married folk our age normally do. Yes you can hold my hand and squeeze it a little but that's about all we should be doing in public at this hour of the night.

A low profile kinda guy like me really hate attention especially this hour of night when folk with extra imagination will start to paint all kinda stories about us being out this late in this here restaurant in this here hotel. The last thing I want is to give 'em the impression that we are middle age lovers on a weekend of sin whereas you and I know we are as married as a middle age married couple can get except that we just got married last month but that doesn't give us the right to behave as if we are in our early 20s.