Those were great times.

Social and personal maturity has since incapacitated me. Psychologically, I am the equivalent of a blocked up chimney constantly being fed red hot charred coals. Existentially, I am as advanced as a inversed exhaust fan. I have lost the ability to discharge negativity. I live life each day with emotional blinkers permanently attached.

And what do I have to show for it?

Red Ears.

When I fall, I fall hard
and fast, no reins
no brakes no guard,
recklessness drowning my veins.

It feels like jumping out of an endless sky
with my eyes set on an implacable depth,
having no care for where I lie if I die
knowing full well I go to my death.

Fragment 2

How do you solve a question with no solution?

Fragment 3

There are few joys in my life,
one of which is hope.
am I so depraved to deprive myself
of that which is my sustenance?

Fragment 4

Is being selfless selfish?

Fragment 5

I give and I give.
Sometimes I receive,
but it never replenishes.

Fragment 6
Can’t switch this off. Can’t crush it. Can’t. Wake up with it, burning me. Think I’ll crack open I want him so much.

I talk to him. He talks to me, you know, we, we know each other very well, he tells me things, we’re very close. About sex and how much it depresses him, and I know.

- Phaedra, from Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love

[ a variation ]

I can’t switch you off. Can’t crush it. Can’t.

Wake up with it, burning me – the thought of you – burning me from within and without. I’m cracking open. I want you so much. I woke up this morning looking for you. Next to me. But you weren’t there.

I talk to you. You talk to me. You know. Me. We know each other well but not well enough – I want to know you more. You tell me things. We’re close. But not close enough. I want to feel your body next to me. Naked. Next to me. Top of me. Under me. I want to know you, mind body and soul.

We’re close. But not close enough. We tell each other things. About sex. Which never was depressing for me; until I met you. Because I can’t have you. Because all I can do is smell you. From a chair’s space away.

You know.

I looked away, anxious and
afraid that my glimpse would taint
that which made me see through the eyes of
a little boy gawking at a beautiful girl.

I wished I was a camera
that captured the ephemeral moment
when you stood by the doorway
and looked at me, for me.

I have so much to give
but no one to receive.
I need a glass at all times
to hold the drops that fall from me.

I crave to retract what I said, regret
that my self-imposed denial manifested
in the words I spoke so flippantly
convincing me pathetically about you.

Had I not said what I professed to be true
perhaps I’d be blessed with a glass
in the form of you
to hold me in you, with you.

It tears me so that that which I thought
right is now proven gravely wrong;
if only I could recant my white lies,
expressed through dishonestly crafted honesty.

For you warm me to a depth
I thought I’d never feel again
warmth that now I can’t retain –
my yearning for you is now in vain.

If you could forgive, not forget
but accept, that errantly delivered speech,
believe instead all that my eyes profess to be true;
look at me once more, for me, and we’ll be.

I was born Malaysian and know no other nation as my own. Malaysia is
my home. My parents are migrants from Kerala, India, but because I was
born in Malaya before Merdeka, I am a Malaysian under Article 30 of
the Federal Constitution. I have a document to prove it.

Therefore, I am a Constitutional Malaysian; meaning my Malaysian-ness
is protected and preserved by the constitution of the Federation of
Malaysia. No authority can deny me that privilege, except if I deny
some terms pre-defined by the constitution.

My Malaysian-ness is therefore defined by the constitution and not by
the government or any of its agents. As Malaysians we can all enjoy
the same rights and privileges as guaranteed, protected and preserved
by the constitution. That makes us all Constitutional Malaysians.

My identity card states that I am an Indian by virtue of the race of
my father. But, as I have argued in an earlier column, my parents are
Malayalee by birth and ethnicity and they may have been Indian
nationals before – but not any more.

They are also Malaysians who pre-date the Merdeka Social Contract and
the resultant constitution and therefore are citizens of the
Federation of Malaysia and also Constitutional Malaysians.

Now, why am I arguing the issue of my Constitutional Malaysian-ness? I
was in the Federal Court for the Lina Joy case recently, both as an
ordinary citizen and as a student of the Federal Constitution under
the late Professors Ahmad Ibrahim and Nik Abdul Rashid.

Precisely because of what I heard said in court, I am genuinely
bewildered by the arguments of the senior federal counsel and the
lawyer for the Islamic Development Department (Jakim) who
reinterpreted Malayan socio-political-cultural history, the original
social contract and the resultant constitutional precedent.

This was based entirely upon a non-historical but purely personal
Malay-Muslim and peninsula-biased argument. Admittedly, though, they
cited anecdotal historical facts and related issues.

The Federal Constitutional history of the inclusion of Sabah and
Sarawak and the formation of Malaysia thereby was totally ignored,
even though one of the presiding judges is a bumiputera from Sarawak.

Interpretation ’shocking’

I was utterly shocked, especially by the senior federal counsel
arguing so on behalf of the government. The counsel’s role and
responsibility is based on the sworn promise to uphold the Federal
Constitution as part of the judicial arm of governance of this nation.

In this case, she cannot be partisan in her argument, as she must be
equally concerned for the protection and preservation of the human
rights of all Malaysians under the so-called freedom of religion
provision of Article 11.

Constitutional history dictates understanding and appreciating both
the Federation of Malaya (1957) and then the formation of Malaysia
(1963). If all our international human rights commitments and meaning
of the freedom of religion under the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights have no legal bearing upon case-law in Malaysia, is it not a
matter of national integrity that we resign from sitting in the United
Nations Human Rights Council?

What the senior federal counsel said even sought to nullify and
preclude Malaysia ever becoming a signatory or ratifying related
commitments under the relevant laws of Malaysia. The foreign affairs
minister and government have categorically stated at many public fora
that it is only a matter of time before Malaysia ratifies all the
human rights related laws, after the Attorney-General’s Chambers have
carried out reviews of laws and regulations.

The senior federal counsel’s statement seems to violate even stated
national public policy, at least to my mind. Could the
Attorney-General (AG) please clarify if this is in fact the new policy
of the government with regard to our human rights commitments under
the UN system? If so, all Malaysians need to know this, and equally,
all diplomatic missions in Malaysia need to better understand this new
policy stance.

As a former government officer of 30 years, I know that all senior
government officials are gazetted in their posts and sign the oath of
service to uphold the constitution and to sincerely serve the
government of the day.

The government is a multi-racial, multi-religious, constitutional and
democratically elected one; not a Malay-Muslim one. Moreover, with the
inclusion of the bumiputeras of Sabah and Sarawak, their basic rights
have to be equally protected without a peninsula-Malay-Muslim view of
the world.

That was probably my greatest shock; that a federal officer of such
high rank could blatantly give an interpretive view of the official
public position on Article 11, which appears to go against any
ordinary public servant’s views of historical precedence in this
country.

As with the police chief’s ruling on the Muslim headscarf issue, it
goes against the constitution if public officials can use their
personal and private interpretation of the rules and regulations
without due regard to constitutional guarantees.

Clarify stance

I hope that the AG’s Chambers will clarify if in fact the government
takes such a particular and peculiar view of Article 11, in disregard
of internationally accepted and acceded definitions.

The specific interpretation denies every concept of the dignity of man
and the related freedoms of conscience and personal belief.

If there is no freedom of conscience, I am not sure what it means to
be a human being. Whether it is the Lina Joy case or that of another
Muslim who practises another interpretation of Islam which is not the
mainstream view of Malay-Muslims, surely there must be some basic
freedoms of faith.

If the argument proposed and propounded by the learned lawyers for the
government and Jakim is to be accepted, once born a Malay-Muslim in
Malaysia there can only be one and officially interpreted view of
faith and practice of the Islamic faith amongst Muslims. Is this true?
Really!

To my mind and heart, once a human being loses his privilege of
conscience, there is very little else which gives us the privilege to
distinguish ourselves from the other animals. That and the privilege
of communicating with others about matters of life and death are what
make us human at the most basic level.

If such personal sense and meaning making are removed or forced upon
any of us by whomsoever, it surely does not mean much to being human.
We might as well become robots or be reduced to animals.

I can only pray that good sense and wisdom will prevail. God bless
multi-racial, multi-cultural, and multi-religious Malaysia.

—

KJ John served in public service for 30 years and took optional
retirement to work in his own consulting group. He hopes to see
transparent and open, new governance practiced in Malaysia some day.

Source: Malaysiakini

A memorable book I read recently is Barry Jonsberg’s “The whole business with Kiffo and the Pitbull”. In many ways, Jonsberg’s writing appeals to the aspiring writer in me – simple yet elegant, frank yet deceiving and wittily loaded with marvellously subtle humour.

Chapter 0

Assignment:
Write a description of a place, person or thing in such a way that you demonstrate an understanding of the use of similes.

Response:
Student’s name: Calma Harrison
Subject: Jaryd Kiffing

Kiffo’s hair is like a glowing sunset. However, unlike a sunset, it lasts for a long time and doesn’s suddenly turn black and become studded with stars. It is as wild as a dino on drugs and sticks up like ears of corn after a cyclone. Maybe like a field of corn that is the colour of sunset, and has been trampled by a whole load of drug-crazed dingoes during a cyclone.

Kiffo’s nose is like butter on toast. It was put on hot and it spread. His nostrils gape like two huge caves, but it would be difficult to camp in them or even light a fire in them.Though it might be worth trying, I suppose. They drip like your bathers when you hang them over the pool railings to dry. HIs eyes are as brown as diarrhoea, which only goes to prove that he is full of crap. Kiffo’s teeth are like stars because they come out at night. No, that’s just an old joke. His teeth are ars white as sheets that were once white but have now become stained by unmentionable things. Kiffo’s neck is short and dirty, like life. His arms are as thin as pencils, but if you try to sharpen them he’ll probably bash you. His legs are bent like brackets ( ), but unlike brackets there is not much of interest between them. When he stands he is like a cowboy who hasn’t realised that the horse he was riding has gone for a smoko break. He smells like a fish that you forgot was in the fridge.

His mind is as shallow as a gob of spit in a drained swimming pool. Kiffo is as intellectually challenging as a meeting of English teachers.

As inaccurate as this may be, my best description of Jonsberg’s style here is that he reads like a cross between Mark Haddon in “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” and a PG-13 version of D.B.C. Pierre’s “Vernon God Little”.

Isn’t that just plain delightful? Marvellous humour in the writing. Try hard not rushing through this book (enticing as it may be to do so), but rather savour the intricate funnies interwoven in the text. But should you do rush through it, try reading it again – you won’t regret it. I didn’t.

I remember every single move.  Whether it was leaving the first floor house where I learnt to ride a bike and crashed into the gate after staying on the seat for a total of 5 seconds or the gorgeous 4000 square foot of space where I lost my heart (and a lot else) to my high-school boyfriend.  I remember every home, however temporary the stay.  There was the bathroom where I shared my first smoke, with my mirror and the bathtub when I first watched drops of red flow out of my wrists, fascinated by the mixed sensation of seeing beauty and feeling pain. There was the house that housed my own “penthouse” and the home with a Romeo and Juliet-esque balcony.  There was the house where I last saw my brother, the last place where we were an entire family.  Then, there was my first home away from home, in a foreign country, with a foreign love.  There were so many.  There is so much more attached to each of them…memories, images, moments.  All safely stored in my brain and within each of their walls.

I don’t know what it is about a place that can bind someone to it.  I mean, after all, what is a house?  How can one be so bound by walls made of concrete and covered in paint?  How can a bed of wood hold within its confines some of the warmest memories ever experienced?  How can a dining table that has fed all of my friends and lovers mean more to me than they do today?  How can the little imaginary tree-house that was housed in the loft above my cupboard, where I believed that if I donned my favourite monkey cap and wrote endless rubbish, I would transform into one of the most famous writers of all time, be the one place I still I wish I had to run to when all is not right in my life?

I guess it isn’t all about the space.  Or the craftsmanship and comfort of the furniture.  Or the neigbourhood and the amount of sunshine coming into the windows.  It is who you meet in that house, who you coyly toss your head for when you prance down the streets, who you passionately kiss under the tree that hides you from your possessive brother’s sight, and who you fall back in love with on a rainy afternoon when your mother is asleep.  These are those you cannot ever forget, no matter how hard you try.  So how many times you may move, they move with you.

Or so I believe. 

But, what happens when you are left behind?  The first sign of someone leaving tears you apart.

What happens when moving becomes so much a part of your existence that staying in one place becomes impossible?  You are constantly on the lookout for the first ticket out of where you are.

What happens then?  I don’t quite know yet. 

But I do know this – I hope I am freed from the clutches of my nomadic nature someday. I hope I do find a home someday.  And I hope this home teaches me what none of the others have – how to love one thing and hold onto it, and never leave it.

A couple of years ago, I was walking in the streets of Edinburgh when I chanced upon the Chocolate Soup, at 2 Hunter Square, near the Bridge. It was evening, and I had a couple hours to spare before meeting some mates at The Three Sisters – a popular nightspot for the student crowd (who colloquially refer to it as The Six Tits). Enticed at the novelty of a chocolate cafe, I excitedly plonked myself down at a corner table and curiously digested the menu. It was unbelievable – a real mecca for chocolate lovers with all sorts of chocolatey delights on offer.

You know the feeling when you go into a really posh gourmet haute cuisine fine dining restaurant, where you more likely than not are presented a menu writ in a language completely foreign to you even though it is your main lingua franca? That’s exactly how it was, looking at the menu at the Chocolate Soup.

Now experience has told me that in a good restaurant, when faced with a predicament as above, it is usually a wise idea to trust your server for recommendations – which I did. Several minutes later, I was presented with a steaming cup of the richest looking chocolate ever, as well as a small but artfully crafted slice of pastry to go with it.

It was the most fabulously fantastic chocolate experience I’ve ever had. Mind you, I was up till then an amateur when it comes to all things chocolate, believing that the Mars bar (especially the fried variety) was the pinnacle of chocolatedom, and that Hot Chocolate referred to powdered chocolate drink sachets reconstituted with Hot Water, and maybe topped with some badly manufactured marshmallow bits and whipped cream out of a can. So you can imagine the ecstasy that enveloped my entire being and psyche as I indulged in the chocolate manna – rich, silky, beautifully bitter and perfectly prepared.

I’ve never had a chocolate chaud as good as that ever since.

Which is why I decided to try out Jeffrey Steingarten’s Chocolate Chaud recipe, which in itself is an adaptation of acclaimed French Pastry Chef Pierre Herme’s creation.

The recipe is simple enough:

550ml whole milk
50ml bottled still water
60g caster sugar
1,100g bar dark bittersweet chocolate, Scharffen Berger, Valrhona, or Lindt (see note, below), finely sliced with a serrated bread knife
28g cocoa powder, loosely packed, preferably Valrhona

In a 2 litre saucepan, stir together the milk, water, and sugar. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Add the chopped chocolate and the cocoa and bring to a boil again, whisking until the chocolate and cocoa are dissolved and the mixture has thickened. Reduce the heat to very low.

Blend for 5 minutes with a wand mixer or whirl the hot chocolate in a standard blender for half a minute, until thick and foamy.

Yield: Four (175ml) cups of hot chocolate.

Note: I use a dark chocolate containing close to 70 percent cocoa, though Lindt bittersweet also works just fine. The Mayans and the Aztecs considered the froth the best part. Today, five minutes with an immersion mixer or a blender accomplishes what a half hour of beating did long ago.

- Jeffrey Steingarten, “It Must’ve Been Something I Ate“

In New Zealand, Whittaker’s makes a pretty decent – though by no means outstanding – chocolate bar that’s 72% bittersweet chocolate, of Ghanaian cocoa beans. I’ve had lots of experience working and tasting Valrhona chocolate – which to me is undoubtedly one of the finest chocolate produced today – during my brief stint as a Pastry Commis Chef (oh the wonderful memories), so I decided to give Whittaker’s a go. After all, compared with Cadbury’s Old Gold, Whittaker is like a Porsche next to a beat up Proton.

As with all pastry recipes, measurements should be as precise as possible, though as scientific as one tries to be, one can’t help but think that in the end, its the artistry that matters most. I made a half batch of the recipe above, which turned out beautiful! Silky, strong, rich, velvety (which is a horrid descriptor of food as far as I concerned – have you ever tasted velvet?), albeit a little sweet – which I attribute to whittaker’s chocolate bar which is somewhat sweeter than say a Valrhona equivalent. The only problem was that I could not get it to be much frothy, no matter how much I whizzed it in my low-quality home blender. But no matter. It was still gorgeously tasty and sinfully satisfying.

Half an hour later and I’m still in ecstasy. It now occurs to me that the quality of the chosen chocolate really is tantamount. The preparation is simple, but just like great Italian food – the ingredients must be of quality. But as great as it was, it left me feeling a little queasy due to the richness, and most probably the sweetness of the Whittaker bar. The next time I make it, I think I’ll add a little chilli powder, to balance the richness of the chaud. And I think perhaps a pinch of salt might do wonders for it too – as salt according to some helps bring out the flavour of chocolate more, not unlike vanillin, though many others would say it is absolutely toss.

Come to think of it, this chaud I had is not too unlike a woman. It’s brilliant to have and a marvellous experience, but if a little unbalanced can leave you feeling a little worse for wear.

The clock has stopped, but time has not relented
I remain, or is it me? I do not know in reference to whom I speak
The one that was has gone I know, the one who stays has yet to choose what to show
She has had so many before, she has forgotten how many she has shown
She only hopes in this mixing of hues, still remains the one he knew.

I don’t know about you but that desktop looks perfect for a future version of Mac OS X… Much talk about whether its practical – but you can’t deny the ‘eye candy’ factor, as well as the science that’s gone into it…

Here’s another cool desktop concept… Very Minority Report:

Speechless, I am.

I’ll admit it. I am a self-professed foodie, a shameless gastronome, an amateur epicure. At times I fancy myself to be the next Jeffrey Steingarten or Steven A. Shaw, two (of many) prominent lawyer turned food critics. It must be amazing to be paid to write about foods you’ve been paid to eat, not to mention the places you have to go to eat the food, and the people you meet along the way, including those who cook your food. It’s a hobo’s wet dream. Okay, you’d have to be a pretty literate hobo with a decently discerning palette, but still… Come on. How many other careers can provide you with such a sensually satisfying job description?

As a Malaysian, I had the good fortune of growing up in a country that lives to eat, not eats to live. To say that food in Malaysia is smorgasbord-like is to say that India is made up of a fair few Indians. In Kuala Lumpur, my city, if your desired gustatory delight has a name, you’d be sure to find it. Heck, even if it doesn’t have a name, you’d find it. But quality is not necessarily a focus of Malaysian eating habits. Maggi, in particular has an obscene amount of consumers – mostly starving students, fresh law graduates and performing arts practitioners. Okay, that may be a generalisation based on someone I know fairly well, but you get the point.

Thus I must admit that my obsessive interest in food is a fairly recent development, the consequence of a chance employment at the only five-star hotel in Cardiff, Wales, as a Commis Chef. But don’t get me wrong. I’ve always loved food. The only difference is that before all I cared about was eating it, but nowadays I am genuinely and passionately predisposed to learning about it, where it comes from, how it is prepared, the chemistry and science behind it, as well as the artistry that goes into it. If ever opportunities arise to sample anything new, exotic, or weird, you can be sure that I would instantaneously morph into the guy who was first in line for the Star Wars Episode I premiere three days away, complete with camping bag and plentiful supply of Maggi noodles Russian Caviar and Fennel Sour Cream Blinis, eagerly looking forward to experience the Holy Grill. Just like the Kiwano.

Imagine my delight and irrational hyper-excitement as I was walking in the local supermarket looking for a cucumber to go into my raita for the night’s Indian-themed dinner feast when I chanced upon a funky, spiky fruit in bright orange with beautiful yellow fractal-like swirls all over. There was no item description to be found, but on the humble but visually all-so-attractive food was a small oval sticker with the words “N.Z. Kiwano horned melon” printed on it.

The horned melon, cucumis metuliferus, also called Melano, African horned cucumber or melon, jelly melon, hedged gourd, English tomato, or Kiwano, is a vine of the cucurbitaceae (gourd) family. African in origin, once native only to the region of the Kalahari desert, but is today grown in California and New Zealand, it is cultivated for its fruit, which looks like an oval melon with horns: 2 to 4 inches long, light green until maturity when it turns gorgeous orange, having distinctive, long, sharp spikes on their exterior.

The fruit, which is highly decorative and thus is sold mostly as a garnish, tastes like a mix of cucumber, lemon, lime and banana. The yellow-green flesh has a gelatinous consistency, and contains whitish seeds similar to those of a cucumber. To an extent, it looks like a mutated hippie kiwifruit, which probably explains the name Kiwano, which is trademarked by Prinut Inc. – blatantly another fruit branding scheme, not unlike Zespri for Kiwifruits, Sunkist for Oranges or Grapple for Grape Flavoured Apples (“Looks like an apple, tastes like a grape!”).

It’s pretty nutritious too, fat-free with 25 calories per 100g serving and 40% Vitamin C – even if it doesn’t taste much good and apparently contains a bitter non-volatile compound that is toxic to mammals, according to the factSHEET by Aliza Benzioni at Purdue University. I must admit I got just a wee bit worried at the fact that its considered a toxic food-substance, but me being me just went “Oh, what the hell. I’ll be damned if a Kiwano kills me, and not those Marlboros, or the random drunk crazy Asian boy-racer hit-and-run specialist.”

Eating it was a gastronomic experience – not a very tasty one, what with it being mildly “toxic” – but an experience nonetheless. Perhaps I’m inflicted with the “gourmand syndrome”, described by Swiss Medical Specialists Regard and Landis as a “benign eating disorder associated with lesions involving parts of the right anterior cerebral hemisphere… a preoccupation with food and a preference for fine eating.”

I don’t think I’d be running back to the supermarket to buy another Horny Melon though, unless I’m catering for some fancy event featuring an ‘exotic’ fruit platter – and even then, I’d probably craftily use it as a garnish tantalisingly presented to fool the poor unsuspecting guests…

Now where’s that gosh-darned Grapple gone? I feel a pang of grape-flavoured apple cravings coming forth…

—

For more information and pictures of the Kiwano, see further:

-> Cooking For Engineers – Off Topic: African Horned Melon or Kiwano

-> Obsess.com – Fruit Reviews – Kiwano Horned Melon