RIFLE RANGE BOY

29.3.2010 Energizer Night Half Marathon @ March 27, 2010 Intellectual discourse between FG and JS.. FG: I just ran 21km. JS: What did you run from? FG: !@#?..err...from my shadows… JS: Who won? FG: My shadow, of course! Don’t you know that you cannot run away from your shadow? It will always catch up with you! After the last crampy pathetic Putrajaya Night Half Marathon run, the Energizer run was to be the saving salvage run, to ascertain my ability to run, to correct the wrong that happened in Putrajaya! Equipped with self thought schemes and strategies like how Rocky Balboa trained in the cold weather of Philadelphia against the mighty giant from Russia in Rocky, I trained on the treadmill and the tarry tracks of Bukit Hatamas. This time around the plan was to run at a slower pace. After reaching a peak run of just over 10km, I had to taper down due to insufficient time 2 weeks before the race. The week before the inaugural run, it was essentially real light and easy run...

25.3.2010 Memories of RRF – neighbours and beyond… Besides occupants of the 15th floor, there were a few interesting characters who emerged in our childhood. Most of the end units were occupied by personnel of Royal Malaysian Army and the families. Their children were usually brats who behave like monkeys without tails. They would be jumping here and jumping there, destroying public properties (like the lift and defacing the whitewashed wall with graffiti) while the father supposedly protect the sovereignty of the country and her property, i.e. its citizens! Most of them study at SRK Padang Tembak, some of use the military truck to ferry them to other schools and all of them perform dismally at school. Invariably all their names will be “Man” and all their mothers can say is lamely, “ Man, janganlah Man !” but Man will just continue doing his thing. The wives will be sleeping of the time or at least appear so when they occasionally come out to sweep their homes which were incidentally ...

23.3.2010 Memories of RRF – neighbours E15-11 was situated behind the lift near the electrical meter board. The frontage was not overlooking into the open space like other units but was kind of dark and was a place where children would gather and play their games like “S”, photos, cops and robbers, chiabak etc. etc. All of us have bitter and sweet memories with the lift. At one time or another, we all had the bad experience of being trapped in the lift, no big deal actually, only if you are in a hurry. Actually the lifts were used and abused again by its occupants. In the later years, I even took my mini bicycle up the lift for safety reasons. If only it was not German made, it would have given up long ago. The day to day running of the lift was done by Council appointed handicapped individuals who were supposed to be manning the lift by being inside the lift but they seemed to find joy by playing the fool among each other, talking like they know everything and basically ...

9.3.2010 The wheels on the bus go round and round, just like the circle of life! Only the wheels get bigger… Quote from Wikipedia… Penang boasted an efficient public transport network right up to the 1970s. Electric trams, trolleybuses and double-deckers used to ply the streets of Penang. The public bus service in Penang was the first one started by the British in Malaya back in the 30’s with the introduction of tram service and GTMT bus service. It also served me well in my childhood all the way to early adulthood until I managed to own my first car, a second hand Nissan 120Y in 1989. A few days into Standard 1 in 1970, I was left by Appa at the kacang putih seller’s stall in Prangin Road Bus Station for me to board the Yellow Bus No. 77 to go back to Brown Gardens. It was a long journey taking almost 45 minutes via Customs Village. Taman Tun Sardon and its adjacent development was nonexistent then and the bus had to go around Green Lane via Yeap Chor Ee Road to come to Brown Ga...

8.3.2010 Love is blue… The instrumental rendition of the song “Love is Blue” by the Paul Mauriat Orchestra always sends shivers down my spine, not of the chilling type but one of nostalgia! It reminds me of the carefree and stress free days in 70’s when I was playing around the compounds of Dewan Sri Pinang and the City Council car park area of No. 2, Duke Street. It also in a way brings me the thoughts of the financial tsunami that hit the Sham family. In the early months of 1970 when I was in Std 1 at Hutchings School, I used to spend a lot of time at my paternal great grandmother’s house in the City Council quarters of 2, Duke Street adjacent to Dewan Sri Pinang. In fact that was the address used for me to gain entrance to Hutchings School with the hope one day I would go to Penang Free School. This, my mother did after failing to register me at St Xavier’s Institution. History has not changed much, now we are using the same tactic (clinic address) to get our kids to SM Taman C...

6.3.2010 Are you OK, Annie 1 ? Do know why 2 ? I am still standing…yeah,yeah,yeah! 3 In the course of our conversation, I casually asked my accountant about his health. To this he replied, “Oh, I did my medicals and the doctors told me that my results were fantastic. The doctors were so happy with the result and told me that my results were better than the cardiologists’.” That’s P, my accountant, the ever optimistic chap who looks at the world from a very positive outlook. You ask him about his son who was studying in Ukraine , he would say the lecturers were so impressed with his performance and so are the Consultants he is working for now as a house officer. And his daughter is so happily married in the cold mountains of Germany ! Well good for him, P, if only everyone in this world is as contented as him, the world would be a better place and it starts with the man in the mirror 4 . On one hand, I feel happy for him for his good results as it gives him a sense of satiety to...

18.2.2010 Poverty hardly qualifies as a qualification for handouts but it a sure motivation for success. Things in life do not come in black or white, it only comes in shades of grey! Academic excellence is no substitute to poverty of character. (Mr Goon Fatt Chee, Headmaster PFS 1974-1979) The greatness of a man is in how he treats the little man. (Anon.) Priorities, priorities, priorities...

16.3.2010 Indra Shan and RRF Every time the Shans and the Shans meet up, we will invariably be talking about our escapades in RRF. Just to set the family right – Indra and Rada (@Seetha) are daughters of SM Muthu whose father used to be a man of some standing in his heyday. He used to be a proud owner of a 3-storey mansion in Queens Street , Penang . As is the case with most Indians in Malaysia , we can only talk about our glory days. There is nothing much more for us to show, our ancestors have either drank or feasted our wealth to the ground. SM Muthu, in his single generation tattered his family wealth only to work as a worker in a printing press and later driver-cum-gardener in his silver years with his trophy wife. SM Muthu had 4 kids (Saroja, Indra, Radamani followed by Murthi) and 2 adopted kids (Sambu and Susila). The people those days were quite charitable. Adoption was a occurrence then. According to stories from my mother and Mama, SM Muthu was not an exemplary fath...

* thanks to Penang Heritage for pix 16.2.2010 Dewan kindergarten How far back can one remember of his childhood? I suppose it is humanly impossible to remember events of the pre-toddler stage of one’s life. Memories of events happening in the toddler era may appear in flashes akin to light from a stroboscope or illuminating disco light from the dance floor. These events may be also be reinforced by old photographs and stories from our mothers. The earliest vivid recollection of my childhood would be my kindergarten excursion to Bukit Dumbar in Penang. I was studying in Dewan kindergarten in Sungai Gelugor. I was considered privileged to be sent to a kindergarten as it was not a practice then. A day before the trip, Amma promised to prepare my favourite beehoon to take for the excursion. I would probably had a nice sleep dreaming about beehoon, tauhu (or tau kwang as it is called in Penang), prawns and its oth...

14.3.2010 It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to... What a stupid blog! That’s what Danny said when I coaxed him at gunpoint to peruse this blog. I do not profess to know it all. I do not proclaim to be a guru or someone who has been enlightened by hiding in some caves in Kashmir or the desert. I have not found the elixir of youth or crystal ball to the answers of mankind’s problems. I am neither a religious nor a charismatic person oozing with charm. I am just your plain Joe with a wee bit of inferior complex and a perpetual whiner! We all get a little philosophical with age and I am just jotting my two cents worth (if it is worth at all) of experiences to the junior citizen as history has the uncanny habit of repeating its ugly self. As they say in various cultures and civilizations, one who does not know where he came from will not reach where he is heading to. This is not a literary exercise, hence do not expect high flowery bombastic standard of Shakespearean poetic English. It ...

8.3.2010 Soliloquy of numbers…..numbers… Today is the 2 nd anniversary of Malaysian political tsunami. Though this may be a historical date for me as a Malaysian, for someone who did his primary and secondary school education in the National language, did his undergraduate studies in a local varsity (instead of an overseas offer, for better or worse), did postgraduate studies with a state scholarship, served 7 public hospitals and is paying a sizable amount of taxes annually, why do I still remember these insignificant dates and numbers? How is it going to benefit mankind? Why do I remember the following numbers? Why??? 6103 Hutchings school registration number 5.1.1970 1 st day of school in Std 1 PD 8886 Father’s first motorbike PJ 9535 Father’s 2 nd motorbike PM 1337 Another of father’s bike PB 581 The bike forever breaking do...

31.1.2010 Prize award ceremony @ SKTC Today, Danny received his Std 3 awards. He managed to grab the award for being first in Std 3, best in Mathematics and best in Moral Studies. The whole ceremony was a mundane affair, a far cry from the razzmatazz and pomp of the yesteryears. At least I can tell from my experience in Hutchings and PFS. I remember in Std 1, I was chosen by Mr GS Reutens to partake in a Mexican dance. 5 “couples” were chosen and it was an all-boys school, I was dressed up as a Mexican girl. I remember somebody (one of my classmates) called out, “hey, mummy, see black girl!” Now who says that Malaysia was utopia and land of milk and honey then? Racial stereotyping and discrimination was very much alive then as it is now. Anyway during the dance, my head scarf got loose and fell off, much to the amusement of crowd. In one of the later years in Hutchings, my seniors (with the help of Ustaz Sheikh Muhammad) managed to put up a brilliant puppet show. I cannot re...

3.3.2010 The fish stinks from the head… RTD was recently reported to have been appalled by the way Malaysians drive. This, he discovered during one of his ‘balik kampong’ sessions the last CNY holidays. He took snapshots of traffic offenders from his car and plans to issue summons over their offences. This he discovered after 19 years at the helm of the RTD! That is the problem, is it not? Day in day out, you can see benign-looking (including young housewives fetching their kids from schools) Malaysians blatantly disregarding traffic rules in broad daylight. Credit: whiskymoods.com Does the RTD head not drive to work? Does he go with blinkers? Does he sleep when he is driving around? Come on, wake up! Whatever happens on the roads are your bread and butter. You get paid with a fat cheque of a salary at the end of the month for it (sometimes earlier during the festive season). Are you like an average “uncivil” Malaysian civil servant whose sole purpose of life re...

13.2.2010 A simple gesture… Dinner at Govind’s in Klang with Mama and family was the usual stuff with the usual pleasantries, eating and talking. Suddenly, there was a tap on the shoulder. You know that feeling when you are the last to know something. That is the exact feeling I felt that day. People in front of me, facing towards me, were smiling and greeting. Only when I turned around did I realize, to my amazement, that it was my old buddy Samy! Our friendship had blossomed when we were working together as part of the ‘Hari’s Boys’ in the Surgical department of Seremban Hospital under Mr. Hari Rajah (The Smiling Surgeon). I did surgical elective for a year (Feb91 –Feb92) there. I used to stay the night at his place during my passive call days. I left to do Registrar’s posting in Malacca in April 1992 and we met up again in 1998 when I was in Klang GH as a Consultant O&G and he was an Orthopod. We applied for Sri Kota Hospital together. He got in but I got the boot. T...