RIFLE RANGE BOY

25.5.2010 ‘Wealth is Health’ or ‘Health is Wealth’? That is a good question. From the time I can remember, the age old adage of ‘Health is Wealth’ had been ingrained in our impressionable minds to be the ultimate truth. Is it really the elusive truth that everyone is looking for? In the pre-industrial era when most people led simple lives toiling on the wonders provided by nature, e.g. farming, hunting or any work which involve indentured labourers or bondage slavery. Here, a healthy fit body will ensure ability to endure the hardship of calamities of nature to bring home the bacon! An unhealthy invalid or an aging senile individual will be a burden to family and society unless a social safety net is in place. If you were the servant of the palace or a sorcerer in the dawn of human civilization, (as if we are more civilised now), health is of paramount importance for survival. Is this adage still of relevance at this present date and time? Let me look at how health brin...

27.5.2010 Petroleum and civilisation (or end of?) I remember visiting Petrosains at KL City Centre a few years ago. I had an uneasy feeling on exiting that visitors to the venue had been hoodwinked into believing (via its exhibits and messages) that petroleum had indeed made Mother Earth a more delightful place to live. Really? Sorry, I cannot buy your story! Recently one of my friends emailed me an article narrating the potential devastation waiting to happen as a result of BP's misadventure of oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the environment is said to be in gargantuan proportions as evidenced by the 22,000 people and 10,000 vessels deployed in rescue plan making it the most massive effort in the history of disaster recovery. That got me thinking. Actually, petroleum seems to me like a curse or the root of all evil rather than our saviour. Most of the world catastrophes are somehow linked it -e.g. Twin Tower incident, Iraq War etc. etc.  ...

23.5.2010 Coincidence? Again? The day after Indra Shan passed away, the obituary column in the Star announced with a verse from the Bible… I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Then, I was watching a Denzel Washington movie called ‘Book of Eli’. He was portrayed as a gun wielding futuristic servant of God trying to save the only surviving Bible. He managed to follow the said path but succumbed to his injuries sustained in his journey albeit accomplishing his mission. He was narrating in the background at the end of the movie and his last words were… I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Is it because I am looking out trivial things like these?

23.5.2010 Amnesty and Gotong-Royong What amnesty has got to do with gotong royong, you would say. Amnesty usually refers to affairs between countries whilst gotong-royong involves things at the village level. If you have a criminally cynical and critical mind like mine, then you would probably correlate these two phenomenon and skewer them together in the same BBQ pit in a negative light. Amnesty here refers to the recurrent government amnesty (grace period) to allow illegal immigrants to go back to their countries of origin before the long arm of the law goes on a blitz to nap illegal immigrants. This will predictably start a slowdown in nation’s economic activities as all our nitty gritty work of cleaning our homes to building mansions are manned by immigrants (legal and otherwise). Pressure groups in the form of politicians and businessmen, like a knee jerk reaction, will start pressing the enforcers to go lenient on the wrongdoers who in turn will temporarily slow down the whole...

21.5.2010 Aum…Shri…Sound…Music! In most cultures, music is synonymous with joy, celebration, victory and worship. In Indian folklore, I have heard of divine music healing the moribund and maybe raising the dead. Probably, only in the Indian (particularly South) subcontinent do you have songs sung to denote melancholy, tragedy and helplessness! No wedding, birthday celebration, church service, temple prayers, funfair, circus, street celebration or even sports event is complete without music accompaniment. Hence, one can say that the story of music is the story of the evolution of mankind itself. Now, have you heard of the Dark Forces using their subtle ways to pull us over to the Dark Side? From the turn of the 20th century, people have associated certain music with Satan's dark forces. Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban also link music to evil, as it is addictive and hinders mankind from fulfilling their obligations to God. Hence, radio transmissions in Taliban Afg...

19.5.2010 Going somewhere? Anywhere but India! Warning: Readers’ discretion and common sense should prevail. This description is of personal nature and is not a travel advisory and should be used as a guide under any circumstances! And Indian Tourism Board should not be offended by this article as it not directed at them and I am sure it must be administered by level headed officials . After 47 years of living on planet Earth, I have not stepped on Indian soil and do not plan to do it in any near future. Why not, you may ask. Why should I, I ask. I am Malaysian, born, bred and hope to die here in my motherland (tanah tumpah darah ku). I will go there when I want to go there, i.e. when there is a calling. From young, all the teasings and name calling must have left its effect on my psyche. Even in the mid twenties after burning the midnight oil and burning the candle at both (or if possible at three) ends and toiling day and night to successfully complete medical studies in USM, when p...

18.5.2010 To Sir & Teacher with love… Teachers’ Day Special (Primary) The Chinese proverb says, “If you give someone a fish; he will eat for a day but if you teach him to fish, he will not stay hungry a lifetime!” FG says, “You cannot teach anybody anything, you can help him learn.” My friend Regu in PPSP USM used to say that any student can learn something from even the most uninspiring tutor because of their (the tutor) superior experience in life. With that background let me indulge in a little of retrograde recollection of my school teachers, starting from Hutchings Primary School. This is about the time when the screen is supposed to be hazy and the plucking the harp strings is supposed to reverberate in the background and kaleidoscope of colours is supposed to twirl round and round… In Standard 1, Cik Aishah Abdul Rahman was my class teacher. Her fine curly hair used to be tied up into a bun at the back of her head, donning colourful fine floral baju kurung, smelling fresh w...

16.5.2010 Run the race 16.5.10. Four significant events happened today – the New Balance 15km run in Padang Merbok, Teachers’ Day, Sibu by-election and the passing of Pastor Indra Shan. The day started with New Balance 15km run. This time around I had a fellow running bug-hit comrade (maybe midlife crisis at 44 years), who join this run too. We ran our race and completed it good times. Category Gender Overall Name BIB No. SPLIT TOTAL TIME 80 300 338 SURESH KUMAR SHANMUGAM 3160 41:12.59 1:30:25.65 104 426 491 ASOKAN SHAMUGANATHAN 3027 45:32.00 1:36:46.53 The run took place from Padang Merbuk all the over the hilly terrain of Bukit Tunku (Kenny Hills). It was a good exercise on a Sunday morning. Of course we not were telling that while we were running. We were asking why we were not like normal KLites who enjoyed getting up late on a Sunday morning after a late Saturday night outing! Like the hard core runners will tell you, the joy i...

13.5.2010 May 13. A bad word (or a good tool) for some Malaysian politicians. The date of birth for my friend, Mike Kumar as well as an uncle who is a good 9 years younger than me, named Muthukumar and the launching date of his unity book by another friend of mine, Anas Zubedy. Mariska Hargitay   Talking about scary strange coincidences that I had mentioned in my previous rumblings and their occurrence in pairs, give a little thought to the below. Early this morning, I had just published my blog on the biography of Major (R) Samantha Murthi. Guess what was staring on the morning Star international headlines – Picture of David Cameron (new premier of UK) and his very pregnant wife, Samantha Cameron!  David & Samantha Cameron @ 10, Downing St, London     And over the weekend after writing about my encounter with a religious guru and Marishka Hargitay , Marishka Hargitay was in the Star papers again on Sunday posing on the red carpet! O...

Fred Astaire tap dancing to Putting on to the Ritz   12.5.10 An unauthorized abridged mini biography of Lincoln Murthi (the man with a mission) From rags to ri¢he$ (Penny-wise to Ritz*, Shangri-La** and Caviar) After seven years of marriage, Mrs S. M. Muthu (nee Letchumy Ammal) was getting desperate. She had almost exhausted all avenues of prayers and vows. After three unsuccessful attempts at procuring a son for her cultural needs, she was even toying the idea of adopting a son when it finally happened. On 30th August 1942, a baby boy was born and he was named Samantha Murthi. A nice Tamil name indeed they thought but it also created confusion later when he went to the UK where the English expected a vivacious lady named Samantha but instead their Malaysian candidate was a mustachioed Indian gentleman! She had many dreams for the young boy but was concerned that her dreams would not materialize as her husband has been showing many unhealthy traits. He found it hard to ...

Indra (H Block) used to look like this in her heydays (the 1970s)  7.5.2010 Memories of RRF: Here, there and everywhere…* There are a few loose ends for me to tie to rekindle old memories of RRF. We started going to Bhajan class around 1975 after Mr Rajagopal (aka Kojak) requested Appa to send us. The main base of the Bhajan class was at D17-8 at Mr & Mrs Rayan’s place. Sometimes the classes would be held at different venues upon request. Mr Rajagopal was a member of the active Shiva family in Penang which was affiliated to the late saffron-robed Swami Shantananda who initiated the Temple of Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur. So there we were all us religiously learning the Bhajan songs. In fact, I think Lats, who naturally enjoyed singing perfected her singing skills. Once a week we used to look forward to attending it and rush back to see ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’. We got acquainted with people like A. Rajasegaran (we later took tuition classes from his sister, Veni), Rag...

9.5.10 Another day*…Live and let live**… My propensity for verbosity predates the time of preparation for the Part 2 of the MRCOG examinations. My mentor, VM, whom I revere for his invaluable support and guidance, is the guilty of unleashing this quality from me. He would make me talk on things totally unrelated to O&G just to train me to talk during the practical examinations, i.e. viva voce and clinical; of course talk sense not talk for the sake of talking (Malaysian colloquial slang: talk cock). He also conned me to croak to tune of ‘Let it Be’ in a Rotary Club dinner all in the name of building self confidence. During my posting in Johor Bahru, I was fascinated listening to the BBC World Radio FM transmissions from Singapore, in particular its weekly editorials. A 15-minute rendition of some mundane topic like ‘The pros and cons of Daylight Saving Time’ was really intriguing. That got me thinking- that there are always two sides of the stories to everything in life, even som...

6.5.2010 My brush with the Other side*…Mariska Hargitay™** Over the weekend I was roped in (probably by divine intervention) to be an interpreter to a pious man who was addressing a predominantly non-Tamil speaking congregation at a home cleansing (housewarming) ceremony. I arrived there with a lot of fanfare. As it was pouring cats and dogs en route to function, my family and I arrived fashionably late. Another faux pas moment happened here. I honked as I parked at the porch to get help to bring in the food and cutlery from the car, not knowing that the prayer was already in session! (Probably to the annoyance of the attendees, I suppose). Anyway, only after parking the car and entering the house did I realise the foot in the mouth moment. Upon entry to the abode, I was whisked in like some kind of VIP to sit beside the holy man to help him to address the audience. And the sacrificial fire started burning… The joist of the teaching of the day was (as interpreted by my unenlig...