RIFLE RANGE BOY

[First published December 21st, 2010, a full year before the alleged end of the world, Armageddon]  One Sunday evening, my other half had a sudden urge to watch a Tamil movie. (God knows why!). After browsing the papers, we zeroed on a Tamil movie which sounded interesting. Interesting because it starred Suriya (the current top Tamil actor), Vivek Oberoi (the ever smiling John Denver-hairstyled Hindi actor who was Aishwarya Rai's one time beau) and believe it or not Shatrughan Sinha (the Bihari Hindi actor of the 70s who had carved a career in politics - what was he doing in a Tamil movie anyway?) In a flash, we got ready, and before long we were at the ticket counter of one of the oldest theatres in Kuala Lumpur (Coliseum) buying ticket. Coliseum was about to be demolished last year before timely interventions by the Heritage societies and the ministry. They struck a deal with the owners, whereby, it will be preserved together with the colonial type restaurant and hotel as a ...

Monday December 20, 2010 (The Star) AS an advocate of 1Malaysia which stresses national unity and ethnic harmony, I view with concern the substantially lopsided and biased content of our current Form 1-5 History textbooks. To make matters worse, there are more than 10 factual errors and contradictions in our current Form 1-5 History textbooks. The Education Ministry should immediately appoint a multi-ethnic Advisory Panel to ensure students are learning Malaysian and World History that is generally objective, well-balanced and wholly accurate. The trend of “rewriting” Malaysian history started in 1996 with the formation of the Jawatankuasa Penerbitan Buku Teks Sejarah Tingkatan 1 and Tingkatan 2. Its members (more than 15 for each committee), including the writers and consulting experts of the textbooks, were all drawn from one ethnic group. Indeed, all 17 authors of our current Form 1-5 History textbooks are drawn from one ethnic group. Hence, it is not surprising that our stu...

Another run.... This time at Bukit Kiara around the bourgeois neighbourhood of Bukit Bandaraya in Damansara through the Malakoff 12 km run. Three other running 'kakis' joined the early morning rush (Raj, Jagjit and Ravi). Malaysians seem to be improving on their punctuality, Right smack at 7am (as scheduled), the women runners (12km) were flagged off and the man at 7.10am. This run is known for its gruelling hilly terrain as the undulating course cut through 3 hills and troughs. The organization was good with proper flagging off and ample water stations. The event was an easy Sunday morning outing for those who do not indulge in too many Saturday night late activities. In fact, that is why the 4 jokers (me and fellow runners) joined the bandwagon. All dressed and nowhere to go on Saturday nights, so run instead. A week before the event, I was already nursing a calf muscle sprain. After resting for a week, I thought it would just miraculously fly away. Unfortunately, it showed...

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2010 History syllabus furthering political interests by Lim Teck Ghee Malaysiakini, Dec 16, 2010, 3:32pm A few days ago, two senior academicians involved in the writing of history textbooks emerged from the shadows, saying that the history textbooks in the country are biased and littered with errors.   According to one of them, Dr Ranjit Singh Malhi, "secondary (school) textbooks have been used to promote political interests".   The other concerned author, Ng How Kuen, expressed the fear that making history a compulsory pass subject in Sijil Perlajaran Malaysia (SPM) would mean that students would have to subscribe to the official version of events or risk failing the entire examination . It is said that history is written by the victors, but it is also true that we get the history we deserve. The disclosure that the teaching of history in schools has been skewed and has a political agenda - besides suffering from distortions and errors - is no...

Many a time all of us may have been caught in a betwixt and between situation where we are in the middle of two warring factions. Most of the time, we are at a lost as both factions seem to have some justification in the way they behaved and the way the other did what they did! The truth of the matter must lie somewhere in the middle as I have come to understand that things in life are neither black nor white. It is usually in shades of grey. I was caught in a similar situation not too long ago. A was happily employed with B for many years with both parties respecting each other, enjoying each other's company and the relationship was more than just a employer-employee one but rather to that of close friends' one. B was single handedly running and taking care of the company as if it were his own. It was during this time I came to know A and B. I got along well with both parties. Over the years, things soured up between A and B. By B's standards, A was becoming laggard and ...

Let us watch this video. Yet another video with its message which had appeared in many forms. http://www.malaysiakini.tv/video/20667/shot-4-times-and-dont-know-why.html Merdeka!!! The point I want to bring up is why, after 53 years of Independence, 40 years of National Education Policy, probably 2 or 3 generations of living in Malaysia, eating nasi lemak, thosai, burger and all those delicious delicacies that the nation can offer, the victim and his wife still finds it more comfortable to converse in Cantonese (a dialect native to a place thousands of kilometres) for a Malaysian web TV interview for a Malaysian audience. This is happening in a country with supposedly high literacy rate with a robust education system and is aspiring to be an educational hub of sorts. It is just like some who look up to the Middle East for fashion and way of living when there are abundance of cultures and styles to go around in this region. It does not speak much of our success in national i...

Most nice memories in life are usually laced with food - be it at a wedding or family reunion or smoking the peace pipe between nations! Anyway, which soul can be at peace on a empty stomach. Even, a funeral ceremony to rest the soul of the dead involves eating. Proponents of penance will not agree with this as they feel that in order to appreciate God's greatness, a little bit of suffering will definitely help. Hence, the practice of self inflicted pain during Thaipusam and suffering hunger panks in the holy month of Ramadan. If you ask me (which you would probably not), kavadi bearers like the short lived attention that they get (which they normally do not get on an average day in their life) and the binge and spirit of festivities that the fasting individuals look forward to afterwards. In response to an ardent follower (self praise, sic) who wanted me to write on foods available around RRF and Penang during my earlier days, I squeezed my grey matter and this is what that...

Dean Johns Dec 1, 10  11:24am Judging by what I've heard of her, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan   Ismail is as good and godly a human being as Allah ever put breath into. But I wish she'd spare us the kind of codswallop she sincerely but I think unwisely spouted in her speech to the PKR party when she praised her husband Anwar Ibrahim as a “great man who has been awarded by God to all of us to be our leader”. For a start, it's a bit presumptuous to speak on God's behalf when you couldn't possible have the slightest idea of the Almighty's thoughts, intentions, ideas or ideals. Like clerics and their flocks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and similar earthly paradises who imagine that God demands the death penalty for those accused of adultery, blasphemy, apostasy or whatever else they deem terminally sinful. Or potentates like the Pope ( right ), who claims to be God's earthly mouthpiece in making such preposterous pronouncements as his recent one that the use...

The more and more we look into the mass murder of Dato Susilawati Lawiya and gang, more and more we discover that it has the making of a mini-series that is ever so popular with the public. My liaison with these serials ended long ago with Radaan's production of 'Annamalai' when I discovered that it was one craving that I should give a miss. This series were so popular when it was around that even an academician like Prof Khoo Kay Kim could not resist but gave cold shoulder treatment to his guests when they visited him during its screening time! If one were to browse the channels on TV (be it terrestrial, cable or satellite), especially during 'non-peak' times when everyone was at work, you would  be lost for choices on the number of tele-dramas to choose from. Tele-dramas, tele-novelas, tele-serials, mini-series, soap operas, the names are varied and have evolved over time but they all refer to the same melodramatic stories filled with romance (sometimes illic...