Boon or Bane?

Credit: newmandala.org
Dr Mahathir Mohamad (b 10.7.1925)
A second chance to right the wrong?

It is my Prime Minister's birthday, and I have a dilemma. Just last year, he became the oldest man in the world to be elected as a country's leader at 93. One year on and he is still going on strong like an Energiser Bunny. 

The million dollars is not when his run is going to halt, but instead if indeed longevity is a blessing. On the one hand, on auspicious occasions, we wish each other hoping for a long life. We cling on to our dear lives averting dangers and seeking medical advice at the first sneeze. We plan things as if we would live forever. Some would say that being born as a human is our reward for our past karmic deeds. Hence, a long life must be a bonus. They are others who would vouch that life on Earth is a testing ground. A long life span means that they are more options to collect brownie points. If one only lives for the afterlife,  then there is ample opportunity to right the wrong.

On the other hand, there are those who swear, like they had been on the other side and heard it from the horse's mouth, that life on Earth is indeed painful. With so much physical and emotional pain associated with daily living from the cradle to the grave, death is a relief. Therefore, the continuation of life mark non-completion of misdeeds (sins) of previous births. Shorter life-spans mean less chance to make a goof of oneself, hence, the placing of prominent figures who experienced premature deaths in the annals of human history. The 'Club of 27' is one such example. P Ramlee, Elvis Presley, Sudirman and James Dean are others who left while they were at their prime, eliminating any negative perceptions of their feats on Earth.

So what is your answer, boon or bane?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Public display of private intent?

The Game... you just lost it!

Call me a loner, a sociophobic, Grinch or Scrooge. I do not particularly fancy having a big bash for something considered private. So what if you turn 50. Anyone with a bit of luck and divine non-intervention or intervention can achieve that. Even stray dogs can celebrate theirs (birthday, i. e.) if they survive the pound catchers or being a road kill. If they still want to felicitate themselves for this, it is still something personal - not appropriate for them to brag about it to their dogs and bitches but to reflect on their personal achievements and shortcomings to shortcomings to be able to survive another anniversary. 

Celebrating any personal achievement must be (er...) personal, enjoying it with the people who make it happened and the ones who were in the receiving end in the endeavor in your journey. Not that the bread man and newspaper man did not assist in your goals, this is personal. They got their dues. 

Perhaps superstition, perhaps fear of jealous roving ill intended eyes, significant event should be small and meaningful, not a public display of affordability and pomp. 

We do not need a surprise 48th or that matter 50th birthday like the one in 1997 movie 'The Game' where the Sean Penn character organizes an elaborate game to commemorate his rich and show-off brother's (Michael Douglas) 48th birthday. A recreational company, in cahoots with his bother, lawyer and staff brought Douglas to knees by siphoning off his money, implicating him in murder, getting him to be on his heels from the cops, drive him to paranoia and finally drive him to jump off a multistory office building to land on a giant glass dome which led him to a conference hall with a giant bed to dampen his fall and with all friends and relatives waiting to propose a toast there!

You do not need public display of private intent unless you are a politician or a business where  you need the public to support (or to be hoodwinked) for your private intentions!

As you like it*

Man is an animal who interprets facts how he wants to interprets them in keeping with the environment he is keeping with or maybe with his vested interest on mind.

Winter Sonata

Many years ago, I attended a birthday party within a religious function. After the singing of hymns, came to time commemorate the moment of the birth of the guest of honour. In rolled in an egg-less vegetarian cake (it was announced). The leader of the pack started telling the rest of the crowd on so and so's birthday and extended his felicitations. The crowd started singing the song as the birthday girl lit the candles on the cake. The climax of the event was when all candles were lit. That is it. No clapping (it is not our culture) but instead hail the greatness of the Lord instead- though it was alright when they clapped when they sang the hymns! You see, their rationale, as the 'MC' later said that was we should rejoice at the lighting of brightness, not rejoice at the extinguishing of the greatest invention of God - light (agni), which is the pillar of all civilisations)! I decided to be a gracious guest by not being a wise guy and asking, "..but celebrating birthday is not our culture and we are celebrating the birthday based on a non-Hindu calender!".
21st December 2012 came and went but we are still standing. The world, though, is still as chaotic as before. Days before the D-day (End of Days) came a hoax prophesying that Nostradamus had indeed  predicted, in not so direct ways, that from the land of blooming flowers, when the man on a prancing horse hit nine zeros, the end will come (something like that). Smart alecs rationalised the land of blooming flowers as referring to Korea (why? because of picturesque Korean drama like Winter Sonata?), man on prancing horse is Psy doing his Gangnam style and nine zeros is referring to his YouTube hits reaching 1billion (1,000,000,000)! What the ....
In his effort to entice his congregation  back to the path of righteousness, the priest rattled on. "Now people are more interested in their 3G and Internet connections then coming to temple. Well, I got news for you. We alsohave wireless 3G service in this temple. The first G is Gita (Bhagavad Gita), the second G being GanggaJal (the purest of water given by God to Man and the third G is the Govinda Bhajans (divine songs) which would guarantee uninterrupted Internet connections to God!".
He went on to say, "If you say you want 4G facility, there is always Ghai (Krishna's companion - the cow)!".

*A Shakespearean comedy with the famous and oft-quoted phrase, "All the world's a stage" and the origin of  phrase "too much of a good thing".

What do you get for someone with everything?

That was what I was thinking to myself as the days got nearer to the day of my favourite and respected uncle's day of indulgence drew closer. Not wanting to get something and regretting it later, I decided to leave this Herculean task to the eleventh hour.
What would be special enough to be appreciated by someone who has everything? Sure, we all have heard of the sentimentality and love put into the present rather than the price. But then, he is a result centered practical man of stature who decides by the head not by the heart. Perfumes and shirts sound inappropriate as they deem too personal, not right for a nephew to buy.
Accused of being the unimaginative man that I already am, I decided to wander around a premiere mall in pursuit of the perfect present and came up with a tie (a lame present, my daughter thinks). I thought that it would be practical as his profession would require him to be elegantly attired. A tie would make him that kind of man, not that he is not.
Ok, a tie it is, I told myself. Which tie, from where? I cannot be getting a tie which is just hanging off a rack somewhere sold on wholesale with buy one - free one offer, can I?
As I was walking aimlessly failing to locate a shop dedicated to specialty ties, which unfortunately all seem to have closed down as I think most Malaysian men are more comfortable dressing down then up! I thought, maybe the host was just wanted our fellowship, not our gifts. So, the attendance of all the relatives spanning the spine of the peninsular would be the biggest gift. But then, Uncle is always there with something in his hands at all of my important moments without fail. And I have never really bought him anything. Scrolling down Amazon.com one day, I did come across a box set of DVDs which I thought would excite him- a complete collection of Ian Fleming's spy James Bond's films from the 1962 Dr No all the way to the 2008 Quantum of Solace. But then, I pondered too long and procrastinated that by the time I decided on that, it was a wee bit too late to get the gift on time.
Then it manifested... A shop that would leave a mark, a shop that had class, a brand of international standards that would complete a man besides putting the gentle prefix to a man.

It was no garden party but 

was a bash nevertheless! Even

Shahrukh Khan was there!

Then another set of headache... The choice of tie - no! Too loud for a 70 year old, too bright for a lawyer... Finally settled for 2013 Spring Collection which was just out hot from the oven, so to speak, in collaboration with upcoming lunar new year and their entry into the Chinese market. Yeah, right! Business strategy?

G- Music Man 

The salesperson went on taking about their tradition of fabric making in Italy and how their ties can be handed down generations after generations. (I can almost hear the executor of the will reading, "To my last vagabond son, I leave my collection of ties...and the rest of my property goes to charity..." And the son going, "bloody lunatic old fool!" I digress...
I did not even bother to look at the price tag for fear of inciting a missed heart beat but charged it to the card anyway. Happy birthday, LM!

The rat appeared but somebody did not smell it!

The dust still has not settled on the surprise party that I organised for my dear. Since she is turning half a century old, though she looks easily looks a decade younger, she likes to be in the limelight, is a party animal (buts rises early the next morning for temple type) and she likes pleasant surprises, I thought, "Why not have a surprise party for her?"

Now, how do you organise a party for a person who unashamedly says, "If you plan to have a surprise party for me, wait till my sister from Canada returns home for a holiday at the end of June, okay?"  It's going to be such a surprise that she'll go, "Oh.......you shouldn't have!!!!! Oh" with a fake "Oh..."
This fake surprise is no surprise at all!

First, to create a decoy, I agreed that that would be the ideal time for the surprise. I would be the one surprised when everybody screams surprise to the birthday girl, and she is thrilled! When pressed to be more aggressive in getting things organised for a function 3 months away, I just reassured the birthday girl, it is all under control. Thank you very much; I will get things going, no worries.

Behind the scenes, under the cloak of secrecy, I had already planned a bash on the weekend following the big day. The guest list comprised three categories: family members and relatives, close family friends, and, to add a nostalgic feel, her old school friends.

The venue was decided upon, at a private room in a new restaurant. The next difficult thing was to get her old friend's contact number and getting everybody mum about it. Still, I had to inform and pre-warn everyone about it - if not, nobody would turn up at the party! And the surprise would fall flat!

I decided to leave my youngest boy out of the equation, as it would be too much stress for him to handle. My other children managed to sneak out the phone numbers. Thanks to modern media, I was able to do a lot of hanky panky without breaking cover.

Throughout the whole time, nobody showed any emotion, and life went on as usual. Her real birthday came, and after the usual cursory and cutting the cake, that was it.

A day before the function, out-of-town relatives arrived and were housed in my cousin's place. By that time, my youngest son had to be informed. He almost spilt the beans when we visited the out-of-towners. Whilst discussing our unrelated subject, he mentioned to his mother that we had visited Kepong (the place they were placed), but luckily, she did not pick up the hint! Phew! The rat almost came out, but luckily she did not smell it - a sanitised vermin indeed!

On D-Day, my daughter managed to brainwash my wife for a girls' night out. She liked the idea. So off they went. By that time, everybody was nicely stationed in their posts, including my other son, who was supposedly to be at home studying very hard for his examinations. My daughters took a long detour and finally brought her to the rendezvous.

When the doors swung open at the Olive Tree Restaurant, everybody screamed at the top of their lungs, "Surprise!!!" and off went the music to the most frequently sung song in the world, Happy Birthday!

After an initial full 3 minutes of petrifaction and tongue-tiedness, my wife came down to Earth. After the series of welling of tears, "Oh my gawd!"s and huggings, the party began like it was 1999 to one that most people in our circle have not enjoyed for a mighty long time. I knew it was worth it when my wife whispered in my ear, "My best birthday, thanks!"

P/S: Just like at the end of some movies where they highlight the blunders and boo-boos during production, it is worth mentioning my moments of dumbness. After much difficulty securing all the ever-important telephone numbers of people very dear to my wife, I had it all set up on my iPhone. On the pretext of charging the phone while working on the computer, instead of charging the phone the usual way via a wall socket and 3-pin plug, smarty pants (me) decided to charge it from the computer via a USB port. And poof went all the contacts as the phone decided to synchronise the settings without my knowledge or ignorance! #2 On the actual day, there was much confusion on whether the entourage had actually arrived. The plan was for my wife to cut her cake as she arrived. After many false alarms, when one signal, which appeared as genuine, arrived, all 50 candles were lit. Even after all the candles had melted and burned off, the guest of honour never arrived!

Don't you trust nobody, old chap!

A couple of weeks ago, I was an accomplice in someone's crime. A crime of a trivial nature meaning to do no one no harm but only a pleasant surprise. The intended victims are relatively young; hence their heart should be able to take the shock of the deceit!
The modus operandi was planned with the daughter of my friend (RM) calling to get contact numbers of my friend way back 6 months prior to the event. What event? My friend and wife's 50th birthday and 20th wedding anniversary. That was it. RM never called back.
She single handedly right under her parents' noses managed to arrange the venue, the caterers, contact all the relatives and friends secretly, sneak out some of the family photos for the slide presentation, organize the invitation cards, get the caterers, arrange the itinerary of the day and at the same time juggling with her work in college. She managed to cough off some of pocket money and squeeze out contributions from conniving relatives.
On D-day, her uncle, was to take the parents out a night out. In the pretext of wanting to check out the surprise party venue for his own social function, he managed to hoodwink my friend and his wife to the party and ....SURPRISE!!!!
My friend and his wife were flabbergasted, shell shocked but pleasantly surprised! They could not believe that their little girl had managed to contact all their old friends and relatives and arrange the whole event under the noses living under the same roof without the knowledge of her 16 year old sibling. My friend could not believe that his almost 80 year old who was ushering in the entire guest, whom my friend checks regularly for his well-being, decided to stay mum. And his mum too! All was forgiven in the name of meaning well.
RM handled the whole extremely well to earn complements from all attendees. My friend, who was undecided about sending RM to study overseas - being a young girl whose street-smartness was suspect, decided there and then she was up to it!
Talking of surprise birthday parties, I remember how my other half single-handedly (with the cooperation of friends and relatives, without the knowledge of my four then young blabber mouth kids) arranged my surprise 40th birthday party without  inkling to any of the occupants of my home!
Lesson in life to learn - Like the cowboys in the Wild West would say, "Don't you trust nobody!'