All snuffed out?

Look at the literature on senile dementia. Invariably, the first thing to be mentioned about managing these patients is discontinuing statins. Funny. I remember a time not too long ago when statins were hailed as the greatest of human inventions, after sliced bread, of course. Some even advised starting statins prophylactically after turning 40. Besides its coronary vessel-sparing effects, statistics then proposed protection against fractures and reduced incidences of bowel cancers.

Something so good had suddenly gone over to Dark Side? If one loves long enough to be afflicted with dementia, wouldn't he also be having raised cholesterol, cardiac events and the gamut? Now comes the chicken and egg story. Did the statins precipitate loss of neural functions as the whole 3kg brain is nothing more than a lumpen of fat?

Why am I even not surprised that only after two years of decriminalising cannabis, basically to draw in tourist dollars, it has taken a 180-degree turn. The Thai authorities must have realised that it was all wrong. Now, they want to reserve marijuana for medicinal uses only, under prescription and supervision.

This thought has plagued me since childhood. At six, my father brought me to the race club. I remember getting all excited seeing all those majestic horses run. It must have left a strong impression on my young mind that I became excited when a prancing horse reel appeared on our home 16" black-and-white TV. That is when the fight started. My father must have had quite an earful—one for attending the turf club and, second, for bringing a six-year-old there.

Why is it so readily available for everyone if going to the races is wrong? In the same manner, my mother told me that it is wrong to smoke and indulge in intoxicants. But then, I saw both my grandfathers in a perpetual state of inebriety with beedis or other unfiltered cigarettes slipped between their fingers. Well, that is the schizophrenic world we live in, I soon realised.

If we look back at history, mankind has been yo-yo-ing between promoting and banning intoxicants, between party time and prohibition.

When sailors returned from the New World with leaves that could be smoked, people thought that that would be their new plaything. They thought it was fantastic. Then they realised it gave them nasty coughs. By then, it was too late. They were hooked. The natives back in the New World never had this issue as smoking was customary, not a leisurely activity.

When Europeans brought in the technique of distillation of alcohol from the Islamic Empires, the Europeans discovered drunkenness, bumps and cirrhosis. The Aztecs chewed coca leaves to give vitality. Europeans thought heroin was the panacea for all ailments from fibromyalgia to insomnia and alcohol addiction!

When William of Orange wanted to balance his trade with France, he thought the most novel way to do that was for the British to brew their own gin. This led to the Gin Craze and a generation of abandoned children because their mothers were too high to let their babies suckle. To offset this, a gin tax was instituted by the mid-18th century.

People have short memories. By the mid-19th century, in the Victorian Era, it was hip again to be seen in gin palaces. This was compounded by the fact that gin and beer were cleaner than drinking water, as the sanitation system was non-existent in London. The Thames was an open sewage stream. The flamboyant drinking palaces fizzled out under the weight of drunkards and their disorderly behaviour.

Gin Craze in London

Opium was an exotic Eastern product that made its way into Europe. It became a status symbol to be indulging in a bit of weed every now and then. It was customary for artists, writers, poets and even Sherlock Holmes to be on snuff. In their stately duties in the Empire, the British East India Company was actively growing them in India to balance their trade with China. They also flooded the Chinese market with cheap opium and turned the Chinese population into opium addicts, which they successfully did. Their misdeeds finally caught up with them to bite them at their posteriors.

So, it is a cycle. People will hail intoxicants, and then the ill effects will manifest. People will suppress them, only to forget all about them later. Rinse and repeat. We are just caught in the eternal cycle like a dog chasing its tail. For the record, one theory postulates that the inhabitants vanished without a trace because they were all addicted to soma.

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Hindus fight back!

Oh, My God! 2, OMG 2 (Hindi; 2023)
Written and Directed by Amit Rai.

In 1893, Chicago decided to celebrate Columbus' 400th anniversary of landing in the New World with a six-month-long fair. One highlight was an inter-faith dialogue, 'World's Parliament of Religions'. Swami Vivekananda addressed the crowd there with greetings' Sisters and brothers of America!' to a roaring standing ovation. That must have piqued the interest of the American public in the mysticism of Hinduism and other Eastern philosophies. Even before that, Emerson and Mark Twain were already fascinated with Hinduism.

Vivekananda's lecture impressed the audience that Hinduism was a knowledge-seeking way of life. He further opened the path for other Hindu spiritual masters to make inroads into America.

MK Gandhi, however, painted a somewhat different picture of how Sanarthana Dharma was. He portrayed Hinduism as a pacifist way of life, bearing injuries and insults without flinching, turning the other cheek with non-violence being the lynchpin. It gave a perfect opportunity for the colonial master to rule over them over and forever.

In 1921, under the wing of the Khilafat movement, Moplah Muslims went on a killing frenzy, slaughtering Hindus under the pretext of fighting the British to establish a Dar-ul-Islam with the Turkic Caliphate as the head. Gandhi paradoxically told the Hindus not to fight back but blamed them for not understanding their brethren.

That, continuing with the British handpicked post-independence leaders, who continued with Gandhi's pacifist stance, gave the impression that they were all-accommodating yeomen and pushovers. In keeping with ahimsa ideology, India felt, at least Nehru did, that they did not need an army at one stage after Independence.

Of late, the image of a Hindu being a meek, all-agreeing, head-wobbling individual is slowly evolving. In their own way, this is what this movie is trying to hint at Indians, how, over the generations, they have allowed and accommodated other cultures and teachings into their fold that their own highly-placed values had taken a toss. Starting with Macaulay and his educational reforms, Indians began glorifying foreign cultures and frowning upon their own ancient-old wisdom. And now, they have arisen from their slumber, realising that their old-aged understanding of things around them.

The story revolves around a teenage schoolboy who, through peer pressure, is forced and filmed pleasuring himself in the school toilet. The footage is viralled, and the boy is expelled from a private English school.

His father, Kanti, a shopkeeper and a devout Shiva devotee, pleads for his son to be reinstated to no avail. The principal, the school board and even the head priest of the temple. Kanti, who works as hard as he prays to uplift the family status, is caught in a betwixt and between. A simpleton, a non-English person, but to take the establishment to court, demanding reinstatement, a meagre donation to the temple and a public apology to his son. He acts as his own lawyer, much to the amusement of the townfolks, the defence lawyer and the judge. Unbeknownst to everyone, Lord Siva himself has sent his representative to give Kanti a little prodding and moral support.

Kanti's central defence is that sex and masturbation are natural behaviours sanctioned by India's age-old gurukal system. It remains the school's duty to provide sex education and prepare the young to deal with the biological changes of their body, not to treat sex as a dirty and taboo subject.

The irony of the trial is that the majority of the town, primarily conservative Hindus, whose economic activities revolve around a Shiva Temple, are pro-sex education. In contrast, the educated, English-speaking individuals are against open discussion on sex. Of course, God's side wins in the end.

The most stirring moment in the movie is when a sex worker goes on the stand. She indulges herself in the sex trade solely to finance her son's education in a private school. Despite the stigmata associated with the profession, she is left with Hobson's choice -all to give her offspring a better life.

A recurrent theme that seems to be cropping up is 'Kamasutra', the 2nd century Sanskriti text on sexuality, eroticism and emotional fulfilment. The puzzling thing is how a society which was so open to what happens behind the bedroom doors suddenly became so bashful about sexual desires.

P.S. I remember reading about Tagore's family being denied entry to a club for dressing indecently. Using Victorian dressing sense as the gold standard, high-collared necks and long-sleeved blouses replaced bare-breasted ladies draping the modesty with the loose end of their saree. In temples, even the heads need to be covered to show chastity. This, however, came about as an aftermath of the Islamic invasion. Women, wanting to hide their identity to escape the rape and torture by the marauding invaders, covered their heads as Muslim women did to blend in. Over time, that became a tradition in Muslim-ruled regions.

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Money can buy justice, or at least freedom!

Trial by Fire (2023, Miniseries)
Netflix

A management professor once told a joke about the Indian justice system. An 80-year-old man appeared for a molestation charge. After looking at the charge sheet, the judge queried, "you are accused of molesting a 16-year-old girl. Why? At this age..." The octagenarian replied, "Sir, I was also 16 when it happened!"

That is how long it takes the cogwheel of justice moves. It is not an Indian problem but a worldwide phenomenon. Part of the law school syllabus must be a paper on creative ways to dodge a trial and get away with it.

People enter a movie hall thinking they will be transported to a world of make-believe and forget real life's stresses for the next two hours or so. What audience who flocked to Uphaar cinema hall in Delhi on June 13th 1997, was far from it. They ended up struggling to stay alive when a transformer exploded. 59 people succumbed to smoke inhalation.

The general public patronises various public venues thinking that the licensing bodies and the enforcement units will do their part in ensuring safety for the general public. Victims of the fire also realised the hard way that all the while, the public has been short-changed. The businesses had been trying to maximise profits over safety. The local councils have been sleeping on their jobs as well. The question begs whether they deliberately looked the other way after their palms were greased.

Illegal extensions, indiscriminately increasing seats, and the erection of private viewing terraces only blocked exits. The doors were locked and bolted to discourage illicit entrees into halls, trapping and smoking the desperately trapped patrons to their deaths.

When the push came to the shove, even emergency response teams failed them. Their snail-paced lethargic swing to action was much to desired at a time when the public is aware of their rights is embarrassing.

Even the long arm of the law and cogwheel of the system appears to be dragging its feet. After 25 years, the parents of two teenage fire victims, Neelam and Sekhar Krishnamoorthy, are yet to see justice to be meted out to the owners of the ill-fated cinema hall. They, together with other relatives who had lost their loved ones in the fire, had taken a civil suit against the owners for negligence. They allege that they had neglected the safety of their clients.

The owners, big shots in Delhi, who had a hand in all development projects, are said to be big philanthropists with big community projects under their belts that seem untouchable. They are able to engage big-wig lawyers, and even the judges appear to feed off their hands. Delays and postponements are norms. Even the lawyer assigned to the defence by the Central Bureau of Investigation looked disinterested and needed prodding and feeding of information to proceed with the case.

Neelam and Sekhar, who wrote a book about their whole ordeal, had embarked on extensive TV interviews highlighting fire safety in public places. In one of such interviews, Neelam, out of sheer frustration, had blurted that she should have just taken a gun, shot the cinema owners and claim insanity rather than having faith in the legal system that seem skewed to protect the rich and famous. The rest of the population can just be taken for a ride with the false pretence that justice will prevail. In reality, money can buy justice or at least freedom.

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International. 

The thrills and spills of being hip...

Pam & Tommy (2022)
Disney + (8-episode miniseries)

The joyfulness of youth does not last forever. Its spills and its thrills fade with time. All the hormonally charged freshness of young adulthood eventually loses its mojo. They say we want to immortalise all these as you only live one (YOLO). Time and tide wait for no one too. Hence, there is a pressing need to freeze everything you have to last a lifetime. Time is man's greatest foe; the race between man and time always sided time. 

This country, this world is no place for older men or women. It is all about youth, vibrancy and freedom. Even Nature sides the young. With wear and tear, the facial musculature of the old naturally sags, giving its wearer a perpetual frowning facies. In the words of Schaupenneur, the world is a miserable place, and Nature knows it. Senescence is grim. Hence, the lips curve downwards with age, opposite to how a smiling face of innocence appears.

Pamela Anderson, in her iconic role

Photography and later video were God-sent. These can permanently capture the joy and visualisation of assets long after the battle scars of Hard Knocks of Life knock them down. With the advent of recording devices at everyone's disposal, immortalising that notable, intimate, non-event or pornographic material has never been easier.

It is a trend for newlyweds to digitally commemorate the image of their supple young bodies. As part of their wedding photography shootout, they even include a pose in their most sexually enticing pose in their birthday suits. This, they would like to admire way after the scars of life take over their mortal bodies. 

Since everybody is doing it, the peer pressure to get a full monty representation of the shames of the Garden of Eden is ever compelling. So every average Jane does it, and nobody gives a second look. Not when the player is every young man's dream girl - the buxom Pamela Anderson who gained stardom appearing semi-naked every week on Baywatch and had appeared without a thread as Hugh Heffner's bunnies.

Pamela and her then-husband, the wild cocaine-snorting Motley Crew's drummer, Tommy Lee, found out the hard way when their intimate honeymoon sex tapes were stolen that the world is not kind. 

Even though they laugh with you and encourage you to do whacky things, when you get on the wrong side of the law, you are actually alone. The world judges you through their conservative lens even though you think the world has changed. No siree. The media is there to yank you out of any shred of dignity still left you. Everybody just takes you to the cleaners. You are left shivering in the cold while everyone prospers on your account while you salvage whatever self-respect that is. Court injunctions and proceedings are just farce. It does not lead to anything meaningful.

The lesson here is that youth and love are many splendoured things. The underdevelopment of the neocortex of the frontal lobe makes you do many things. But remember, many of these things have long-term effects and ruin the rest of your remaining life. It is OK to be young and free, but freedom comes with specific responsibilities. You do not want to be stuck, on tenterhooks, for the rest of your remaining life with its aftermath.

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Follow the prescribed story?

Mauritanian (2021)
Directed by: Kevin MacDonald

20 years after the attack on the New York Twin Tower, the world is still at a loss of what actually happened on that historical day or the days leading to the event dubbed as the single most significant attack on American soil. People directly or indirectly will probably never have an appropriate closure to all their questions.

The world is given hopscotch information on what is known, what the intelligentsia believes happened and what they want us to think. Along with all is a narrative that the world should follow. Anyone deviating from the said account is deemed a conspiracy theorist.

The same thing is happening with a particular virus that is traced from the labs of Wuhan. With so many conflicting views, the Joe Public is left perplexed between needing to don a mask or not, vaccinate or not, and even trying alternative remedies. But no! The average Joe cannot form an opinion but instead simply obey the directives meted by the authorities, who themselves are clueless and are guided by self-serving politicians and businessmen. The powers-that-be have decided that citizens must be monitored digitally, and non-vaccination meant the loss of certain privileges. 

I heard about Nancy Hollander through the 'Advocates The Podcast', a podcast sponsored by Taylor's University in Malaysia. After interviewing many top guns in the legal profession from the world over, the interviewers spoke to this New Mexico lawyer. My curiosity piqued to find out more about her. My research revealed that she is a rabble-rouser, involved in cases defending Guantánamo Bay detainees and a military whistleblower, Chelsea Manning, who leaked classified information to Wikileaks. Yes, she received her law degree from the same place as Saul Goodman! I also found out that a film had been made on her endeavour to free a Guantánamo inmate, and Jodie Foster was cast to play her. And here it is.

In the frenzy to put a name to the mastermind who orchestrated the 9/11 attack, a Mauritanian national, Mohamedou Ould Slahi, was incarcerated without a charge for 14 years. Thanks to the passing of the Freedom of Information Act, Hollander, as his defence counsel, was able to scrutinise the day-to-day abuses inflicted upon Slahi. Slahi was able to describe the sexual molestations, the threats to his mother, the waterboarding torture, etcetera in letters which later became the first book (Guantánamo Diary) by a Guantánamo prisoner.

The movie shows what an independent judiciary system can do to open the maggots festering in a system that is supposed to take care of its citizens. In the name of national security and the need to keep information away from the prying eyes of the enemy of the state, injustice is justified. An emotional movie with a stellar performance by its main characters. Benedict Cumberbatch appeared as the conscientious Prosecutor, and Tahar Rahim (seen as Sobhraj before) plays Slahi. 4/5.

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Convincing enough for a conviction?

The Staircase (Documentary, 13 episodes; 2018)
Netflix

No, the truth does not somehow mysteriously appears out of thin air and settles the score. Often, the perpetrator goes scot-free. It is not unusual for fall guys to carry the burden. Innocent bystanders who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time sometimes get suckered in. Tonnes of news of the incarcerated getting reprieve with newer modern scientific revelations, e.g. when DNA evidence comes to fore, is evidence of this. Truth does not manifest on its own. We have to make it appear. At the end of the day, the determinant is money. With ever-increasing legal fees and protracted trials that last forever, proving innocence is the domain of the well-heeled. The impoverished are just left to the spiralling uncertainty of time and divine intervention. 

It is a game of poker. It is a question of how long can one hold his card. Court cases can run till the money runs out or the accused is out of breath, metaphorically and biologically. Anyway, at the end of it all, the court does not give a bill of innocence. It merely states that the accused is 'not guilty' when it acquits someone. It does not say 'innocent'. It is saying, "damn, you managed to defend yourselves with good legal representation that money can buy. It is no match against our prosecutors and the evidence that the State had collected!" Justice does not fall in the equation.

'The Staircase' is a documentary presentation of the trial of a fiction writer, Michael Peterson. The Durham, North Carolina 911 helpline, in December 2001, received a call from a near-hysterical Michael asking for help after his wife's apparent fall of the stairs. A week later, Michael is charged for the murder of his wife, Kathleen. Kathleen had broken thyroid cartilage but died primarily of blood loss from seven laceration wounds on her scalp.

Citing disproportionate blood loss for a simple fall from stairs and the unaccountable scalp wounds moved the prosecutor to charge Michael for murder. Then the bag of worms came out. Michael's desktop hard drive showed him entertaining gay porn sites and liaison with a particular gay prostitute. The prosecutor surmised that the discovery's of Michael's sexuality probably inspired an argument, and in the heat of emotions, Michael could have struck Kathleen on the head and subsequent fall. 

Michael, an ex-Marine, was once stationed in Germany. He was married with two kids then. His neighbour, Elizabeth, an American and a close family friend, also died after falling off a flight of stairs. Even though her death was certified as an intracranial haemorrhage, her case was linked to somehow to Kathleen's. Elizabeth's body was excavated for re-autopsy, but nothing incriminating was found.

The trial went on and on. Michael's family was fragmented. On his side were his sons from his first marriage, his two adopted daughters (Elizabeth's daughters) and Patricia, his first wife. The deceased, Kathleen, was Michael's second wife.

Kathleen's sister and Kathleen's daughter, Caitlin, from her first wedding, were ferociously working with the prosecution to get a conviction for Michael after initially rooting for Michael!

The jury found Michael guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. After repeated appeals, 8 years into incarceration, Michael finally had his appeal heard. In an unrelated case, a vital defence witness who appeared in Michael's trial had falsified evidence. Michael was put on house arrest awaiting retrial. By then, money had run out for the lawyers. David Rudolf, who was doing an excellent job representing Michael, excused himself but later appeared pro bono.

In 2017, 16 years after the nightmare started, Michael Peterson finally took an Alford plea to voluntary manslaughter to end it all. He vehemently maintains his innocence till today, but on paper, he is guilty.

People are divided on Michael's guilt. The police have a bone to pick with him. As an editor in a local newspaper, Michael has often highlighted the police shortcomings and inefficiencies. 

Another theory that had been floating around is the 'rogue owl theory'. Batted owls are known inhabitants of the woods around Michael and Kathleen's habitat. Owls have been reported to attack people unprovoked. This could have happened to Kathleen. Feeling tipsy with wine and startled by an owl clutching her scalp, she could have run and tripped down the flight of stairs. The peculiar scalp laceration, extensive blood loss and absence of skull fracture and brain injury could be due to the talons of a barred owl. In retrospect, micro-feather fibre and bird feathers were found on the body.

The justice system is flawed. It metes different justice to different people. A starving person is imprisoned for stealing, whilst a politician who embezzled billions is still gallivanting around because he has not exhausted all the legal avenues available to prove his innocence. It should be read as he still has enough money to hire cunning legal eagles to look for a loophole in the system or get the bench members convinced with some kind of junk science or sly sleight of hand. Period.

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Just another day at work?

Court (Hindi, Marathi, Gujerati, English; 2014)
Screenplay, Director: Chaitanya Tamhane

I remember a joke someone told recently. 

There was once a 75-year-old man who was brought to a magistrate. The spreadsheet showed that the accused was charged with molesting a 17-year-old girl.

The magistrate looked at the 75-year-old and asked, "Why? At this age, why all these? A 17-year-old?"

The accused replied, "Sir, I was also 17 when the incident happened!"

That pretty much explains how slow the legal machinery works and how farcical some of the red tapes are.

Sorry to keep you waiting!
Doctors are humans too, they need to eat.

The men in robes (and women) argue about the most frivolous point and drag their feet to put an end to the misery that the legal system places on the Joe Public.  For them, it is another day in paradise, appearing important and flaunting their verbosity. It is another day of loss of income and the uncertainty of the unknown for the average Joe.

The public looks upon the members of the legal system as someone larger than life, living true to the tenets of life and holding 'the truth' close to their hearts in everything they do. Lest we forget, they are also human beings crumbling to the trappings of life.

If songs can kill

This Marathi movie is said to be one of the best made Indian movies ever made, as described by big movie stars and filmmakers. Unfortunately, if the proof of the success of a movie is in its box-office collection, it did miserably despite receiving multiple international accolades. It was made by a debutante director who received inspiration after spending a day in an Indian court. It was a world of difference from the usual melodrama-filled court drama often depicted on the silver screen. And that is what this film is all about. He tried to illustrate the sombre mood at the courts and how the wheel of justice moves ever so slowly. He goes on to show how the officers of the court, including the judge, the public prosecutor and the defence lawyer, just go on with their lives, seemingly detached from the devasting effects their actions or inactions can have on the fate of people they are entrusted with trying. The lawyers are not as passionate, assertive or demonstrative as police dramas show us.

In reality, the worker did not commit suicide. There are

simply not enough protective gears to go around. The

blame goes back to workers and others in the vulnerable

groups. 

'Court' centres around a 65-year-old folk singer-teacher-social worker who is charged for enticing a sanitation worker to commit suicide via his songs. An archaic law still in force, making it a crime to sing inciteful songs, is probably a colonial legacy. A sanitation worker apparently entered a manhole without any protective apparatus with the suicide in his mind, it is alleged.


The folk singer denies everything. He did not know his songs had such effects on his listeners. He is defended by a well-heeled activist and defence lawyer who is well versed in English, Hindi and Gujerati but not Marathi, in which the whole court proceeding is conducted. Then there is the feisty prosecutor who morphs into a housewife and a mother outside the courts. The judge, we soon learn, believes in numerology and can also be impulsive when challenged outside the courts. The filmmakers humanise all the characters. They are never overtly good or bad, but just products of the space and social construct they grow.

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Wisdom is found when you step out of the shadows and into the light.

My Story: Justice in The Wilderness
Author: Tommy Thomas.

This book has generated so much publicity, even from people who have not managed to read it. Its sales have soared tremendously, selling off the shelves like hotcakes and has gone into multiple reprints in such a short time. The speed at which police reports were registered almost days after the book's release exposed Malaysian readers' voraciousness. Whether these people actually read the book is another question altogether.

Over the years, Malaysians have realised that rumours carry more weightage than the official narrative. Coffee-shop talks invariably turn up to be accurate, despite all denials. This book just affirms all of the above.

In my opinion, this book can be described as a logbook of a person who had completed his tour de force which he considered a national service for his country. He was given a mandate by the people to perform a task, and this is his way of saying this is what he did and what he failed to do. His report also describes what he found during his mission and the dead-ends that he could not overcome. A tinge of nostalgia can be seen as he narrates Malaysia's history that he grew in, his background, and the man behind the post of Attorney General of Malaysia.

For most Malaysians, what is described in the book is nothing new. We all know about it but just too courteous to squeal. Many did not want to rock the boat for fear of repercussions. We bicker and whine amongst friends, but the buck ends there. We do not utter this in polite company. As long as they can earn a living comfortably, like the cowardice German intellectuals Niemöller referred to, we do not confront the dragon. 

My civil service experience showed me there is ample opportunity to improve one’s capabilities, which would benefit the public. The only thing that seems to be the stumbling block could have been the individual’s inertia or the comfort of his safe zone. If one is engrossed in serving the public and making a mark, as public servants are supposed to do, i.e., to serve the people, he would be too short of time. Work is never finished, but the quality of work needs to be assessed periodically. 

When TT highlighted the numerous areas that AG’s office was deficient, many got hot under their collars/robes. For example, when Equanimity had to retrieve from Indonesian waters, TT realised that his office had a dearth of experience dealing with Maritime legal procedures. It is not that there is no such expertise here in Malaysia. Only that the AGC did not seem to keep up with the changes. 

With TT’s good office, he managed to get the correct people for the job, and it turned out favourable to the people of Malaysia. If one noticed from the book, many counsels from the private sector are more than willing to go pro bono for the country. 

One of the main gripes of the far right-wing of society on TT’s tenure is his alleged ‘handling’ of Adib's death, the firefighter. This book is a canvas for TT to show his side of the story where his job was to help set a coroner’s tribunal and aid them with the necessary information. 

The last thing that TT would be guilty of his racism and denigration of a particular society's ethnicity. He clearly calls a spade a spade. He gave due when it was and did not mince his words when he saw deficiencies. 

From my reading, TT’s 22 months’ tenure at the helm of the highest legal advisor to Malaysia's Government is a short-lived dream. In the pitch of darkness that the Malaysian were enduring pre-GE 14, we had a plan. It came through. During REM sleep, at a time of bliss, came a dream with the hope of a better tomorrow, the bubble popped. The bark of a distant dog shook us from that slumber. We were brought to the ground to realise that our neighbourhood was bountiful with many dogs and dog owners' paranoia that their property will be broken into. They do not mind the occasional ugly encounters with their beast or the occasional litter they drop around the housing estate. And we stay awake for the rest of the night.  

Like in the cave allegory, we build our own echo chamber, self-aggrandising our perceived achievements. If we stay too long in the cave, the light may be too blinding for us to accommodate that we may recoil into the kingdom of one-eyed-Jack or the blind for validation.

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

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