RIFLE RANGE BOY

A lady, visibly struggling with her gravid tummy, was heard conversing with a fellow attendee at a maternity clinic. Excerpts from her conversing, which were anything but discrete, were soon made known to others. She was complaining about how she still had to go to school carrying a pair of twins in utero with just less than one month from her due date. This year alone, five teachers had gone on maternity leave, leaving a large vacuum for others to fill up.  It does not help that her school had 80% of the teachers as ladies and that recently, maternity leaves had been extended from 60 days a few years previously to 98 days now.  "I am just wasting my time teaching children who are not interested in learning, anyway," she was lamenting.  Thanks, Mr Khoo! I remember when a teacher motivated me to push my boundaries beyond my imagination, reaching for the unthinkable. I was just an average student trying to sponge whatever little knowledge my teachers were trying to imp...

Pistol ( Disney +, miniseries; 2022) Director: Danny Boyle Thanks to my English language in Form 1, my friends and I were exposed to this British punk band. That, I think, is the role of a teacher - to expose the young minds to the real world, not just what is in the syllabus. Most teachers just wanted to finish their teaching plan and ensure that students were prepared for the public exams; KSG (Kiss Some Girls, he boasts) went that extra mile. He would tell us quickly excitable 13 and 14-year-old pubescents about the birds and bees. Somewhere along the way came the story of 'The Sex Pistols'. That was my first exposure to the Pistols, but only in name. The fact it was banned by the British Broadcasting Corporation made it even more fascinating. The jester of class JL used to croak out 'God save the Queen' with an obvious sexual connotation, much to the annoyance of KSG. At that juncture, I wonder if KSG thought that he should have stuck on to the syllabus. To this and...

PFS 55 GTG 2018 A meeting of students honouring their dear teachers.  ©FG The excitement was palpably clear. Hints of tinges of moistening of the angle of eyes were there but they tried to suppress it. Laughter was free-flowing, so were the stories of an era so distant yet so near. It was a reminiscence of the memory of a bygone era of Malaysia that we yearn to re-live and re-create. Chatter interspersed with occasional bouts of schoolboy chuckling and heckling was drowning the background piped-in music. A student went, "Gagool (as we referred to one of the fiercest teachers in Form 1; after the character in Henry Huggard Ridley's 'King Solomon's Mines') told me that I stank." The speaker is now a former state football player, who, during school holidays, was forever seen in possession of a soccer ball. It appeared like his main intention of attending school was to play football. He could come to school early, at noon, for the afternoon session, just t...

OFA – Be a little foolish, be a little different PFS to celebrate its 200th year – from The Star newspaper When I left Penang for university in the US, I also left Penang Free School before the school year ended. I felt I did so without disrupting much the life of the School: I wasn’t editor of the School magazine. I wasn’t Break Monitor, Class Monitor, Traffic Warden, House Prefect, or School Prefect. I didn’t captain any School sports team. In some subjects, I would usually get close to failing marks — ok, not in “some subjects” but in Art, specifically. Fellow students who were my seniors would routinely reject my writing submissions to school publications for my being too flippant (I had to look up what “flippant” meant the first time I heard back from one editor). School teachers would openly warn me in class for being disruptive, every so often. Fellow students who were my seniors and who trained with me in gymnastics would ask me why I kept coming back as I never seemed...

So there was this guy who appeared in a similar attire as mine on my 4th birthday bash back in 1967. His grandmother was my parents' landlady when they moved into their first matrimonial place of stay. Their relationship with this matriarchal figure persisted even when they moved into their own home. Hence, the invitation and the photograph.... After the meeting in the late 60s, our lives (both guys in striped shirts) intertwined again in secondary school, though in different classes and off we went again different ways after the 80s. As luck had it, with the help of social media, some old buddies met up at one friend's daughter's wedding. Midst of it all, a burly chap approached the table we were at, with the most boisterous of laughter. Quickly, he introduced himself. Everyone at the people was looking at each other, hoping that someone could correctly identify him. You see, he had now embraced a new name and new appearance after his wedding. Yes, not only ladies los...

PFS '63 GTG 50 (Penang) 14th December 2013 Another trip down nostalgia yet again but this time around a potpourri of different crowd which include teachers as well. The trip down memory was sweeter with the venue being none other than where it all started - the grounds of alma mater, more specifically the school canteen where many hours were spent yakking and interacting through the much anticipated times of school recess. The tuck shop, as it was known by the older generation teacher who were educated by educators from the British Empire, was also a hub for activities of the extra curricular type, i.e. uniformed and non-uniformed societies. In addition to supplying calories to the growing bodies, the canteen was also a place to prepare themselves for human interaction and survival skills in life later. 1976 If those days, there was an invisible fence that prevented free interaction between immature teenagers and the patriarchal (matriarchal) figures of teachers,...

What is success? How high do you want to go before you say enough is enough? How much do you want to be in the limelight? How high is high enough? Have you reached the zenith? Have you found what you are looking for? Will you ever? It is all a matter of perspective, whether your life is half empty or partially filled. If you sit down and analyse, you must have a tale to tell. It could be small or it could be big. If you dig deep enough, even if your life is not even half complete, you must have achieved something, anything, if you look hard enough! This I discovered during my last meeting with long lost childhood friends. On the outward, they may not look as glamorous or flamboyant as our typical mindset depict, they indeed have something to brag about. A small footstep for the rest of mankind but giant one indeed for him and from where he came from. Everyone will have something nice to be mentioned in their eulogies! Or may be you are still looking for the elusive pot of go...

31 years ago, they all left to start journey to their future, armed with the scroll of their knowledge. In their long treacherous and arduous journey, they must have swam through many sharks infested waters weathering through inclement weather. Some would have hit the jackpot; some into bottomless pit; some through bad decisions of life; some with incurable maladies; some through painful divorces; some trapped in the clutches of the black dog; some ventured into untested territories and God forsaken places; some happy; some sad and some were ashamed of their absence of achievements. The idea of getting together at 50 mooted about a year when YTH got a handful of people together for a simple dinner. It was followed a series of small meeting here and there. The killer shot materialised when my better/other half schemed my 50th surprise birthday party. All salutations to geeks who started social medias. With the help of emails, WhatsApp, FB and mobile communica...

Growing up in RRF, Amma tried all the ways that she knew that could impart the values that could mold her son into a knowledgeable individual. One of the ways that she carried off her duty was reading aloud the proverbs and quotations printed on the daily leaf of a Tamil calendar. This calendar had daily chart of good and bad astronomical times together with daily saying of the day. The leaf of the calendar is torn daily and viola, another gem comes out. Mother read me about JFK's 'Ask what your country has done for you...' long before I knew about American foreign policy, about 'turning the other cheek' from Gandhi and Jesus, and Socrates' call to think critically and question intelligently. I would then in turn rebut with some wise crack ridiculing the sayings but must helped in thinking outside the box. In the growing and trying age of teenage, quotations were a big deal. Teachers' autograph on annual school magazine were treated as gems. LHS' ...

This tune (Colonel Bogey March) brings back fond memories of the Penang Free School (PFS) band's rendition of this tune during School Sports Day. It was played solely on flutes while the band marched past the VIPs and parents' shed majestically with their their proud band master, colours and the impeccable laurels to match. Those were the glory days of PFS and its stature as one of the premier schools in the country! Hey, what do you know? It is something like the theme of the movie 'The Bridge of River Kwai'. Living on the pride of our institution! A snippet (Colonel Bogey March )  from the 1957's 7 Oscar winner (including Best Music Score - but there was hardly any 'music' in the movie!) - 'The Bridge over River Kwai' - showcasing pride of the British Army. This is not the kind of movie that my wife or children would fancy - there are no fancy clothes, no promiscuity, no lovey-dovey dialogues and provocative flashing of flesh! Here is a bit of ...

Continuation from 1st October 2010 ... 'Down but not out'  "Not bad," I thought to myself. After being unconscious for a month since the first day of Aidilfitri, being in the twilight of things in a world of paranoia, delusions and hallucinations afterwards, recovering from nosocomial infections, recovering from cellulitis after a poorly set infusion line, pressure sores, and still recovering from the weakness of both upper and lower limbs, it is nice to see Farouk alert, jovial and poking fun at himself after five months of hospitalization! And I have not gotten to the point of asking about his experience after 12 cardiac arrests. And he has not even completed the narration of his escapades in the four different hospitals in the Klang Valley. He attributes his victory so far to good deeds that he must have done, and God is slowly deducting them one by one. Looks like he has a lot of catching up to do to replenish his good records after this ordeal is all over! B...

Harakahdaily columnist Dr Farouk Musa ill Harakahdaily    KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 15: Activist and  Harakahdaily  columnist Dr Ahmad Farouk Musa  (pic)  has been admitted at Hospital Kuala Lumpur since last week for bacterial meningitis. His condition is reported to be critical. Dr Farouk, 47, a cardiothoracic surgeon by profession and a senior lecturer at Monash University, was admitted on Friday evening. He was later put on sedation. He is currently still warded at the intensive care unit, but has yet to regain consciousness. Friends who visited him at the hospital describe him as a person who never runs out of energy. Days before he was taken to hospital, he informed Harakahdaily's English editor that he was preparing for his next piece for his column,  'Islamism Revisited' . Late last year, he launched a new organisation called Islamic Renaissance Front, a youth empowerment movement which focuses on intellectual debate. The IRF has since held severa...

PFS was a new experience for me when I stepped into its compound in the early days of the year 1976. Besides the super-smart students that I had mentioned in the previous posts, there were equally memorable and dedicated teachers to match that. The most striking teacher that awed me was the late Mr Koh Sin Ghee. In Form 1A, he taught us the English Language. But in reality, he opened my eyes to many other things in life, like divergent thinking and letting the mind wander as well as being verbose. He would come in dressed in his 'uniform' of a long-sleeved white shirt, black pants and crimson coloured tie, carry his briefcase bearing his initials KSG. He would try to humour our young impressionable minds by saying that it stood for 'Kiss Some Girls', contributing much to the class's commotion. We called him DOM (Dirty Old Man) instead.  He was a self-proclaimed walking dictionary as he tried to open our eyes to the plethora of words in the English Language that...