No ideal system

The Hungarian Parliament House by the Danube at sunset

They did not know where they came from. They intelligently guessed they must have come from the Ural mountains around 800CE. No, say the archaeological finds. Excavations showed carvings and even scripts that go back 5,000 years!

Modern history tells them of Prince Stephen, the first devout Catholic King canonised posthumously.

People were happy going about their daily lives, leaving the administration to the monarch, whom they were programmed to believe God Himself ordained. They were glad to part with a portion of their hard-earned produce in return. After all, He decides whether the people should live, suffer, or die.

Soon, times turned for the worse. Other nations tried to dominate. People’s trust in the Divine soon dissipated. Then, Godless men steamrolled their ideology upon them. The communists preached equality and Utopia on Earth. It was, of course, another tale to outwink the unassuming.

They knew they had to rise. An uprising in 1956 was easily squashed by the mighty Soviet tanks. It was the status quo till the mighty dream of equality, as in other parts of the world, came tumbling down in by its own pompous weight.

Fed up with the single brand of soap and the Hobson choice of ugly-looking cars, they were enticed by the variety offered by capitalism's charm. They opened their borders for others to come in and learn about their heritage and how they made it as a race throughout their history.

Hungarian Sunset

Remembering the gruesome end of captured Jewish

prisoners at the end of WW2. All were paraded by

the Danube, including children,  to receive a bullet to

end their misery. Stone shoes to remember the incident.

A pensive moment by the Danube

The site where Stalin's statue used to be. Was brought
down during the 1956 uprising. Stalin was replaced by God.

Terror Museum @ Budapest. To remember the terror the Hungarians endured over the
generations. Nothing black or white about terror. One man's terror is another man's law and order.

A repenting Dracula reading the Bible!
One of the many mini statuettes around Budapest.

Hero's Square commemorates the many fallen heroes,
for the Crown, God and a piece of cloth @ a flag or
a piece of paper, maybe as an ID or passport!

Stood still through it all! At King Saint Stephen's Basilica.

The Marvel of Man and Engineering.

Ordained by the Divine!

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Another piece of Malayan history

Carey Island - Historical Island (Tamil; 2022)
வரலாற்று சிறப்பு மிக்க கெரித்தீவு

Author: M Govindasamy

In 1988, when I was a doe-eyed newbie starting work in Klang, I was assigned to many in-patients who hailed from a peculiar place called Carey Island. I swear I knew the small islands around Malaysia, but I had never encountered any Carey Island. In Penang, where I grew up, my contemporaries and I tried to excite ourselves by quizzing each other and trying to locate islands on the atlas. Our interests were piqued by the people manning the now-defunct ferry services between Penang Island and Butterworth. The ferries were named after islands around Malaysia - Langkawi, Tioman, Pangkor, Redang, etcetera. The name that excited us most was Pulau Babi Besar. Sadly, Pulau Babi Besar is now renamed Pulau Indah, as the previous name hurt the sentiments of small hogs and those who perceived the animal as unclean.

Carey Island is no island at all. It is part of the state of Selangor, which is dissected by a river on one side and maybe an irrigation canal on the other side to make it an island of sorts. 

I remember many patients who were brought in from Carey Island were plantation workers with a multitude of social problems, including domestic issues and suicide attempts. 

The history of Carey Island is strongly interlinked with the history of British rule in Malaya. Even before the British exploited the group of land over the western part of Selangor, the island was already occupied by indigenous people and a smattering of Malays, Chinese and Indians even before the land was 'developed' by the colonial masters. 

Carey Island is technically not an island.

The Carey family was related to one of King Henry XIII's wives. Edward Valentine Carey's family acquired a massive piece of land in Ceylon to develop a thriving coffee plantation named Amherst. Through appeasement deals with the British, Edward Carey was gifted with a parcel of land in Gombak and, later, in 1899, a piece of land on the western coast of Selangor. The Gombak plantation land was christened New Amherst Estate Gombak.

Carey Island, a piece of land that came to be called later, was exploited to cultivate coffee, coconut and rubber. Together with the development of this land came labourers from South India and other immigrants to complement the bustling economy.

This book is a trip down memory lane of some of the landmarks on the island via photographs to remind the readers of how this island contributed to the national economy and became part of the narrative of the three generations of settlers who call this place home.

 

A few exciting snippets here. Unlike the common perceptions that crows, who are currently the unceremonious natives of Klang, came as stowaways on a merchant ship, they were actually actively sourced from Ceylon. Crows were brought in to gobble up worms that were a menace to their plantation.

Malaria was a severe problem for the occupants of Carey Island. Many died due to the disease. Only after Ronald Ross discovered the cause and ways to keep this menace under control did the State Health director institute measures to rein the ailment under control. The director went on to be knighted later on.

There used to be an active ferry service until a modern bridge was built to make the service redundant by the 1980s.

https://careyisland.info/

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Appearance not substance

I do not want to see the skyline. I want to know how the

background looks with me as the subject. It is all about me, 

myself and I. 

From a group of people who thought that peeking into a mirror was looking at the devil itself and that posing in front of a camera would drain a person's soul, we have come a long way. Our generation is easily the one that has the most access to how they look. Rather than posturing at their better side, they seem to want to see every angle of the body. They yearn to have the perfect photo-friendly display of the best that they have to offer. They want to be forever in portrait mode. Every passing moment is a potential Instagram moment, and they must be ready. They do not want to be caught in an awkward pose, opening the mouth too wide, with the hair unkempt or even with a face incongruent to the camera's angle. 

Their every second of their existence must be an 'insta' worthy moment!

Don't even preach that inner beauty is more important and that one has to be beautiful on the inside or that beauty is skin deep. It is easier to make a conclusion by perusing the outside. Exploring inner attraction is too tiring and cumbersome.

These are some of the thoughts that went through my mind as I witnessed a few events recently. Two of them were life-altering academic achievements, while the other was festival merriment. It seems to me that well-wishers who attended the function were there to sort of mark their attendance by pixellating their presence forever. Whether they were there to genuinely extend their felicitations is another question. Their preoccupation was to take pictures of the host in different combinations of friends and relatives like in a round-robin football match to pick out the team with the most goals. In this case, the person who appears most photogenic. Do they not realise that saying that one is photogenic means that he or she is ugly in real life but deceptively appealing in pictures.  

Amma used to say, "This world is about appearance, not substance. But with time, beauty will decay, but the matter will withstand the test of time."

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Valencia - Land of Paella

I was taken back when I was told that paella (pronounced payea) was the national dish of Spain; surprised because it was basically a variant of what Malaysian know as 'nasi goreng' and that rice could be a staple food in a region in Europe. Rice was introduced to this region in the 10th century by the Moors in Andalusia, making rice eating a custom in this region. Valencia is well known for its varieties of paella.

Paella - the rice is of the round ended variety, bomba rice. ©FG

Seafood paella, pick your choice: rabbit meat, snail, squid with black ink. ©SKCL

Around the railway station ©FG

High Street ©FG

Like opium to the masses, every town in Spain has a football team to showcase the prowess of the local boys. Everybody is happy; the boys who have their soccer stars to look up to for aim in life, the local populace are kept busy anticipating their favourite team's next outcome, the local thug with his betting racket, the local council with revenue, the club with selling tickets and memorabilia, the country with the proud yell of nationalism and the Malaysian bookies who decide the success or fall of the clubs. 

Valencia FC stadium - Mestalla ©FG

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The confluence of people exchanging their produce is the precursor of business activities. The Central Market of Valencia is an important landmark for visitors. Around this iconic structure are many sites of historical significance.

Even the Market (Mercado) is a tourist attraction ©FG

Jamóne ©FG

Aesthetically pleasing and pleasant to olfactory senses - Valencia Mercado Central ©FG

Around the Central Market ©FG

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In the vicinity of the Virgin Square ©FG

Cathedral of Valencia ©FG

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Valencia is an important port city. In the 15th century, it was an important trade centre before its role dwindled as the trans-Atlantic dealings became more lucrative. In its heydays, the area around the Central Market was abuzz with activity. Many a priceless deal were inked under the roofs of The Silk Exchange building, the structure considered one of most attractive and architecturally important of ancient Valencia. 

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Look at the intricate woodwork over the ceiling and be mesmerised! ©FG

3D effect flooring ©FG

Fine masonry ©FG

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Gothic ceiling ©FG

The City of Arts and Sciences is an ultra-modern looking nouveau designed building thathouses exhibition halls, museum, recreational water park, oceanographic centre and an opera house. Unfortunately, it looked grossly underutilised with hardly any activities on-going.

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https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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