The Chair

I stood on four straight legs , offered my seat. Unobtrusive, but always noticed. Had they not brought in the new dog I’d still be there. Locked me up with the lonely dog when they left. First he pulled down the plastic tablecloth, then he tore up the calico sofa. Then he remembered my vinyl seat. Angry, he bit into me, shredded my seat, pulled out my foam. They came home, kept the dog, threw me out. I stood in the cold and drizzle for two days. A waiting seed saw my leg, germinated and quickly climbed up. Happy now.

One Leg

One Leg

Left jeans leg ironed flat, held up by nappy pins. No bulge below hip. DHL shoulder bag, yellow cap on head. Denim jacketed he walks blue socked, on one sandal and two crutches wood and rubber tipped. Gauze cloth pads under arm-pits . Comfortable. Not a challenge. Not fragile. Mobile. Makes steady pace. Chiselled face calm. No amputation pain lingers. Branches smile, brave grass whisper underfoot. No curious eyes, he’s known in these parts. Cleaning lady, “Hey, jo san.” He nods. With sturdy square shoulders he approaches apartment block. Woman, with two shopping bags, rushes, opens glass door. He disappears.

Fitted Furniture

I love Ikea. Flat shoes, backpack, Ikea strut. A true follower of fashion, of stylish home decor. A catalogue student, a regular furniture addict. Carry-home affordable, neat flat-packs. Puzzle out at home, fix four-legged chair as three-legged. Left over screws and screwdriver in plastic bag, spare leg? One bed, two headboards, and one sunken mattress. Bent bookshelves, warped cabinet doors, and peeling tabletop. Velcro curtain, cheerful quilt, and tinted glassware. Favourite perfumed candles, vibrant house plants. Toys, no children to buy for. Tight furniture for tight homes, fresh white or warm wood hue. One size fits all. Way of life.

Visit

Margaret visits. City unhinged behind us. Moet glasses filled, long noon crsip. Autumn light filters in. Talked of this and that, destruction of universe, reckless fundamentalists, climate change. Burning joss-sticks, paper money for hungry ghosts pollute. Believe in God? I said no, pursued it no further. End life when terminal, agreed. Donate body parts, I said. She said, no, we disagreed. Judge not your fellow beings, Deepak Chopra. Photography is good, says so much. Why do we write? We have something to say. The day moves on, out through the sliding doors into the garden. Good bye. Keep in touch.

Bus Stop

Petals float down in rhythm to the morning haze, fall at my feet. iPod Tibetan chant soothe into the curves of my body. The wooded slope behind me encourages last night‘s rain into rivulets. Downhill, on the horizon, the sea sparkles silver blue. Safe. A distant memory of grey wave frothing up a tsunami. The 103m mini bus nearly screeches past. I climb on, press my octopus card. $92 balance it indicates. The woman waves, throws plastic bags of rubbish into green trundle bin. The driver takes off, one ear plugged into his mobile phone. The woman misses the bus.

The Exchange

One soldier captured one wounded by Hamaz in return for Palestinian men, women and children in Israeli jails.

By any stretch of imagination a most disproportionate exchange. So who are these men and women in the Israeli prisons?

Most of them are those who have been dragged out by the Israeli soldiers from homes in the middle of the night or before dawn, or by surprise raids on farms and refugee camps on mere suspicion of wrong doing. Israeli armies enter Palestinian cities, towns, villages and refugee camps and carry out their atrocities killing and arresting.

Military power in the hands of the mighty made even mightier with the help of Bush and his government aided by the American Zionist Christians.

The children in Israeli prisons:

“Rakan Ayad Nasrat was arrested by Israeli forces one September on his way home to Jericho from Bethlehem.

“While in Israeli custody, Rakan has been sexually assaulted by a soldier, severely beaten by prison guards, threatened with electric shocks and subjected to long periods of solitary confinement.

“He has also tried to commit suicide four times.

“Rakan is 12 years old, and a prisoner in Israel.”

More than 95% of Palestinian child prisoners have no special facilities, or special treatment or privacy. Contrary to all international regulations the children are tortured, treated with inhumanity, and exposed to degradation and sexual abuse.

The Israeli youth is a minor until he reaches 18, the Palestinian youth in Israel is a minor until he is 16. When the Palestinian child prisoner reaches 16 he is tried as an adult prisoner.

Since the new Al Aqsa Intifada of September 2000 more than a 1,000 detained while they were children now continue to serve prison terms. About 90% of these children are guilty of THROWING STONES and therefore considered dangerous. They pose “Security Threats.”

More than 2,200 minors, guilty of security threats mainly have been imprisoned since the start of the Intifada.

Footnote:

Intifada literally means “shaking off,, to set free from Israeli oppression. The first Intifada started on 8th Dec 1987 when four Palestinian men queuing at a checkpoint into Gaza were crushed to death by an Israeli army transporter. The second Intifada started in Sept 2000 when Sharon with over 2,000 Israeli soldiers desecrated the Al Aqsa Mosque and killed 4 people.

Destruction of a Nation

The world watches as a humanitarian crisis escalates by the hour in Lebanon. For more than two weeks we have stood by as the country has been plunged into death and destruction. First the power plant destroyed cutting off electric supply, leaving civilians with no lighting, air-conditioners, power for water and sewage plants, no communication, and food rotting in fridges. From then on horror upon horror has befallen the innocent.

The Israelis, with full fire power backing from the US, have savagely destroyed the country and its people with the excuse of seeking out Hezbollah. The aerial bombardment has paralysed the country, airport disabled, roads destroyed, bridges blown and sea access has blocked by the Israeli navy. No escape for thousands, so escape for the poor, the old, the children and the disabled. Wounded cannot be moved and food and aid cannot be brought in. Even those who had the means to get out could not. Foreign governments managed to airlift and ship out those with foreign passports many of whom will be displaced persons in their own countries. Those who have fled have left behind families and friends.

The ones who have sought shelter in bunkers or refugee camps are not safe. Targeted bombing they call it. But the targets have been “miss-targets” or have these mistakes have been carried out purposely. Even when the targets were accurate more civilians were in line of fire than the Hezbollah. More than 700,000 civilians have been made homeless, thousands maimed and injured and close to 700 killed, not counting bodies under rubble in areas unsafe to get to. More than one third of the dead and injured are children.

And all this now for two kidnapped Israeli soldiers. Two men in exchange for Lebanese prisoners languishing in Israeli jails.

Surely there are other ways of negotiating.

Monk

A monk I saw this morning, not far from me, in grey, happy, sacred. We connected. He smiled a living smile, a transforming smile. His joy beautiful stirred me, brought a tear. A deep smile emanated within me too and stayed. A taxi driver cut across my road dangerously close, I smiled, waved him on. He waved back, apologetic. I see the monk’s face in other faces, not old, not young but in widely wrinkled smiles. This monk, his joy and his smile will remain with me. We will meet again, and connect a kind face, a small brass bowl.

And Let There Be No Light

And Let There Be No Light.

City of Lights, a name we have claimed for ourselves in a region of power shortages, outages and brown-outs. Hong Kong has the highest number of neon lights in the region.

It is said August 8, the double 8s, of 2006 has been slated for light-out.

City of Darkness. Let’s do it.

Switch off all the lights except the essential ones, those needed for hospitals, traffic, air-control. Turn off the “neons.” Off with the lights in restaurants, offices, and homes. Yes, let’s plunge this polluted island into darkness for 5 to 10 minutes at sunset.

Drastic measure, drastic situation.

Yesterday, late afternoon, a huge pall of fog came up from the sea and obliterated the mountains of New Territory before moving in to blot out Central, Wan Chai, and Causeway Bay, bringing dusk too early, causing alarm.

People walk around wearing masks or with hands over their noses and mouths. News readers tell us not to our allow children out of class rooms, and the elderly and the sick are told not to go out of their homes. Hospitals fully occupied, doctors overworked, waiting rooms overflow. Children, lethargic, sit around in adult clinics, no room at the paediatrician. Sounds like science fiction, but science fiction it is not. It is Hong Kong in the throes of unprecedented pollution.

“Oh, what can we do,” say the politicians, wringing their manicured hands.
“The tourists won’t be coming to fill our coffers.” How illogical, how thoughtless! Can we first make sure our citizens are healthy before worrying about the tourists? Dead citizens cannot be there to receive them when the tourists decide to come.

Let us not take heart in the fact that other cities of the world are more polluted. Neither does it help us when we lie to ourselves by setting standards different from international ones, to measure low when moderate, moderate when high or severe.

Hong Kong is an island but pollution is not. Improving our air quality lies not only with us but also with our neighbours. Our own pollution constitutes about 30 % and the rest, that affects us, is from our immediate neighbours. To the north of us lies the vast continent, our mother-land. The regional air now is so heavy with pollutants that prevailing winds do not disperse our emissions any more. Let us not waste time and energy in blame. The authorities of all neighbouring regions must get together and sort this out, and now.

Let the silent and dark protest begin. Let us switch off the lights on August 8.

Remembering Hiroshima

Sasaki Sadako was given only twelve years on the wings of a thousand cranes.

Today on the wings of every child’s crane let there be this request:

“Please bequeath the universe to us intact, in peace, and in love. Let us live.”

Pet Dogs and Strays

Hong Kongers are great dog lovers. To many, dogs are nearly human, they love them and care for them and spend much time with them. There are also others who want to own pets and so choose to reside in the country side; that is in villages in the New Territories. They have exacting careers and put in long working hours with little time for themselves or their pets. Love and passion come in small doses mainly on week ends. Often their dogs are left in the care of maids who are employed to do household chores; and not to take dogs for long walks, bath and feed them and pick up poo after them.

Some dogs are left unattended either inside the homes, in balconies, or on roof tops. In the village where we live one neighbour left their five dogs on small balcony while they went to work, and overwork, and often came home close to midnight. The dogs barked all day. Most dog owners or their maids pay no attention when their dogs bark incessantly day and night.

There are also many inconsiderate neighbours who walk their dogs. They carry newspapers and plastic bags and look as if they are intent on cleaning up after their dogs. These pet lovers are happy to keep their homes and gardens clean and walk their dogs to someone else’s gate or path or parking lot and allow their pets to urinate and defecate. When their dogs have done their business the owners or maids delicately walk away with their precious pets and their newspapers and plastic bags.

Some dogs are left loose and vicious day and night. They spend their day having much fun attacking passers by and by night running wild with packs.

The problem of stray dogs is further aggravated by people who believe they are doing good, getting merit points in dog heaven, by going round their villages leaving large amounts of food for dogs. This practice not only feeds the dogs, tame and wild, but also encourages a large population of well fed rats.

Calling the Agricultural and Fisheries department to alert them of wild dog situation is a fun process; one is sent from one department to another until one comes back to the first person spoken to. One fine day the dog catchers did arrive in our village. Since I called them and they had my address they came, in their van, to a screeching halt outside my home, several men jumped out exceedingly noisily. One pulled out a large butterfly net while the others whipped out their mobile phones to check out the autheticity of the report made and the exact location. The three wild dogs that were resting outside my gate slunk away from right under their noses and right before their eyes. I admire the men’s style but not their dog-catching skills.

We still have a huge nuisance of barking dogs, dog poo in our parking lot, and the wild pack has now increased to seven.

Audio Books

I am a huge audio books fan, make them unabridged, please. It is the tradition of listening to a wandering minstrel, listening to the story teller syndrome.

“Deep reading really demands the inner ear as well as the outer ear,” said Harold Bloom, the literary critic. “You need the whole cognitive process, that part of you which is open to wisdom. You need the text in front of you.”

Very true, I do smell, touch, wipe off the dust and read the book. Then I listen to the audio version except for John Grisham. I do not read him. I listen to him when I jog, having run the same route 10 times I stop listening to the birds and the bees and to switch John G.

When it comes to readers I prefer experienced trained voices. One has to be careful about writers reading their own work. With the exception of a few writers most tend to drone on a bit. Why spoil a good book just because the author thinks he or she can read.

Listen to Patrick Suskind’s Perfume read by Sean Barrett. Jeremy Irons is brilliant with his rendition of “Lolita”. You don’t have to worry about trying to pronounce those wonderful Russian names in “Crime and Punishment”. Let someone else read to you.

Writers who can write well and read to you with an inner passion are rare. Amongst those who can do this is Toni Morrison. She reads her work with passion and colour, so beautifully African-American. Listen to John le Carre read his “The Tailor of Panama”; so Latin- American, so English, and so Scottish. You can’t but be transported to his places and intrigues.
I fell in love again with Wales and the Welsh with Dylan Thomas’ reading of his “A Child’s Christmas in Wales”.

Don’t listen to Dean Koontz’s “Intensity” when you are alone at night. You just might end up with cardiac arrest when a mosquito buzzes by, the merest disturbance will make you jump out of your skin.

It is indeed relaxing to listen to audio books when going to bed. I listen to Sogyal Rinpoche’s “The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying” in bed. Not only am I relaxed, but I am also ready in case I wake up the next morning and find I am dead.

Now I am off to buy that Ipod. I hear there are some free downloads of audio books. Right now it is a little cumbersome changing the batteries of that CD walkman strapped to my hips. Those dish washing rubber gloves get in the way.

PS: I am a frequent visitor to the HK Central Library and it gives me much pleasure to see young children walking out loaded with audio books. Years ago I used to read and tape stories for my daughter when I could not be with her at bed times.

From Jane Cooper:

My four children regularly listen to books while they are playing with Lego or dolls, or painting. I think that hearing complex words rather than just seeing them on the page is wonderful, and have noticed enrichment in their vocabularies as they incorporate these new words and concepts into their everyday lives. They read massively as well, besides the additional opportunity for them to gain exposure to story telling.

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Death of a Travellin’ Man

PP is not the People’s Princess this time, it’s the People’s Pope.

The people they came from far and wide, they crossed countries, they crossed continents. They waited, they vigilled, they prayed, they paid their respects. Catholics and others of religions not recognized, wanted him to stay a little longer, but unfortunately the prayers of millions could not be answered. The time had come and Pope Paul ll was called back to the Kingdom of God.

Being the top guy in the Catholic Church, the true church, he went straight to heaven. Even more of a guarantee of a direct route is the fact he died within eight days of Easter.

The Catholic Church is pretty flexible. In ancient times creating saints took centuries, and then it was reduced to decades. Pope John Paul II speeded up the sainthood process even more, and helped Mother Teresa along the fast track. And for Pope Paul ll let’s make it instant. We do not need the Devil’s Advocate this time. There have been enough miracles.

The Catholic Church, God’s elite club, moves with the times. These are modern times; the Church has revolutionized itself to fit the modern world.

On 16 October 1978, a non-Italian, a Polish pontiff, was elected for the first time in 450 years. The death of this Pope was announced by mobile phone text message at 9.37pm, just minutes after his death. Moving with the times.

For the Pope-a-rama funeral the international media shut down on other news for days. The world media gathered in the Holy See to give us minute-by-minute news of the proceedings and the vigil.

Not for the Catholic Church sackcloth and grass sandals. It is garments gilded and purple and scarlet. It is pomp and ceremony and tradition. Give the ordinary members and others a chance to take part in the Church’s rich heritage. Give the people a chance to add to their wealth, a wealth of memorabilia: commemorative T shirts and stamps, religious icons and rosaries, coins, souvenirs, trinkets and curios.

Catholicism is not just a religion. It is a country, one of the richest. It is the Vatican, the Holy See, all of 44 square km. Accumulation of priceless treasures makes up for the lack of natural resources.

The People’s Pope was a liberal pope. His concern for human rights, his stance against war and poverty, his willingness to meet with Islamic leaders, his desire to visit Communist countries and his love for humanity is globally recognized. But he has also left behind gargantuan challenges for the newly elected Pope.

Pope Benedict XVI has promised to be the “Listening Pope.” He will also have to look, look within the church.

He has to sort out the problems of gay priests and sex scandals and child molestation. He cannot set aside “the sins of some of our brothers.” Neither does the solution lie in millions of dollars paid out in settlements. Serious thought has to be given to celibacy, ordination of women priests, gay marriage, contraception, abortion, divorce, and remarriage of divorced church members. He has to rethink the Church’s views of Eastern Christian religions as not being Christian. He has to decide why his church is against Eastern mediation and yoga, both of which are older than the Catholic Church and now practiced by increasing numbers of Catholics.

But most serious of all is the church’s opposition to condoms. The solutions offered by the church for the prevention of AIDS are not practical. Millions of Christians die of AIDS in Africa, leaving behind millions of orphans. Catholic-dominated Brazil and the Philippines, where abortion is rampant, where birth control is archaic, where divorce is not officially recognized, are sinking deeper into poverty. They need immediate help.

Jesus was a great liberator. Let’s hope Pope Ratzinger Benedict XVI will follow suit and make a quick and sensitive shift in the Elite Club.

“Is truth determined by a majority vote, only for a new ‘truth’ to be ‘discovered’ by a new majority tomorrow?” Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, asked in an interview in 1996.

Sir, truth has been determined by a majority vote and discovered anew. You and your team please think well, think fast and come up with solutions.

These new challenges are the old ones.

History has its versions

The destructive protests and vandalism against Japanese property in China certainly seem to have had some go-head from the authorities. Correspondents say the scale of the disturbances is unusual for China, and indicates tacit official support for the protesters. A country that suppresses every little whisper of protest has allowed thousands to gather, scream their heads off, vandalise property and be seen having fun doing it all before the cameras; and all in the name of patriotism. One should now seriously wonder if a wasps’ nest has not been disturbed. The crazed behaviour of thousands of people this month will surely come back to haunt China in the future in one form or another. The masses have tasted “protest freedom.”

Facts seen by the “patriotic” doer and the facts seen by the ones done by vary. The “invaders” of Americas have their version and the native North and South Americans have their version. Australians have their version and the Aborigines theirs. Invaders and colonists in Africa have done their bit. America and Agent Orange have done it to Vietnam. Have Hiroshima and Nagasaki been forgotten, or the Khmer Rouge and the killing fields Cambodia? How accurately are these portrayed in the history books? Every warring and colonising power has committed atrocities and certainly glossed over or omitted the truth. The ones who suffered and the ones who died know the truth.

A few thousand of the Chinese protestors know the war atrocities, fewer have read the “history books” they are going hoarse about, and even fewer know what Japan is all about except for the Japanese technology and culture and the nouvelle cuisine they enjoy. Boycotting Japanese goods in any country is merely a matter of cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s face. And where else but in he East do we know more about “saving face”?

China’s mantra to criticisms or comments by anyone outside China is: “Don’t interfere in our internal affairs.” But it only applies to China. She is allowed to voice her opinion of other countries and governments and tell them what to do and not do and in many cases even bully neutral countries to turn against others who do not kowtow to her.

Visits by politicians to the Yasukuni Shrine have been condemned by China and its neighbours. Built in 1879 during the Meiji period, the shrine houses more than two and half million memorial tablets of revered samurai and soldiers who gave their lives to social freedom, democracy, and human rights. The sacrifices show the love for their families, their race and their nation. The Shinto religion is very complex. Shinto Kami pays a great deal of reverence to the dead and its edict does not allow tablets to be moved. According to Shinto there is not a single existence that serves no purpose and considers the work of all things spiritual.

Comfort women! Having experienced so much pain and shame in this matter, the energy vented in what happened in the past could be put to better use. Help with the current situation, prevent the kidnapping of thousands of girls the world over, especially in Africa, for the sex trade and to “comfort” the soldiers in many wars around the world.

Has China written its new history books? Think of the thousands who were “gloriously made to sacrifice” their lives to famine during the Mao era. The Cultural Revolution and culture cleansing by the Communists deprived China of philosophers, authors, poets, artists and teachers. They and their families were made to go through much degradation and suffering. They were tortured and killed. Historical sites were completely destroyed. And then there was the Tiananmen “incident.”

What are the Chinese history books saying about the horrors committed by the PLA soldiers in Tibet? They imprisoned and tortured Buddhist nuns and monks. They defaced and desecrated sacred relics and ancient tankas. They tore down monasteries. Confused peasants were locked up and tortured for displaying pictures of the Dalai Lama in their homes which were no more than shacks.

I guess we can now look forward to apologies and large compensations from China for these atrocities. It may have to be after this current cleansed generation relearns and pieces together its past and earns the tourist dollar. Get on with that “peace study” so that the future generation will never repeat the same mistake the old Japan made 60 years ago. Waste no time looking for revenge and compensation. The present is the future.

Japanese soldiers carried out inhumane acts and killed and maimed millions in their misguided faith in uniting the East against the West. There is no doubt in anyone’s mind, not even the present Japanese population. that Japan continues to make more formal apologies, give financial aid, and compensation. And why should Japan not have a place in the UN security council? She is the second largest financial contributor. It is time now, as Tokyo said, to sit down, study the joint history and come to a reasonable compromise. Both Japan and China, the two rising powers, need each other as good neighbours and trade partners and for the stability of the rest of Asia.

The Chinese character for “human being ” is composed of two strokes. “Ren” cannot exist with one stroke, it needs the other.

Tsunami Soul Search

Geologic plates pressing against each other slipped violently, created the bulge on the bottom that could be as high as 10 metres and hundreds of kilometres long. A column of water of billions of tons moved. The reaction caused waves equal in power to a million atomic bombs. Having started more than 10 km beneath the sea floor close to Sumatra, Indonesia, the waves crashed into the Indian Ocean coasts on Sunday.

It is said that this undersea earth quake, that caused the tsunami on the 26 Dec. 2004, was so powerful that it even disturbed the earth’s rotation.

Within 15 minutes of the earthquake, scientists running the tsunami warning system for the Pacific had issued a cautionary report from their Honolulu hub, to 26 participating countries. India was not among them. It would seem no one communicated with those oceans away, with those who could be directly hit. Why was the information not relayed?

The waves took four hours to reach the east coast of Africa and in all that time no mention had been made of the possibility of unusual wave occurrences and no serious warning was issued. It is amazing that no monitors and satellites picked up anything unusual about the sea surface.

Go digital! We went digital. Communication is the buzz word of the 21 century. We email, fax, we SMS. We video conference, check baby’s movements in the womb. We give electronic instructions to robots to perform surgery. From the moon we talk to earth.

In Hong Kong a weather picture via satellite picks up a man getting his bike from a grid on the banks of a canal in Amsterdam. I have been told that information on the number-plate of a car can be spotted by a satellite.

Night-vision goggles cut through darkness. We can track nuclear bombs being detonated anywhere in the world.

How tragic then is that no one saw, felt or heard to give warning. How tragic then is the fact that no one talked about the possibility of a tsunami. How tragic then is this statement: “I did not know who to contact” from a man at one of the stations set up to check ocean movements. We are told that many tracking and monitoring stations were not manned because it was a holiday.

Yes, it would have been a monumental task to warn all, it would have created panic and hysteria, it would have been unbelievable. It would have saved thousands of lives.

Where were those weather stations and tidal gauges? Were there no ships at sea? No high tech navy, no super submarines? No low flying planes? Where were the Coast Guards? And where were the fishermen with their electronic equipment?

Was no one concerned enough with the irregular wave movements and tides prior to the tsunami arriving at the various shores?

We talk of what could have been in place to monitor the Indian Ocean Region. We hear of costs and priorities. It only happens very rarely, perhaps once every two centuries. Many questions arise about the mysterious ways in which Gods work. Religious leaders have different answers. We can blame it global warming and President Bush for not wanting to sign the Kyoto protocol.

The most provocative question however is “What is this failure of communication?”

Mr. Murthy, a tsunami expert, says “the waves are totally predictable. We have travel time charts of waves that cover all the Indian Ocean. There is no reason for a single individual to get killed in a tsunami.”

No, not a single, but hundreds of thousands of singles.

One Month On

We have lost it.

A pall of mist covers this valley. Nature is in mourning on this full moon night, 25th. Jan 2005. The white crests of the shushing small waves move back and forth and disappear, hardly visible. A month ago, on another shore, a sharp, cold full moon, unnaturally bright, looked down. The deep velvet sky was clear. It was a cool night.

Everyone is still overwhelmed with the enormity of that day of survival and destruction. It brings to mind unbearable grief, remembrance of what took place 26th December 2004. What unfolded that day and since is deeply etched in all of us.

We have evolved. We are not able to sense, see or detect the danger? Our instincts are blunt now.

Why did we not know ? The animals did. Story after story has come to light of dogs, cats, and other domestic animals that saved themselves. Birds and bees escaped. In the ravaged southeast the waves washed floodwaters up to 3 km (2 miles) inland at Yala National Park, Sri Lanka’s biggest wildlife reserve and home to hundreds of wild animals.

Elephants, leopards, deer, jackals, crocodiles were safe. “There is not even a dead hare or rabbit” say the authorities. “I think animals can sense disaster. They have a sixth sense. They know when things are happening,” H.D. Ratnayake, deputy director of Sri Lanka’s Wildlife Department, has said.

Yes, we have lost it, we have lost our finer sense. Primitive men and women sensed danger before it came. They were in tune with earth and themselves. We have lost our acute hearing, our sharp sense of smell. Our psychic abilities have left us. Our feet are not firmly planted in the ground or perhaps we should have four feet each firmly placed on earth.

Elephants to ants knew the danger. They still possess their fine acoustic sense. They can still pick up the vibrations and infrasound, changes in the air pressure.

In Khao Lak elephants knew the tsunami was coming. The animals at the elephant parks started trumpeting when the earthquake took place near Sumatra. Dang and his wife Kulada had never heard them do this. They managed to quieten them down. But they started wailing again about an hour later and this time they could not be quietened. Some charged up the hill, others that were chained broke their hefty manacles and ran up the hill.

Those on the beach picked up children and adults with their trunks and threw them over their backs and ran away from the beach about a kilometre away and the tsunami came right up to them and stopped.

A woman who could not save her children trusted her twins to another. This woman followed the wake of an enormous snake and found land and safety for the twins and herself.

We have lost our 6th sense.

Sudan

Fiction?

I pile the fire wood neatly by the side our hut. The older children laugh playing some secret game. My three old clings to me. My husband rests in the hut. He tilled all morning. Hard work in an unyielding ground.

I stand up brushing the sweat from face. I stretch my aching back. I am with child, but only a few months gone. I squeeze a splinter in my palm. I hear a rumble, and a quiet pud-pud. I shade my eyes. I look into the distance from where the sound comes. The sound has stirred up the hot dust.

A different sweat pricks my scalp. I shout to the children: Run, run. They stop their game and look me alert like deer. I scream, “Junjaweed!” They run. The oldest holds her sister’s hand and runs one way, the boy the other. He turns back and runs to catch up with his sisters. I stand paralyzed watching them.

Soon the dust cloud arrives, camel riders and jeeps. Shooting starts. Flaming torches fly into thatch huts. The torrid air is filled with fatal screams.

I shout for my husband. My husband in sleep haze, not understanding, comes to the door. A car, covered in red dust glides towards me. The car stops. A well uniformed man steps out of the car. His hand goes to his hip. The man draws out his gun and shoots. I kneel by my husband cradling his bloodied head. The man picks up my three year old by one arm. I do not hear my plea. He walks with the wriggling child and throws him into my neighbour’s burning home.

I almost throw myself into the fire to get my son. Two men, black with white teeth, laughing, grab me. Another pulls me back by my hair and throws me on the ground. The three tear my clothes off me. They take turns to hold me and rape me. I feel waves of the hot rippling air of the fires around us.

Soon, it is all over. The invaders are gone, our village is burnt. Our men are dead. I run about searching for my other children. I turn over child corpses. Some speared, some shot, and others still burning.

Perhaps they did escape, my three children.

I find them, one by one — dead.

Fiction — no. Fact — Dafur.

Peace

Thailand

The Land of Smiles,

A country of grace and beauty.

On a bright clear Sunday, 5 Jan of 2004, a hundred million paper cranes drifted down gently from the sky, cranes of peace and harmony.

Sixty three million people, minus perhaps 5 million disgruntled Muslims, “origamied” paper cranes of all sizes. 100 million carefully folded cranes with peace messages written in them. One special crane had Mr. Thaksin Shinawatra’s signature. Children and adults scrambled for them as the finder of this crane would enjoy a scholarship. It was also King Bhumiphol Adulyadez’s 77th birthday.

But the critics called the gesture a gimmick. The Muslims of the Southern Provinces called it an un-Muslin act. The media had their choice of words for it — they called it “50 military planes bombarded the provinces with paper cranes.”

Various ethnic groups — Malays, Chinese, Laotians, Cambodians, Indonesians, and Sri Lankans — have lived here over many years overlapping each others customs and cultures. Various religions are practised — Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduim, and Taoism with a generous splash of Animism. They have all live here in relative peace with the majority Muslim population.

Now religious harmony has been disrupted, it is not to come easy in this border region of Thailand and Malaysia.

So what is the problem? Insurgents they say — Afghani Jihads, Al Qaedas, Jamiaah Islamiahs, multiple Malaysian Islamic radical groups, and, for good measure, Tamil Tigers could be the cause, some think. A quiet and peaceful juncture for the training of terrorists perhaps, quiet provinces providing a trading post for smuggling drugs and arms in and out of the country.

Bombings of police stations, drive-by shootings of politicians, and arson has resulted in the deaths of more than 500 in recent years. Violence for violence in the burning of mosques is not the answer. Violence against the police and soldiers, security, politicians and Buddhist monks has escalated. The misguided act of security officials in piling of protesters into trucks and suffocating more than 80 has incensed the situation further.

A new awareness is needed, all is not well in this southern melting pot. The concentration of five million Muslims is not getting enough attention from the central government.

Steps more concrete than paper are needed in Southern Thailand.

Death at Ramadan

End of an enigma, end of a puzzle but still a man of many lives. Having cheated death several times; surviving a plane crash, several assassination attempts by the Israeli Intelligence Agents and a serious stroke, Yasser Arafat decided to call it quits on 11 November 04. Prior to his death it was a week of much sadness and waiting for good news in the Muslim world. Even after death the fight continues. One is not allowed to die of old age any more, it’s a mystery death. The cause of death is to be investigated.

Timing became a big issue. With only days to go before the celebration Eid, Yasser Arafat’s serious illness was in the balance for Palestinians and Muslim sympathizers. The question was whether they would celebrate Eid, the end of the fasting month or would they end up mourning the loss of Yasser Arafat. They waited for good news. Should shops stop bringing in stock for the festivities and expect the celebration flurry of buying or should they expect a shut down? Would the month long fasting end in mourning instead of celebrating? But it all ended on a sad note.

Yasser Arafat had been confined to his quarters in Palestine, under house-arrest for more than two and a half years He doggedly refused to leave the country and his first trip out was one from which he was not to return alive. Even in death he is dangerous man. It was his wish to be buried in West Jerusalem. The occupying Israelis would not permit it. Earth had to be brought from the al-Asqa Mosque to line the tomb for burial. Mourners were not allowed free movement either. Thousands in parts of Gaza and the west bank had to stay put and mourn at home.

One had to admire the speed with which his body was taken from Paris to Cairo for a public mourning and then to Palestine to be buried there according to Muslim tradition. The vast wrecked grounds of Yasser Arafat’s last abode was cleared out for the tomb and for the helicopter pads that were to bring his body and the dignitaries. Space was made for the invited guests, red carpet was laid out, and flags and bunting strung out. The burial was to be attended only by invited dignitaries. But no sooner the body arrived all plans were changed by the people. Authorities had not foreseen the loyalty and determination. Barriers could not stop them. They surged through the gates and over the walls of the large compound. Hundreds climbed up the nearby trees and higher buildings. The people of Yasser Arafat grew to an unstoppable mass.

Now the big question is who will take his place. Yasser Arafat had not trained a successor.

Election has to take place within 60 days.

But how? The nation is spread out under Israeli occupation, by Israeli security and check-point controls. There is no freedom of movement in the Gaza strip and West Bank to organize an election.

Checkmate!

Time to reassemble the pieces on the chess board. Palestinians, and Israelis, and Peace-makers are to come together. Time to put in an extra piece on the board, a jail beside the castle. Mr. Bargouti who is in an Israeli prison serving five consecutive life sentences is also a candidate.

The Memoirist

“Why don’t you write your memoir?” say my friends. “You’ve led such an interesting life.” There is only one deduction from this. It is presumed that I am now a fully paid up member of the international SSG, the Senior Silver-haired Gang. I have history or am I history? I have a past. I am at the memoir stage, the old body might be at the breaking down stage, or the old memory might be going stage. But did not a pop star of 24 recently do her memoir?

Well, I must agree I have enjoyed a longer stretch than 24 years. My contention is never write a memoir until you know you have reached the end, make sure you have lived your last adventure. Unless of course you have a terminal illness and your reliable doctor has given you the required three months to live.

If I decide to heed my friends, my dilemma is how to approach this “putting down of my past.” Confessional? No, that won’t do, too juicy, what will my relatives say. Throw in an abused childhood? Though this is much in vogue, won’t do as it won’t be true. How about drugs, booze and sex? I was there in the sixties but I don’t remember any of that. How about The Leela Diaries? But then I never kept a diary.

I see two choices of recollection. Someone will have to throw me a surprise birthday party. A “This Is Your Life” birthday party, where all my relatives and friends and party-crashers gather at a 5-star hotel, where the walls are lined with larger-than-life pictures of me (digitally enhanced), then lights are dimmed, video clips unroll my past — the one I cannot remember — with my mother proudly cooing at a dark item in a fluffy pink bundle that is me, the ugliest baby.

Then on screen comes a picture of me at four, sitting on the toilet with my knickers around my ankles, sipping Coke through a straw. Then me as a teenager, skinny as a rake, masses of black hair, thick unruly eyebrows and my mother says something cute on the screen, my Dad reveals something embarrassing.

The clips roll on, showing a couple of my school chums, whom I had forgotten and now remember that I never liked, relate a few teenage adventures, a couple of ex-boyfriends elicit laughs from the audience at my expense.

Then the professional video of me and my man on our wedding day, the best man mouthing inanities, and then finally my ex-husband (who invited him?) appears. At least he has something tasteful to say. Guess he still misses me. I wonder who put all this together. Yes, it will prove a good memory jogger and will recall those interesting adventures my friends were referring to.

Or I could go for my second choice. BALEK KAMPONG, yes, RETURN to the VILLAGE in Penang where I began.

I think I will balek kampong for my mystery monologue, but not yet.. there is more history to live, more adventures to come.

A Celebration

Outside, the tropical evening cast a purple twilight under a blue dome of sky. The setting sun was an orb of orange. Hong Kong’s lights twinkled in profusion across the channel in the Kowloon metropolis. The buildings turned a deep blue velvet.

Inside, the restaurant was softly lit. Elegant ladies and men in quiet attire drifted in to the sound of ragas from a harmonium and tabla. The air was rich not with perfumes but with the aroma of fennel, coriander, anise and mint.

Don and I were the guests of Raju and Egon at the Viceroy. We were offered drinks in tequila shots glasses — Sounfiya and Kanjee and Pudina. And summer coolers — exotic mixes of juices of beetroot, carrot, fennel, mint, mixed with rose water, and flavoured with cumin and salt.

We adjourned from the main bar to the banquet room. Tables were laid out exquisitely, tablecloths sprinkled with fresh red rose petals.

The speaker began with Kapha, Pita, Vita — Greek to some of us. Mr. Vinod Sharma explained the Sanskrit words, the various doshas we all are. He talked of the elements of space, air, fire, water and earth influencing everyone of us.

It was an Ayurvedic Celebration. Ayurveda, the science of life, taken from the Rig Vedas, written 6,000 thousand years ago: Ayu life and Veda knowledge. After the talk we enjoyed a vegetarian meal of exotic, tasty dishes in proper holistic Ayurvedic style.

Nature has created man and animals and plants all well balanced and living in harmony. But we have created imbalance and destruction. We need to remove the Ama, the stress from our lives. We need to return to peace and tranquility; we have a big job before us. But with attention to our mental and physical health with Ayurveda, Yoga and Meditation we can achieve both.

A beautiful reminder of the spiritual and physical side of my life on the eve of my birthday.