Tagore

Visionary

Man is man and machine is machine
And never the twine shall wed
Rabindranath Tagore

Asia had some progressive intellectuals in that era which married the best of the Western and Eastern educational systems -George Bernard Shaw,Tagore and Lu Xun.Is our society moving backwards?

Xi wang chai ren jian

Hope

As the curtain comes down on the year,hope is in the air
That the people get a deal in life that is fair
When the price of oil doesn't hit too high
Looking at the prices of essentials skyrocketing makes you wanna sigh
Everything going up from toll to economical rice but not the pay rise
When the coffers run dry,squeeze the people left and right
Caffe latte has to go ,just kopi o ais in sight
Mana boleh tahan,kata ramai orang

Bhutan

How many of us have that secret dream of Shangri La -that unspoiled,pristine spot on earth-that we would like to visit one day?Then life got in the way-the responsibilities,mortgage payment,car loans,career advancement and that spot fades further and further into the back of the mind.
Then one day life just grabs you by the throat and jolts you out of that auto pilot state of near somatic mundaneness.You're told you're gonna be knocking on the door of death in six months' time so before you pay your respects to the grim reaper ,what do you want to do?
How much of your work would matter when you're just a cog in the wheel and no one is indispensable as you've soon discovered except in the minds of despotic rulers who obstinately cling on until the last gasp of breath.

A life-uninterrupted

In the clutter of housework,unwashed clothes piling up in the basket,unkempt beds ,I really have to create space in between work and home to pour out my thoughts onto paper.Sometimes the bone chilling plainitive cries of a love sick tom cat distracts my train of thoughts in the dead of the night-the idiotic feline that had the guts to jump onto my sofa when I left the front door ajar to let in some fresh breeze.When pushed out,he had the audacity to scratch onto the glass sliding door with a hair raising squeak that irritates the nerves no end.
Sometimes at the weekend,smells from the kitchen of neighbours is so hard to resist and my stomach rumbles at the whiff of tasty meals,together with the cacophony of knives clanking on chopping boards and visions of stir fried meals in the metallic wok intrudes on creative juices.
Ahhh,the joy of a solitary weekend in the pine resort of Fraser's Hill with life uninterrupted.When will this story reach its conclusion?

The Clairvoyant

The Curse of Foresight


There's a plot in my head for a short play on the spirit medium,one that acts as the messenger between the world of human and the world of the spirit.

A young boy suffers from excruciating epileptic fits and during one of this fit,he accidentally discovers that he can foretell the fate of his best friend,as he experiences the pain of his friend who will be trapped in a domestic fire.He warns his friend about his vision but is met with scepticism.He can only see the fate of his victim but is powerless to change it.His friend dies a horrifying death in the fire that he has earlier foreseen and the boy from then on keeps quiet about his ESP ability.
He grows up to be a photojournalist for war and while he can only faithfully record the events he witnesses,he will not intervene to change the fate of the people he captures on film.One fateful day,after a terrible bout of epilepsy ,he has a searing vision in which a child is about to be conscipted to be a child soldier and when push came to pull,on a spur of his conscience,he rescues the child from a terrible fate of inhumanity.A fortune teller has warned him that in revealing the secrets of the future,a clairvoyant has to pay a price-for every secret that leaks out,a year will be taken away from the life of a clairvoyant.
He abandons his profession and works for the cause of justice,successfully solving many cases ,thus causing the persecution of many war time criminals who had committed terrible acts of atrocity against humanity.The epileptic seizures increases in intensity until he lapses into a coma one day.

Thin slicing

In a "Blink "of an eye judgement,we have to rely on split second impressions to make a quick assessment of a person's
trait and innate characters which would not be so apparent if we had used hard facts to evaluate the same person.How much can we know about a person from his habits,the way he organizes his personal space,the company that he keeps or even his favourite colour?Would it have been fair to assume that a person who likes bright colours is basically an optimistic person whereas one who prefers dark colours is basically pessimistic by nature.

Tian Xia Wei Min

From the grey sky
Tears from Heaven
rain down
Weeping
at the sorrows of Men


From the grey sky
Tears from Heaven
Cannot
douse the
light
of hope

Soul rights

Whither goes the way of the world when holier than thou people control the levers of power?
Soul proprietorship to goodness,justice and all other isms has caused a oneupmanship marketing system whereby character assassination,espionage,endorsements,peer relationship marketing,love bombardment,multi-level marketing are deployed as in commercial enterprises to monopolize the market.Of these even advertising that seeks to push the fear,guilt and social recognition buttons are one of the manifestation of the greed to dominate-and when sophisticated brain-washing tools are unleashed on gullible children,would they not be swayed?
Of course advance booking on the flight to the after life depends on their obeisance and acquiescence to a human agent appointed to judge,grade and condemn righteous/non-righteous behaviour as these agents have the soul rights.
Man as fallible as any other do not have the right to condemn and judge his fellowmen for he is part of the homosapien species.

The truth will prevail

Those with a grip on power and all its attendant privileges would not easily give up an iota of it unless the will of the people due to abject suffering is collectively so unbearable and the future of the young so dismal that they have nothing to lose.From the time when the blacks fought for the civil rights for self-determination to the female sufferages who chained themselves to demand for gender equality,the status quo would not change.
When confronted with the reality of the case,have we ever learnt to share power,resources ,knowledge?


William Faulkner had the optimism that humans will not merely endure but prevail.Will peace and truth -the bedrock of the human condition also prevail?

Serenity

Azure blue skies

Jade greenish scalloped terraces

A horse shoe crab

Of these

a delight

arises

The Foundation of Happiness

Jian zhe ji de kuai le zhai bie ren de tong ku shang

Building your happiness on the sorrow of others

Membina mahligai kegembiraan anda diatas kesengsaraan orang lain

" You work and support your family and parents."
"You work and support the socio-religious institutions."
"You work and suport the government."
When you cannot work,who will support you?


Despite the changes in the social conditions and political structures within which individuals set up families,bring up children and grow old ,despite the upheavals in their personal lives,the strongest impetus that pushes people out of the warmth of familiarity would be the gnawing hunger in their stomachs,and the dream of a better life for their children.

Some toil away in far off lands- all for the hopes of a better life

Within the four seas,all men are brothers

Prosaic

It's the small things that we need to look at to keep reminding ourselves that it's our uniqueness , our imperfections that make us human.
The daily toil that reminds us of our fallibility,frailty.
Some days a good night's restful slumber is the start of a great day.
Some days nothing seems to click and we get raving mad over the slightest things.
Some days prosaic is wonderful, a cup of steaming green tea.
A melodious bird song.

Floating settlements

As I walked on the muddy estuarine looking at crabs scuttling into the marshy,brackish soil,My son picked up a hermit crab ,its legs propelling it forward as it dragged a conical shell along.Ah,would a day come when the soil is so contaminated and the space on land so crowded that we have to build floating skyscapers on floating platforms near the coast.Drinking water could be supplied by desalination equipment on a floating platform and sewage water treated before being discharged back into the sea.That would presumably free up land needed to build dams,divert rivers,reservoirs,complex system of underground pipes and sewage.At the same time ,electricity would be generated by solar or wind or wave power. 3/4 of this planet comprises water so people could stay offshore and be transported to work through underground public trains to work on land.
Materials used must be biodegradable so that it decomposes when thrown into the sea or it could be treated and processed into cellulose materials for growing medium for plants.Fish farms would be set up to produce food for the settlements.School and hospitals need not be physical structures as tele-education and robots be used for minor surgeries.

The 21st birthday of the human race

The 21st birthday of the human race should be a cause for celebration - for a coming of age party.

Wow! Give yourself a pat on the back.Bring out the cake for we have come a long way .
21 is the magical age-we've crossed the line that marks us as mature,rational adults and what have we in the album to show for it?

Report card

State of the playground: still virginal in some places but rapidly losing its innocence as others play catch up

State of comfort: Depends on where you are,need hardly to lift a finger or break your back looking for food and water

State of peaceful co-existence: Just recovered from a bad cold but immune system not sufficiently fortified against a systemic breakdown

Truth is we are still keeping afloat in this ocean of humanity .But phew ain't it getting hot here nowadays? Chill it.