They thought that they were right.

Some of the inhabitants in Kampung Timpango and Tintap had occasions of losing rubber sheets in the third quarter of 2008. They suspected outsiders to be the culprits. When I asked them as to how many times they had made police reports pertaining to their lost, then they said that they were never reported. They further said that the thieves seemed to know the exact spots where their rubber sheets sheds were located. On hearing their own comments I purposely provoked them a bit by saying, “No wonder you all did not want to make any police reports because for fear of becoming a target of investigations”. Some smart individuals among the kampong inhabitants cooked up an idea to padlock the Government road leading to their kampungs. A kampong meeting was convened but not all the kampong people who would be affected by the padlocking were invited. If ever I was invited, I thought, I would certainly have offered them my piece of mind. They had suspected my objection for I was not secretive about my feelings. I had purposely expressed my objections to anyone I met. I was informed that the Ketua Kampung, the Chairman of the JKKK and the CDO, a political figure, of the area attended the meeting. These people must not have objected to the Kampung peoples’ demand. They were prompted therefore to think that what they were doing was right and in consonance with the law. The padlocking of the main road, Babagon-Timpango Road, took effect at the start of September, 2008. Many people who had family ties with people further-up the padlocked areas were taken by surprise. All the people in the affected areas were given a key each for the padlock. I was not given a key. In fact I was told that should I want a key then I had to see the Vice Chairman of the JKKK to get a key for RM20.00 and to be given a talking to before a key was given. This was purportedly so because I was known to oppose the padlocking idea. If and when I had to get through the padlock anytime I needed to, I would dismantle the whole locking system and wait to be brought to the courts of law. The processes of law would enlighten everyone as to the misguided purported smart idea of padlocking a Government built road. Ever since the padlocking, there hasn’t been heard of any stolen sheets! Could it be that the smart inhabitants who initiated the padlocking did so as a cover-up of some smart involvements in the whole affairs?

My Gaharu Trees at+/- RM1 to 2k per tree

My Gaharu Trees at an approximately RM1 to 2k per tree. I need not apologise to the Gaharu trees for having planted them among the sweet Babagon Pineapples. Why should I? They are only plants, bah! It was said that one of the gifts the Three Kings from the East brought for Baby Jesus at the Manger in Bethlehem nearly 2010 years ago was the priceless sweet smelling resin of a Gaharu tree. There are many names for the Gaharu tree...the Chinese calls it with a different name, the Thais, with yet another name. The Kadazandusun calls it "Tindot". Who calls it Cendana and Agar Woods? It was further said that when God told Adam and Eve to leave Garden Eden after they have offended God with their disobedience, God did not allow then to take anything with them, except the Gaharu plant. There might be no truth at all in these mentioned hearsays.

The Crookedest Street

Circumstances dictated that I was not able to use my plane ticket from England to Malaysia in 1990. I had to further stay on in UK for a forthnight or so. I did not complain for it was a blessing in disguise since I was given the normal stipend.

I was in Leeds for six months attending two 3 months Short Courses at OEU of the University of Leeds. The two Short Courses were conducted concurrently. The first 3 months Short Course was the ELT Course designed for me to follow whereas the second 3 months Short ELT Course, a Teachers-Trainers Course, was especially designed for 6 Sabah teachers-trainers. Since I was tasked to lead the home trainers-trainers courses, I was especially requested to further stay on for the British Council sponsored Trainers-Trainers Training Course. That must have entangled my plane ticketing schedules so much so that I was given a paid holidays in the northern hemisphere for a good half a month. The real reason, though, was not revealed to me. I did not really want to know.

I decided to pay Grace a visit in San Francisco, USA. From Leeds I had to send my Passport to London for some important clearance. On the day I had planned to leave Leeds for London, I received my Passport through the post. I based myself in Earling at Fiona’s as I applied for my Visa and booked for my return air ticket. I had to go twice to the American Office to get my Visa. I had to line up as early as 3.00 o’clock in the morning and the queue was so long that it went around the outside of the big building. People queued on the road. When I came to the Officer in the building and presented my passport, I was told to come the following day. When I presented myself the following day, I was given back my passport with the appended Visa for multiple visits without much questions asked.

My return plane ticket on Pan Am was not immediately available but I was assured that it would be waiting for me at the airport the following morning. When I tried to collect it at the Pan Am counter at the airport the morning I was to leave, I was told to simply queue up for the boarding check and the ticket would be rushed to me as soon as it was delivered. Not all things was quite right for me that morning. An airport security personnel must have walked up to me and slapped a yellow self-sticking ‘security check’ sticker on my handbag without me realising it. A very professional non-intermediating check followed. I was very pleased to have talked to professional people of authority.

Very much later, when I narrated such happenings to my professional friends at home, they laughed and told me that in such a case I really fit the the role of a drug dealer, well-dressed, traveling light and alone. Whatever it was coincidence could happen.

Grace and friends were waiting for me at San Francisco airport terminal. Tiru, purportedly a student, a black, was the driver. Grace was surprised I took the Pan Am. One Pan Am went down in Scotland a few months previously. My first day in San Francisco was spent walking down the street, surveying, so to speak, the nearby down-town. I bought a few postcards to send to Jimmy Taylor in Leeds, England. I brunched alone at a Vietnamese Restaurant. The food was not appealing. A middle-aged foreign woman came to ask me for money, a donation. When I grunted my disapproval she literally ran away as fast as she could. I thought she was genuinely hungry or she was an illegal new-comer. In the evening Grace brought me to get a couple of jeans. She also brought me to see pictures, the latest in town. Everything in USA is done through the queue … the queue in buying of cinema tickets was so long that it started from well outside the cinema itself. When we settled down finally I asked Grace why there were so many beep sounds in the course of the conversations. It was my first time hearing so many beeps in a stretch of a few minutes. Grace told me of the American’s speech…so many words were used which might not be suitable for public consumption, e.g. swearing words, etc. On another evening Grace brought me to dinner. Typical in a busy place, we had to stand up outside to wait for a table vacancy. People waited to be seated. They did not simply grab a vacant seat.

Tiru had a car and he drove us to see the effect of the San Francisco earthquake in recent times. The road flyers which collapsed on each other, was still there to show to tourists. The timber fencing over a grassland was moved apart for about a couple of feet out of angle. We also drove passed the farm…the vineyard so famously featured on a TV series. We also went to the lookout of the Pacific Ocean to see the humpback whale from a distance. We saw a few curved up the distant water, sportingly waved its gigantic tail and really sprout water off its head. Near the look-out place, there was a pine tree which was peculiarly shaped because of the effect of withstanding the consistent strong wind blows. We also saw a mountain of cockles shells stacked for some purposes. I was also brought to see a group of some gigantic pine-trees by which a highway passed through.

During my stay in San Francisco I was still guarding my diet, just because of my diabetes. Grace prepared me one basin of salad. She kept it in the fridge and went to work before I was up for the morning. She rang the house at mid-morning to tell me of the salad. When I looked at it, I thought it was not tasty. It had all sorts of leafy things, including mushrooms. When I finally tasted it I found out it was not bad, in fact it was very good. The salad vinegar was the magic agent.

Grace brought me round to see the Japanese Garden and a closer look at the Golden Gate bridge. We took a few photographs near the bridge. We also took a tram-ride to the historical Fisherman’s Wharf and took another ride down the most crooked street of San Francisco…The Crookedest Street. Grace brought me for some snacks at a restaurant far up a tall building, not far away, perhaps, from her work-place. She paid for them using an in-house charge card.

I could not remember all the things I had bought, but I had a good luggage when I went back. Grace sent me to the airport and went back. She must have hired one of her friends with a car to take me to the airport. I arrived safely at Heathrow and based myself for the night at Earling. That evening we went for dinner, Mathew of KL, the heir to the Coca-Cola dynasty from the Island, Fiona and myself. I used my Travellers’ Cheque to pay for the dinner. It was a good dinner. The next morning, I headed for Heathrow for KL, nearly missing the plane. When I arrived in KL, I found out that I had missed my connecting KL-KK flight. I requested Departure to put me on the next available KL-KK flight. It was a good feeling to be accorded one’s wish. I thought it was because it was the last and a midnight flight. What more, I thought it was, again, not a capacity flight. At the airport taking the same flight was a workmate, Encik Hadis. We had not seen each other for a good six months. We updated each other of happenings in the office, in Sabah and of the Sabah political scene. It was Election Day in Sabah the following morning. When I arrived home and after a short rest, I went to cast my usual vote at St. Joseph’s Primary School in Penampang.

Sweet Babagon Pineapples

Although Babagon Pineapples has been popularised far and wide in Sabah as well as in Kuala Lumpur, no entrepreneur dare start a pineapple juicing or canning factory. The most popular non-feasibility reason cited by leaders and Government representative was the unsteady supply of the raw materials, rendering the setting up of the enterprise rather uneconomical. There are actually not less than approximately 1000 acres of pineapples plantation in the upper Moyog region, engulfing kampungs like Kampung Moyog, Mongkusilad, Kibunut, Poropok, Babagon, Sangai-Sangai, Nounggon, Rugading, Tintap, Borot, Timpoluwon, Manansawong, Sungoi and Timpango. Although pineapples fruit seasonally there has been a Government agency recommended technological knowhow to enhance pineapple fruiting. The harmless to human fruit-enhancing commercially-produced whitish tablet is dropped into the budding centre of the pineapple plant. If the pineapple plant was big enough and capable of fruiting then signs of a fruit would appear in a couple of weeks or so.

If ever a pineapple juicing or canning factory was to be set up in Kampung Tintap area, the basic infrastructures for such a business enterprise are now set in place; a near-good narrow but sealed yet crooked roads, an almost-reliable electricity supply, fixed TM telephone lines connections and a reliable almost-FOC, clean water gravity supply. In the present the apparent lack of incentives from both the Government as well as the Corporate Sectors to pineapple farming the pineapple-farm small-holders plant pineapples for incidental cash-crops for local consumptions only. They are also planting pineapples, not for the fruit-for-food of it, but also for the fruit-for-Chinese-religion-prayer use. There are about 2,000 young pineapples crown coming out of the Sweet Babagon Pineapples area every 15 days cycle. Since it has been talked about and popularised by those impressed first-time buyers and by the Agriculture Department personnels, the grandest dining tables the sweet Babagon Pineapples have ever reached, it has been said, were the former Prime Minister’s and his other ministers’ dining tables. It was also said that it had also reached the shores of one of the Middle East nations, Bahrain.

Sweet Babagon Pineapples are not only reputed to be sweet but they are in truth sweet. Some pineapple sellers try to dupe their buyers by claiming and naming their pineapples, Babagon Pineapples, irrespective of the place from where they had earlier obtained their pineapples for sale. This tactic is often ignored by the buyers for they could be considered a sale strategical gimmick. Buyers who know Babagon Pineapples can easily recognise the looks and general shape of the Babagon Pineapples.

Another factor which may demotivate entrepreneurs in setting up a pineapple canning factory in the Babagon area is the bulky size of the Babagon Pineapple. The standard factory slicing machine would slice the pineapple into two halves, normally discarding the bigger and better half. A pineapple juicing factory, therefore, may be the most suitable choice. If such an incentive to serious pineapple farming is created, one could bet one’s last Ringgit that every available land plot would be planted with pineapples. Both sides of the sub-JPJ standard Babagon-Timpango steep, narrow and crooked road would be decoratedly-planted with pineapples. An imaginary welcome arch immediately after the Moyog River fording section of that Babagon-Timpango Road would be strung with yet another streamer welcoming intending visitors...“Welcome To Pineapple Country!”

Taking Kampung Babagon as the central location, the other kampungs producing this particular land produce, Sweet Babagon Pineapples, are the kampungs within the approximately six kilometers radius. They are not grown only in Kampung Babagon itself. Sweet Babagon Pineapples, therefore, has become a brand name for the sweet pineapples but no one should claim its exclusive ownership as a promotional trade brand.

Tintapland was applied for from the State Government of Sabah and the NT status land title was released in 1977. Its total area in acres was only 9.55 acres after its originally applied for area had been sliced two times to give others shares of God’s land. It has always been planted with pineapples, the Sweet Babagon Pineapples, ever since.

When the land was first applied for from the State Government, there were two interferers, so to speak. One person who had earlier asked for permission to squat on the land pleaded for a small piece when it was being surveyed for the title release. He was given a slice of approximately just over an acres. Another person, a Government officer working for the Land and Surveys Department, helped himself, so to speak, of more that 5 acres from the same Land Application piece.

This high ranking officer of the Lands and Surveys Department submitted his land application overlapping the very land I had applied for. I was told that there was no prove that I had previously applied for the said land. I could not take no for an answer and saw to it that the District Surveyor at that time referred to and make a search for my land application from old files. I did not ininsuate that my land application was purposely hidden nor did I give an inkling that I was going to report my loss to the newly established ACA at that time. The big fat closed file was pregnant with unattended Land Applications all of which were signed by my father, KK Emmanuel Tangit Kinajil. It was a rule rather than just a mere custom that Land Application submitted by individuals for Government lands within the jurisdiction of a particular Ketua Kampung (Village Chieftan) must be ascertained and signed by that Ketua Kampung. There was a coincidence or was it good spirit-led? When that big fat extra-ordinarily pregnant file was opened at random, at the same time the District Surveyor confidently saying, “..you see, nothing...nah ..”, the file slowly opened at the very land application I had submitted very much earlier in the decade. The District Surveyor sounded embarrassed and grunted, “…uh!..uh!...” I siezed upon the opportunity to request rather than demand for an immediate follow-up actions which could well be translated into the issue of SP (survey permit) and ground survey.

That high ranking officer, an Executive Officer of that Department, who happened to be a distant cousin-in-law to me, only then came up to me discretely and asked to be given a small slice. I was very angry that I was given a raw deal…treated in such a way… losing precious time at that office. At that time, I was a secondary school teacher at SMK Kota Kinabalu, which was housed at Sabah College. In my processes of getting my way with the District Surveyor, one ‘iron’ man in that office, scolded me as I was argueing constructively, at least for me, with the District Surveyor, “Aiso nopo ka bo gia diaha’ nga’ aiso no!”, he almost shouted at me. (If he said,’nothing’ then there is nothing!) I ignored him and dismissed him as a very negative man. He came from the same kampung as me and known well to the family. I thought there was an inside conspiracy of something to purposely lose my bona fide submitted LA so that departmental personnel could quietly help themselves should I abandon my search for the LA. If it was a purposeful conspiracy then the initiator had picked up the wrong intended victim. I tried to forget the whole episode and agreed to give that ‘LA overlapper’ man a small slice. At that time Government surveyors were responsible of surveying all LAs. So the Lands & Surveys Department surveyors under the instruction of the District Surveyor who had found my particular LA and whose office was next door to the ‘overlapper’ Executive Officer, surveyed my land. The surveyors, puportedly under instructions, gave him a very big slice of my LA leaving me with only 9.55 acres.

In 2004, during the drought season, smoke was everywhere and affecting visibility on Sabah roads. The official Government advice rather than warning was that there should be no burning of any kind so as not to aggreviate the smoky sitiation. But it was during this time that the area sliced out for the EO was cleared and burnt down by his brother in law, whose wife was the EO’s sister. Understandibly, as a high-ranking officer whose coming to possess a piece of well-argued overlapped piece of LA land, did not want to risk his position by putting the piece of land under his own name. It was put under his, at that time, minor sister’s name. The brother in law created a big hill of a fire in clearing the +/- 5 acres. Mike, my neighbour, suggested I cleared the rest of the hill area during the dry spell and using the same unorthodox method. It was a smaller remainder of about 1 acre. All I said was, “OK, go ahead”.

Within the month the rest of the hill was ‘yulbrienered’. There was a good cause for a punitive compound for a few individuals. The Health as well as the Environmental Protection Departments could have instituted something!

Earlier, in the early 1980, the cleared side of the hill was planted with RM1,000-00 worth of pineapple suckles. Each suckle was 25 sen and there were an additional 50 suckles given as extras just in case some chose not to really make it. Therefore, not less than 4050 pineapples were initially planted on the eastern hill part of Tintapland in early 1980. They were the sweet Babagon Pineapples. There was so much pineapples, the plants and the fruit, so much so that one who was closely connected to the pineapples would not want to look at the planted pineapples and their fruits at that time.

No Post or Car Tyre!

Once upon a time the Big Boss of a factory in a fast developing country in Asia was exploring possibilities of new potential markets for his shoe factory newly designed shoes. At their normal Monday morning staff meeting the boss asked everyone to keep quiet for a period of time to ponder and think as to what the factory should embark upon to expand their shoe-market.

After that silent morning prayer, so to speak, the boss asked every member of staff to dish out their contributions. Rapporteurs were at hand to minute down every detail of the discussions. Finally the boss, at the end of the morning staff meeting, decided and said, “Based on our discussions this morning, I want to send you Encik Singkolomutaitaitingaudikoput to that part of the African Continent to find out the marketability of our shoes there. Take your time, be prudent and find out everything. Come back and report to me direct.”

Encik Singko, as he was accustomed to be called, requested two other members of his Department to come with him. He asked his secretary to request the Travel and Ticketing Department of their factory to prepare their return tickets. By their tickets they had 2 weeks to perform their assigned duties.

When they arrived at the African country they were assigned to go to, they were very surprised to find out that no one used shoes in that country. “Appallingly primitive”, they blurted out. They traveled all over and found out that the situations were the same. “Truly a waste of time! Who ever suggested expansions here”?

When they came back, they reported to their boss. All three of them were very enthusiastic in seeing their Boss’s reactions on hearing their reports. All three of them went in to their boss’s room. Encik Singko said, “Boss, all the three of us went on that fact-finding mission. We found out that no one, really no one, used shoes there. The whole population was not in the habit of putting on shoes. There was no point for us to expand our trade to that country. It’s a waste of time.” The boss thanked them for their findings.

The boss send another person out to the same country to find out about the same thing, the marketability of shoes there. He told him to come back and to verbally report to him directly. Only two people went on this trip. They had open return tickets. When they came to that country, they were very enthusiastically surprised for all the people they saw and talked to did not use shoes. “Great potentials,” they blurted out. “This is the chance of a lifetime. We should introduce shoes to them or they to shoes! Big ready market!” They returned immediately and made their verbal reports to their boss. Their boss thanked them for their findings.

“Do You See Any Planted Poles?”

“No, there is none, no standing post, pole or stick anywhere for miles. Maybe there is none at all in the whole desert!” they answered.

A pack of dog went out into the desert to look for their master. The desert was hot and even well-trained k-nines could get lost. Tracks were hard to last, in fact, they did not stay long or just for a little while, if at all they tried. The desert wind was strong and it blew continuously, consistently, giving tracks no chance to register. The sand was flat, it fact, it was so flat that it was as flat as a level playing field for many miles around. There were no plants, no bush, shrubs or trees. There was no sand dune. There was nothing any taller than the flat sand itself.

So a few days went by and finally the dogs came back one by one. Dog No.10, Godoot, did not appear. Everyone was waiting for him for he was the pack-leader, the top dog. “We got to go and look for him,” Goboi said. “Be wise, give him a few more hours,” Linggoi advised. When they have exhausted their last ounce of hope, they organized a search party consisting of professionals but one, a priest, a doctor, a scientist, a trained vet and a teacher. The other one in the group, the ‘but’, was Kuk, a Form 2 student.

The search party made preparations for the journey. Each one of them packed their own necessities. Kuk had the lightest knapsack. He wanted to travel light. He did not bring a toothbrush, he did not bring a comb. He did not want to be slowed down. He wanted to travel light. The other members of the group had pints upon pints of drinking water with them. Some of them even brought a few cans of siss! (cans of beer. When the ring is pulled off the can, the sound made was “siss…”, thus popularizing the replacement and hiding name of the real stuff). The professionals were literally heavy adults with different heavy metaphoric baggages they have always carried along with them.

To their expected horror they found Godoot on his back, motionless, staring at the sky. All four legs seemed to point at something above him. The doctor went to work straight away and established that the cause of the death was blood poisoning. The other professionals conferred as to why he was staring skywards…heavenwards. The priest had no theory. He assured them he would perform the last rites for Godoot. The scientist suggested that Godoot’s peculiar dying position was a red herring and had no bearing as to who or what poisoned him. The vet concurred with the scientist but the teacher said, “Wait a minute a sec, not just quite…let’s hear what Kuk has to say.” They all turned to Kuk.

“Father, Docs and gentlemen, sorry for I am still young. I do not claim to equal myself with you all. I was entertained, really, to hear you all arguing as to what or who poisoned Godoot. I am sorry to tell you, he poisoned himself.” The scientist was very interested to hear that. That was one avenue he was in fact thinking about. He called for the attention of the others and asked Kuk to continue. “He was poisoned by his own urine,” he said. Everyone, including the learned scientist said, “But how? But surely, he must have been so thirsty that he drank his own urine!”

“Do you see any posts, poles or car tyres around”? Kuk asked them. They answered that there was none. They said that there might be none of those things in the whole desert. Kuk said that all male dogs had the habit of easing at a post, pole, car-tyre, fence, tree-trunk, wall, bush or anything higher than the ground. There was none of those things in the desert. He could not ease himself. He held fast to his habit. He did not want to let it go. He rather died. He died for his principle…the lifting up of the right leg so that he could better urinate the tree-trunk and establish a mark of his territories.

“Stupid dog!” they whispered softly, fearing Godoot would hear. Kuk heard them whispered sofly and smiled his reactions discretely. “Who’re more stupid”?

Don’t You What What Me!

Kadazandusun parents tend to speak to their children in a language other than their own. If they know how to speak English then the tendency is that they speak to their children in English. If they do not know English then Malay would be their choice. If they were educated in the Malay medium schools, then they would be using a reasonably standard spoken Malay when they speak to their children. If they do not have much or any formal schooling at all then they would use a sub-standard Malay, the colloquial version that they might have picked up all along their pathways of life, so to speak. Their sub-standard Malay is almost unintelligible to themselves because they would Kadazandusunised certain words of the Malay language that they don’t know. Any Malay words that they do not know or which they cannot remember at any particular point in time while speaking would be automatically replaced by a Kadazandusun word which, to them, has a similar meaning. For example, when a typical kampung Kadazandusun mother wants to call her young daughter to be still and to sit down near her grandmother, she would say, “Mali siini osong, diam-diam bo gia, duduk siini dakat Odu’ kau”. (Come here dear, behave yourself, sit down near your grandmother”). She could have said proudly using her own language, “Ka dohiiti Osong, tumoronong no bo gia, indikau hiiti’d doros di Odu’ nu.” Another mixture of words, or rather, language, typical of a Kadazandusun elder’s spoken Sonsog language to a minor is as such. “Oyo’, tulung dodu’ tutuk ini pinang”. (My dear, help grandmother pound this beetle nut”.

English educated Kadazandusun parents tend to use the English Language when they speak to their children. To them the ease of using the English language is so convenient so much so that English becomes an auxiliary language to them. But when they speak to each other, the father and the mother, they would normally be using their L1, otherwise they use the Malay language. Even if the English educated parents are of the same race, they would still be using English when they speak to their children. In another scenario, when the father is the one who knows only but a very limited English, he wouldn’t dare using English when he spoke to his children. He would use English only when he speaks to his wife and only when he has previously downed a few cans of beer. When that happens then the comparatively harsher language tend to come out first. If he is lost with words, an intended communication would end up something like, “Don’t you what what me!”, or, “You this arud!”

When it comes to the English Language, only the capable in the English language parents speak English to their children. The English limited parents could not to use English the way they adulterate the use of their spoken Malay when they speak to their children. When they have not learnt English and their living environments were not rich in English, then they would not play the fool with themselves.

Why is this tendency of using other languages apart from one’s own language so prevalent among the Kadazandusun people? Such a question has been asked not only a few times but so many times, so much so that no one expects it to get an immediate answer. The possible answers are in theories as no one really knows the real answer, not even the users themselves. It has been theorized that the parents are happy and proud that they know how to speak Malay or English. They want to further train themselves to speak Malay or English by making use of their children as their training tools. Could this be the real reason? Perhaps but quite unlikely for they speak, for example, English to their spouses only when they dare to do so.

Another theory is that they want to train their children to use Malay as a communication tool before they go to school. They know that their children will have to use Malay when they go to school. Could this be a reason? It is doubted. Even when there were no children around, their pets would be talked to in Malay, for the parents who are not proficient in English and in English for those who are at ease with the English language. The Malay they use is far from being the standard type used in schools. They are perhaps proud that they know how to speak a language other than their own. They could be of the opinion that when they speak Malay, or English, they are considered by others around them as people of some standing in society. How can such foolishness be still present in the mentality of the Kadazandusun people? What would the Kadazandusun Language become one thousand years from now?

“Kuliik-kulik”

The slow and almost-taken-for-granted physical development processes of a child and the all-the-more taken-for-granted thinking skills developments, could well be sumed up and attributed, as I ardently believe, to God the Father’s ongoing mysteries of creations. He allows a child to come on time, on time as according to human reckoning, while He allows others to come pre-maturely. On time or pre-maturely, as according to human reckoning of the time it waited in its mother’s womb. The length of time a child spent growing up and subsequently ageing and ultimately dying is reckoned the child’s age. People may have formulated formulae to ascertain the brain physical developmental stages, but to God, those are follies. It is said that man’s cleverest concepts and ideas are mere foolishness to God.

When I was about three, probably, four or five years old, my own wild guesses as I do not remember any event to countercheck any of my guesses, save that I was certainly not at school yet, I used to get bedtime stories from my mother. But in those days, a child was not strictly sent to school at the age of six! Or, if I was indeed a young schoolboy then, I would not have been permited to study long in a small kerosene lamp light at night. There were many stories she told me, different stories, at least one story or parts thereof, for each bedtime at night. The famous stories often repeated or heard was the Ongkol-Ongkol and Anak-Anak, a story portraying the qualities of goodness and roughness in a person. Other stories were the Buu and the Bouvang, Naau Naau Pinang, The Monkey and the Buu and, undoubtedly, many more others. My mother could not read western story-books otherwise she could have read to me stories the like of Hansel and Gretel, Snow white, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and so on. In fact my mother could not read nor write. She did not go to school. Maybe, her mother, my grandmother, did not allow her to go to school. But I still can remember, my mother helped me complete my homework which was to colour zig-zag patterns in my pattern book. My mother was very crafty in telling stories, folk stories she might have heard told and retold during her own childhood and growing-up times. My mother was also very crafty in inventing her own suniba’ (susuzan toniiba’ or short stories) to fulfil an overnight promise of a story or to please a son.

One of her suniba’ which I can still clearly remember, even now when she had long gone already, was concerning the sky eagle which used to fly in circles very far up in the sky over the Koduntut house, my and my sisters and brothers growing-up house. It must have been our own eagle for it came everyday without fail for a long time. I used to wait for it to come and felt sorry for it when it said, “kuliik kulik” so distinctly. My mother told me, “It’s looking for a chicken to eat. It must be hungry.” I knew the meaning of being hungry, for I had occasions of being hungry. I could not imagine how a bird like the eagle could experience hunger. Sometimes there were more than one eagle flying in circles up there in the sky. They were more redish than any other colour. They always said, “kuliik kulik”, as if in search for something. Maybe a lost friend, or, a lost young eagle, a young son?

One evening my mother told me her Suniba’. It was about the hungry sky eagle looking for something to eat. She ended her suniba’ by saying, “When I die,” she said, “I will turn into an eagle, like that eagle. An eagle, like that eagle you have grown to love, would be me. When you hear it sounds, ‘kuliik kulik’, that would be me calling you from far up in the sky. Sometimes I won’t be there. It doesn’t mean I was gone. I had only flown to another place. I will always come back to see you from far up in heaven.” That night, I cried to sleep. I did not want to lose my mother. I did not want her to turn into an eagle. I did not want her to go away. I did not want her to fly up into the sky. I did not want her to leave me.

Now, fifty eight years after hearing my mother’s memorable suniba’, whenever I hear the high-up eagle sounds ‘kuliik kulik’ I use to think of my mother, especially now that she had long passed on. Like what she had once told me in her suniba’, she could be that one eagle, up there in the sky, telling me something with her, ‘kuliik kulik’.

In Tintapland I used to get white-breasted eagles visits from time to time. They were not the ‘kuliik kulik’ eagles, they were the always-full fishing eagle. They fish freely from my fishponds. But whenever I saw an eagle, or anything like an eagle, I always think of the ‘kuliik kulik’ eagle. At Tintapland, whenever it flew low, I had the tendency to shoot it down. When it flew higher up, I would put down the gun. When it flew high-up in the sky, I would unloaded the gun of its cartridges and memories of long ago rushed back to my mind. But now I seldom see an eagle flying in circles high-up in the sky. Even more seldom do I see and hear an eagle says, “kuliik kulik”, these days. If the ‘kuliik kulik’ eagle was indeed my mother’s turned-eagle spirit, then spirit-time must have erased her spirit-memories of me. But human memories could not be easily erased. Not yet.

Ilas

‘Ilas’ is a Kadazandusun word for a person, a man, who has married the sister or a cousin-sister, elder or younger, of the wife of another man. Both men, therefore, will call each other, ‘Ilas’. These two men could either be friends or total strangers to each other prior to their marriages. Sometimes, there can also be a case of two brothers married to two sisters or to a sister and a cousin sister. When a case as such happens their being brothers are considered prominantly more important than their being ‘Ilas’ to each other. They will conduct themselves as brothers and call each other the way they are used to calling each other long before they got married. It may not be ethically wrong for anyone of them to call the other, Ilas, but it could be viewed a joke. If the one addressed was too sensitive, then he might take offence. It may start an emnity between them, the two brothers, personally, at first. It can bitterly spread to other members of their families in future. If such a thing did happen then the side who took offence would be considered downright childish.

In 1966 I married Tondu of the Chin clan, from her father’s side, and of the Mojili family, from her Kadazandusun mother’s side, long before I came to know of one Bernard from Tuaran. At one time in the late 70s spreading over to the early 80s, Bernard was a senior Agriculture Officer incharge of a Government Rural Agriculture Station. There were times when young Agriculture Trainees were sent for tour of duties at his Station. There was a time when some trainees were temporarily sent to his Station for a stint of training experiences in agricultural desciplines and responsibilities. One of them was Tondu’s cousin-sister, a daughter of her uncle, the elder brother of her mother. Bernard came to know that the girl he greatly admired and fell totally head over heel in love with, was my wife’s cousin-sister. Fate was cruel as no romance was allowed to blossom for the ‘the flower was nipped at its bud’, so to speak. If ever the ‘getting to know you’ stage had been allowed to florish into some beautiful friendship it would have been heavenly blissful for them both.

There was another contender, a junior officer under Bernard’s charge, who was also, perhaps, in love with the same girl although ‘he was so laggard in love and dastard in war’, so to speak. He did not have the guts to openly compete for the girl’s affection. He went around the back and did what he might have been used to doing. He sabbotaged what could have been beautiful for Bernard or for himself. This cunning junior officer of a man went to visit the girl’s father one night to say that his daughter was in some very grave danger because there was a man who loved her very much and would do anything to woe her. He must have added flavours to his talk and convinced the father to pull his daughter away from the Station. The father managed to do exactly what that junior officer wanted.

When the father was querried of his actions in later times, he said that he was so convinced because that man told him he was an important Officer. He especially said that the man, his nocturnal visitor, looked like an important officer, alright, because he was using clear reading glasses. To that less-exposed elderly father, the wearing of reading glasses which denoted damaged to one’s vision, added some degrees of importance to a man’s social standing!

Bernard had confided to me generally and in honest that he was sincerely serious in his intention to know my wife’s cousin-sister better. He started to subconsciously call me ‘Ilas’ to further subconsciously prove how sincere he was with his love. Although nothing had come out of his love for the girl who had appeared and then had vanished from his very eyes, he was very loyal even to the memory of the girl’s facial vision which he had put onto his mental frame. In fact, we were addressing each other, ‘Ilas’, making use of the word as our friendly call for each other long after all hopes had gone. It did not mean that his ardent hope of getting married to my wife’s cousin-sister had materialised. I was the closest he had to remember the beautiful girl by, the girl he had once loved so dearly. I was sure memories of the girl rushed back to him each time he called me Ilas.

The message he had concieved of the whole episode, coupled by the words sent to him by the girl’s father through that so-called important Officer, was that the parents of the girl and the girl herself did not want to know him. He was completely heartbroken.

Although he could not forget the girl he had once fallen in love with until his death, he did not intent to stay unmarried for long. He was of the opinion that life must go on. When he got married years later to a girl from Papar, he asked me to be his bestman. I had obliged.

He called me Ilas until he died of diabetes some 35 years ago. Where was I at that point in time? I missed paying him my last respect.

Was I in England?

Youth

Since I retired from Government Service some about nine years ago, I have lost contact with a former workmate. He was also eagerly talking about and looking forward to his retirement when I was busy putting all my necessary retirement papers in order. When I finally retired and left the office he was still in service.

I was quite surprised to see him recently at my usual KK (Kedai Kaling) coffee shop but I pretended only to casually ask him as to how long already he has retired from Government Service. I was prompted to ask him so because I thought, yet I didn’t indicate it, that he had aged so fast in the last few years.

He said, “Not up to 5 years yet but I feel so dead and rotten already. I use to feel so tired, regretful, helpless, hopeless, frustrated and useless. Sometimes when a disturbing thought, memory or an idea flashes through my mind I could not control it but shout out or grunt out a release of frustation, pressure or personal reaction. I feel that I am but only doing my best to perform my last ritual of the ultimate rtm (rehat, tunggu mati – rest, wait to die) now, it seems. I feel I am indeed a spent force, a used cartridge, a squizzed juice of a lime slice, a thrown away banana skin. It may sound a little bit better if I were to term myself as only doing the lighter and slightly dignified rtm (rehat, tidur, makan – rest, sleep and eat) at my age, but it seems I am almost at the end of my rope. When I was doing my first year of retirement I already went in and out of hospital once. A young man, a family member, kindly suggested that it might do me good if I were to stay at my up and coming outback farm so that I was forced to stretch out my limbs whenever I had to go from point A to point B, so to speak. He said that physical exercise was what I was lacking.”

The man spoke continuously in one breath, almost without stopping, only to stop to inhale, then to continue again. I remembered that I must help him by lending him my ears and giving him my attention. He needed someone to pour himself out. I, some sort, also lent him my shoulder. Occasionally I would interpierce non-provoking but direct questions to keep him going and to show or, at times, pretend to show my interest in what he was saying.

“Did you take his suggestion? Did you go reluctantly?” I asked.

“Yes, and happily, infact. I took it positively for I thought it was a very good suggestion. At my wife’s house I did not have much to do. Sometimes before midday I had already slept and woken up once. Most of the time that routine was again repeated for the afternoon. I believed I needed physical exercise. I also believed in converting energy into money, doing physical exercise for gainful purposes. I do not believe in going to the gym or to literally jog or run after nothing. At that time my wife was still working. Years later, when she too had retired from Government Service, I did not really know how she passed away her hours since, by then, I was already staying at my small and secluded outback kebun (farm) house. She was staying on her own in her own house.”

He continued, “A doctor, acclaimed by many as very knowledgeable in human illnesses, once told me, maybe he was trying to scare me, that I could die anytime. He told me humourously that I had in me a silent killer. If he was partly trying to scare me, then he had successfully frightened me so. It was also during that time that the news of the death of a certain Datuk in Ranau was splashed across the front pages of the local newspapers. According to the newspaper news the Datuk died alone in his farmhouse. I myself, at that time, had recently moved into my small farmhouse, staying there all alone and lonely...lonely, not only to mean in need of companionship, but also to mean fearful of the Rs! My farm, at that time, was only taking shape. It was still virtually a jungle. One corner of my whole area was said to be a haunt of a white monkey. What else could it be? That white monkey could actually be a daring R!”

“What did you understand when you heard him say that, … ‘silent killer’? Did it cross your mind that he was referring to witchcrafts and black magic, the generally feared forces of darkness”? I asked him, trying to introduce a red herring to his seriousness of purpose.

“Yes and no. But, my wife heard it, heard the doctor’s thought-of so-called joke. Maybe she got scared and chose not to stay with me in the same house. When she did come to visit me sometimes during the weekend, she made sure she slept further away from my bed at night. She didn’t mind taking the floor. I was then thinking whether she had analysed the doctor’s joke to mean that there was a demon in me capable of transforming me into a silent killer at night. This thought was childish and rubbish but in such circumstances I was forced to explore even the impossible. I was also of the opinion that she really knew the meaning of the term ‘silent killer’ and that I could die anytime, even in my sleep, due to my hypertension, diabetes and weak heart. She could be scared even with the thought of such a possibility of her waking up in the morning next to a corpse should I die silently in bed during the night,” he said.

I knew that a ‘silent killer’ referred to by doctors were illnesses like hypertension, and the like. I knew this because I had the same ailment as my friend, even having been advised so in so many words by my own doctor that ailments like these are labelled silent killers, up and about this minute but dropping dead the next, ...without pre-painful warnings. I did not yet share this with my friend. I was thinking of another time with him when I would share with him my own health condition and how I am couping with it.

I vaguely knew what he meant by ‘the Rs’ which he had earlier mentioned so naturally as if in passing. Yet I pretended ignorance so as to try to turn his mind to lighter mood. I asked, “Who…are…those daring Rs? Who … what Rs are you referring to?” I managed to bring a smile to his face and he told me apologitically that he had brought in a very local name-reference. In whispers, as if fearful of being overheard, he said, “ ‘R’ for Rogon ”. I reacted, “Oh, ya. Ofcourse, I know”, as I faked a natural audible smile. I managed to enlarge his. But, he almost immediately reverted back to his previous mood.

He continued, “She always looked for a socially valid excuse to be away from me most of the time. In her retirement she took up some sort of an employment in looking after todlers, including her own grand-daughter, so as to establish her own self-justifification. Before her grand-daughter came, she was then working for she hadn’t retired yet. Her work was her socially accepted good excuse to be conveniently away from me. When she had retired from Government Service, and before she was employed as a minder of todlers, her reason of choosing not to stay with me was that she said she went to Church every morning. I used to remotely wonder that people who went to Church every morning had or ought to have improved disposition and outlook in life. But, no, not her! she had her own complex perculiarities. She was always critical of other people, it did not matter who. She seemed not to see anything good or worth mentioning positively about others. Once she bared me, so to speak, when we were in the company of friends and family circles. We were at that time at a home-function in a relative’s house. I really felt self-conscious of her critical out-pouring, critising me as her husband. She was at that time engaged in small social talks among wives. I discretely told her, much later in the same evening, that if she could not respect me in public, then at least, she should respect herself. I did take pity on her as I was aware that her counterparts could well be thinking as to what type of a wife, or for that matter, of a woman, she could really be, talking about her husband in such a manner and in public. At a glance, she could be view as an individual with such unrefined personality.”

“She used to visit me every weekend, or almost every weekend at my small farmhouse. Her main purpose was, as obviously, to while away her time, sort of to rest and generally to relax, and, maybe to fulfil her social ego. She would help me sweep the floor and cook food for the couple of weekend evenings. She would have to prepare food anyhow for she, too, had to eat. Sometimes she would also choose to come for her weekend visit at night, to either surprise me or to catch me as to what I was doing. She maintained these weekend visits so as to sustain social status - especially to be seen by others that we were still together, not on trial separation, and wishing especially to be seen together going to church on Sundays. My small dwelling place was not looked after like how a proper dwelling place, small or big, would be looked after if there was only a woman around. I might have to employ a part-time house-keeper, somehow, so as to remain humanely sane. I would have to see what I could do about these thoughts at the end of the year. Life’s terrible!” he quiped.

While listening to him, I had to periodically remind myself that my friend was very sick in all aspects of body, mind and spirit and needed help. I therefore refused to pass judgement as to the type of a man he was, talking about his wife to me. But analysing his story, it did not have many traces of hate and vengence, rather it was engrained with much husbandly love and devotion as demonstrated by his body language. I was also constantly aware that what he was doing, pouring out his bottled-up feelings to me, was an uncounscious process of spiritual healing taking place. To keep him releasing his tensions, I wondered aloud, “Could your life be as bad as you had discribed it?”

“Yes, … Ooh yes,” he answered. “I hope yours is all right and would remain all right always. Never catch similar life’s curse like this one which I am trying so hard to shake off now. I thought that when I am doing my last few days or weeks, maybe months, a year or two, maybe three or four, or even maybe my last decade, who knows, before I surely would indeed die, I expect life to be generally a bit comfortable and easy-going. But, no. If you happen to visit me in the evening, at dinner time, you would be in danger of being invited to share with me yesterday’s boiled rice. Alone, I could not care less, I do not believe in spending half an hour preparing food which is consumed in a couple of minutes. The more alone you are, the faster you do things, like eating. How more alone can one be if one was really staying alone and yet fully knowing that he has indeed a bona fide wife somewhere less than 46 kilometers away! Sometimes I used to have some stocks of maggie mee and canned food with me in the house. Never before have I allow myself to go to bed at night on an empty stomach! Only nowadays!” he concluded, his left eye welling in tears.

We had spent quite a bit of our time in that KK coffee shop and on looking around, the whole place was almost empty except for one or two whilers. It was already mid-morning, tenish. We hadn’t wasted our time, rather, we had spent it gainfully. He had poured himself out and I had lent him my ears. How I wished I had studied some counselling techniques and possessed some counselling expertise! Dr. Frederick Toke’s management people from the Lee Community College, Singapore, had once offered me a place to pursue Studies leading to Masters in Psychology (Majoring in Counselling) at the Lee Community College, Singapore. I chose to turn it down as I was in some sort of a financial stringency, to speak the least, at that time.

I was not only a bit alarmed by an old man’s seemingly regretful display of emotions but I was in fact frightened and hurridly interrupted my friend, “Now, now, not just quite. Relax, wait a sec. Take a few deep breath. Let me share with you what I’ve once read from one of the very distant past issues of the Washington Post, a long, long time ago, about feeling young, youthful and energetic. If I’m not mistaken, but I could well be, it was the September 17, 1960 or 70 issue. This excerp which I am going to share with you now may or may not be relevant to your immediate and present feelings, but hopefully, at least, I can postpone, if not, erase altogether, your suicidal tendencies!”, I said forcefully.

He grunted as he positioned himself to listen intently.

I read, …..

Youth

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love for ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, there you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON D.C.

We parted without saying much after that, except my assuring him that God’s divine nature is Love. I thought he did not hear me when I said that I wanted to have coffee with him again soon. He was engulfed in his own thoughts.

I had always been in his confidence ever since the years when we were workmates together. In those days he used to share his domestic life’s hardship with me, and each time asking me for my honest opinion and advice.

But, I take it as a positive development when, recently, I received a card-note from this friend of mine. He is inviting me and Francesca, my wife, for coffee at the Penampang Coffee Bean, this coming Saturday at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. He wrote that both he and his wife would be waiting for us.

We are looking forward to meeting them. Francesca is trying to decide on a suitable small gift to bring for the wife.

Youth

Since I retired from Government Service some about nine years ago, I have lost contact with a former workmate. He was also eagerly talking about and looking forward to his retirement when I was busy putting all my necessary retirement papers in order. When I finally retired and left the office he was still in service.

I was quite surprised to see him recently at my usual KK (Kedai Kaling) coffee shop but I pretended only to casually ask him as to how long already he has retired from Government Service. I was prompted to ask him so because I thought, yet I didn’t indicate it, that he had aged so fast in the last few years.

He said, “Not up to 5 years yet but I feel so dead and rotten already. I use to feel so tired, regretful, helpless, hopeless, frustrated and useless. Sometimes when a disturbing thought, memory or an idea flashes through my mind I could not control it but shout out or grunt out a release of frustration, pressure or personal reaction. I feel that I am but only doing my best to perform my last ritual of the ultimate rtm (rehat, tunggu mati – rest, wait to die) now, it seems. I feel I am indeed a spent force, a used cartridge, a squizzed juice of a lime slice, a thrown away banana skin. It may sound a little bit better if I were to term myself as only doing the lighter and slightly dignified rtm (rehat, tidur, makan – rest, sleep and eat) at my age, but it seems I am almost at the end of my rope. When I was doing my first year of retirement I already went in and out of hospital once. A young man, a family member, kindly suggested that it might do me good if I were to stay at my up and coming outback farm so that I was forced to stretch out my limbs whenever I had to go from point A to point B, so to speak. He said that physical exercise was what I was lacking.”

The man spoke continuously in one breath, almost without stopping, only to stop to inhale, then to continue again. I remembered that I must help him by lending him my ears and giving him my attention. He needed someone to pour himself out. I, some sort, also lent him my shoulder. Occasionally I would interpierce non-provoking but direct questions to keep him going and to show or, at times, pretend to show my interest in what he was saying.

“Did you take his suggestion? Did you go reluctantly?” I asked.

“Yes, and happily, infact. I took it positively for I thought it was a very good suggestion. At my wife’s house I did not have much to do. Sometimes before midday I had already slept and woken up once. Most of the time that routine was again repeated for the afternoon. I believed I needed physical exercise. I also believed in converting energy into money, doing physical exercise for gainful purposes. I do not believe in going to the gym or to literally jog or run after nothing. At that time my wife was still working. Years later, when she too had retired from Government Service, I did not really know how she passed away her hours since, by then, I was already staying at my small and secluded outback kebun (farm) house. She was staying on her own in her own house.”

He continued, “A doctor, acclaimed by many as very knowledgeable in human illnesses, once told me, maybe he was trying to scare me, that I could die anytime. He told me humourously that I had in me a silent killer. If he was partly trying to scare me, then he had successfully frightened me so. It was also during that time that the news of the death of a certain Datuk in Ranau was splashed across the front pages of the local newspapers. According to the newspaper news the Datuk died alone in his farmhouse. I myself, at that time, had recently moved into my small farmhouse, staying there all alone and lonely...lonely, not only to mean in need of companionship, but also to mean fearful of the Rs! My farm, at that time, was only taking shape. It was still virtually a jungle. One corner of my whole area was said to be a haunt of a white monkey. What else could it be? That white monkey could actually be a daring R!”

“What did you understand when you heard him say that, … ‘silent killer’? Did it cross your mind that he was referring to witchcrafts and black magic, the generally feared forces of darkness”? I asked him, trying to introduce a red herring to his seriousness of purpose.

“Yes and no. But, my wife heard it, heard the doctor’s thought-of so-called joke. Maybe she got scared and chose not to stay with me in the same house. When she did come to visit me sometimes during the weekend, she made sure she slept further away from my bed at night. She didn’t mind taking the floor. I was then thinking whether she had analysed the doctor’s joke to mean that there was a demon in me capable of transforming me into a silent killer at night. This thought was childish and rubbish but in such circumstances I was forced to explore even the impossible. I was also of the opinion that she really knew the meaning of the term ‘silent killer’ and that I could die anytime, even in my sleep, due to my hypertension, diabetes and weak heart. She could be scared even with the thought of such a possibility of her waking up in the morning next to a corpse should I die silently in bed during the night,” he said.

I knew that a ‘silent killer’ referred to by doctors were illnesses like hypertension, and the like. I knew this because I had the same ailment as my friend, even having been advised so in so many words by my own doctor that ailments like these are labelled silent killers, up and about this minute but dropping dead the next, ...without pre-painful warnings. I did not yet share this with my friend. I was thinking of another time with him when I would share with him my own health condition and how I am couping with it.

I vaguely knew what he meant by ‘the Rs’ which he had earlier mentioned so naturally as if in passing. Yet I pretended ignorance so as to try to turn his mind to lighter mood. I asked, “Who…are…those daring Rs? Who … what Rs are you referring to?” I managed to bring a smile to his face and he told me apologitically that he had brought in a very local name-reference. In whispers, as if fearful of being overheard, he said, “ ‘R’ for Rogon ”. I reacted, “Oh, ya. Ofcourse, I know”, as I faked a natural audible smile. I managed to enlarge his. But, he almost immediately reverted back to his previous mood.

He continued, “She always looked for a socially valid excuse to be away from me most of the time. In her retirement she took up some sort of an employment in looking after todlers, including her own grand-daughter, so as to establish her own self-justifification. Before her grand-daughter came, she was then working for she hadn’t retired yet. Her work was her socially accepted good excuse to be conveniently away from me. When she had retired from Government Service, and before she was employed as a minder of todlers, her reason of choosing not to stay with me was that she said she went to Church every morning. I used to remotely wonder that people who went to Church every morning had or ought to have improved disposition and outlook in life. But, no, not her! she had her own complex perculiarities. She was always critical of other people, it did not matter who. She seemed not to see anything good or worth mentioning positively about others. Once she bared me, so to speak, when we were in the company of friends and family circles. We were at that time at a home-function in a relative’s house. I really felt self-conscious of her critical out-pouring, criticizing me as her husband. She was at that time engaged in small social talks among wives. I discretely told her, much later in the same evening, that if she could not respect me in public, then at least, she should respect herself. I did take pity on her as I was aware that her counterparts could well be thinking as to what type of a wife, or for that matter, of a woman, she could really be, talking about her husband in such a manner and in public. At a glance, she could be view as an individual with such unrefined personality.”

“She used to visit me every weekend, or almost every weekend at my small farmhouse. Her main purpose was, as obviously, to while away her time, sort of to rest and generally to relax, and, maybe to fulfil her social ego. She would help me sweep the floor and cook food for the couple of weekend evenings. She would have to prepare food anyhow for she, too, had to eat. Sometimes she would also choose to come for her weekend visit at night, to either surprise me or to catch me as to what I was doing. She maintained these weekend visits so as to sustain social status - especially to be seen by others that we were still together, not on trial separation, and wishing especially to be seen together going to church on Sundays. My small dwelling place was not looked after like how a proper dwelling place, small or big, would be looked after if there was only a woman around. I might have to employ a part-time house-keeper, somehow, so as to remain humanely sane. I would have to see what I could do about these thoughts at the end of the year. Life’s terrible!” he quiped.

While listening to him, I had to periodically remind myself that my friend was very sick in all aspects of body, mind and spirit and needed help. I therefore refused to pass judgement as to the type of a man he was, talking about his wife to me. But analysing his story, it did not have many traces of hate and vengence, rather it was engrained with much husbandly love and devotion as demonstrated by his body language. I was also constantly aware that what he was doing, pouring out his bottled-up feelings to me, was an uncounscious process of spiritual healing taking place. To keep him releasing his tensions, I wondered aloud, “Could your life be as bad as you had discribed it?”

“Yes, … Ooh yes,” he answered. “I hope yours is all right and would remain all right always. Never catch similar life’s curse like this one which I am trying so hard to shake off now. I thought that when I am doing my last few days or weeks, maybe months, a year or two, maybe three or four, or even maybe my last decade, who knows, before I surely would indeed die, I expect life to be generally a bit comfortable and easy-going. But, no. If you happen to visit me in the evening, at dinner time, you would be in danger of being invited to share with me yesterday’s boiled rice. Alone, I could not care less, I do not believe in spending half an hour preparing food which is consumed in a couple of minutes. The more alone you are, the faster you do things, like eating. How more alone can one be if one was really staying alone and yet fully knowing that he has indeed a bona fide wife somewhere less than 46 kilometers away! Sometimes I used to have some stocks of maggie mee and canned food with me in the house. Never before have I allow myself to go to bed at night on an empty stomach! Only nowadays!” he concluded, his left eye welling in tears.

We had spent quite a bit of our time in that KK coffee shop and on looking around, the whole place was almost empty except for one or two whilers. It was already mid-morning, tenish. We hadn’t wasted our time, rather, we had spent it gainfully. He had poured himself out and I had lent him my ears. How I wished I had studied some counselling techniques and possessed some counselling expertise! Dr. Frederick Toke’s management people from the Lee Community College, Singapore, had once offered me a place to pursue Studies leading to Masters in Psychology (Majoring in Counselling) at the Lee Community College, Singapore. I chose to turn it down as I was in some sort of a financial stringency, to speak the least, at that time.

I was not only a bit alarmed by an old man’s seemingly regretful display of emotions but I was in fact frightened and hurridly interrupted my friend, “Now, now, not just quite. Relax, wait a sec. Take a few deep breath. Let me share with you what I’ve once read from one of the very distant past issues of the Washington Post, a long, long time ago, about feeling young, youthful and energetic. If I’m not mistaken, but I could well be, it was the September 17, 1960 or 70 issue. This excerp which I am going to share with you now may or may not be relevant to your immediate and present feelings, but hopefully, at least, I can postpone, if not, erase altogether, your suicidal tendencies!”, I said forcefully.

He grunted as he positioned himself to listen intently.

I read, …..

Youth

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love for ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the Infinite, so long you are young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, there you are grown old, even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at 80.

WASHINGTON POST

WASHINGTON D.C.

We parted without saying much after that, except my assuring him that God’s divine nature is Love. I thought he did not hear me when I said that I wanted to have coffee with him again soon. He was engulfed in his own thoughts.

I had always been in his confidence ever since the years when we were workmates together. In those days he used to share his domestic life’s hardship with me, and each time asking me for my honest opinion and advice.

But, I take it as a positive development when, recently, I received a card-note from this friend of mine. He is inviting me and Francesca, my wife, for coffee at the Penampang Coffee Bean, this coming Saturday at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoon. He wrote that both he and his wife would be waiting for us.

We are looking forward to meeting them. Francesca is trying to decide on a suitable small gift to bring for the wife.