Dreaming and Waking

I didn't sleep too well last night: I had accidentally fell asleep early - at 9 pm - after having a dinner of Chinese food with red wine with my colleagues at Jalan Batu Ceper; and then I woke up at 2.00 am in the morning. I could not sleep again after that. I had dreamt of meeting old friends and interesting strangers. My memory of it is vague but the overall feeling was pleasant.

We normally dream every night but forget about them when we wake up. Some people keep a dream diary, recording their dreams immediately upon waking. It is an interesting practice but I myself do not keep a "dreamblog" as such. There is a phase in our sleep called REM or Rapid Eye Movement when dreaming occurs. During this stage in our sleep, our eyelids remain shut but our eyeballs are somehow active and moving, as if we are seeing, responding and reacting in a waking state. If we are awakened during REM sleep, we would be able to recall our dreams quite well.

I have been reading a book by Steven Strogatz called Sync. In a chapter on our daily sleep cycle, he likened the REM dream state to a car parked in a garage, with the gears put to neutral and the accelerator pedal down. Our minds are actually at a very active state during REM sleep even though we do not twitch a single muscle during the entire sequence. Dreams have always been seen as windows into our subconscious. Sigmund Freud's book, The Interpretation of Dreams is considered a classic of psychology.

While I was lying restlessly awake in bed early this morning, I surfed the channels on my TV and immediately caught Jennifer Lopez's The Cell on HBO. I had seen this visually arresting movie when I was in Singapore maybe two years ago. The Cell is the first full feature work of video director Tarsem Singh who directed music videos for the the pop group R.E.M. before (Coincidence?). The movie is about plugging into the mind of a serial killer who is already in comatose to find out the whereabouts of one of his victims who is about to die. Jennifer Lopez plays a researcher who uses high-tech technology that allows someone to enter into the subconscious mind of another.

The Cell shows the subconscious as something out of Salvador Dali's paintings. We see luscious Jennifer Lopez, clad in dazzling opera-like costumes being propelled into the surrealistic settings of the killer's mind. Watching the movie on TV made me feel dreamy again. And as the hours progressed I was lost in the nether-land between dreaming and waking.

I woke up not feeling very well rested. Perhaps I'll catch a wink or two later. But I need to finish off some work today - I need to be fresh and alert. Dreams are achieved through hardwork......

Of Indomie Breakfast and Naked Apes

I ocassionally have Indomie with my colleagues at Watie's canteen, located at the basement of our office building. You can get a nice steaming bowl of instant Indomie noodles for breakfast for around 3,500 rupiahs, topped with an egg. This is one of the delights of living in Indonesia - that slow cup of kopi tubruk and Indomie with friends at local warung during breakfast or coffee break.

It is similar to the teh-tarik-and-nasi-lemak routine I used to have at the mamak stall outside the office in Malaysia. These are moments to look forward to in our daily office lives; a brief respite from the day's work, a time to catch up on the latest gossips and an opportunity to build camaraderie with office-mates.

Male smokers usually would have their usual bonding session at the emergency stairway. They will form an exclusive clique, shrouding themselves under a thick cover of cigarette smoke to exchange notes on the latest massage parlours in town in conspiratorial tones.

There is also another clique - usually formed by the female clerical staff - who will normally congregate together for lunch in one of the empty meeting rooms or cubicles. If during lunchtime, you smell wafts of mouth-watering nasi padang pervading the office air, you can be quite sure that it is coming from this group.

The techies in the office - the engineers - would also form their own lunch group. Their lunch excursions are normally executed with ruthless efficiency: They would go out at 11.30am (to avoid the lunchtime office crowd) and make a beeline to the cheapest foodcourt in the vicinity (where they can find what they call home-cooked food) and be done by 12 o'clock (so that they can surf the Net) when the rest of the people are just mulling over where to go for lunch.

There's another group who will always want to drive out for lunch. This is the group who can never decide where to eat. Sometimes the whole group would agree to set out to eat at Pluit and half-way they will change their minds and decide to eat at Mangga Besar instead. These are normally food snobs - always with a ready opinion on where you could find the best food.

Getting together for a smoke or a meal is are avenues for social bonding. Our bonding behaviour has deep evolutionary roots and our social instincts are still not very much different from those of the apes - as famed zoologist Desmond Morris would readily point out to you. His first book, The Naked Ape created quite a stir when it was published in the 60s because in the book he made objective but humorous observations about the human animal, pointing out how many of our so-called "human" behaviours are not very different from those found in our animal counterparts. His famous first lines from the book sum up his view:

There are one hundred and ninety-three living species of monkeys and apes. One hundred and ninety-two of them are covered with hair. The exception is a naked ape self-named Homo sapiens.

Apes bond through grooming (picking out lice from each other's body) and through the sharing of food. Bonding creates mutual-cooperation that enhances the group's overall survival. So much of our office politics and politics in general are just subtle reenactions of hierarchical instincts that are clearly observable in ape communities. Whenever I see cliques forming in the office or people jostling for position and power, I try to imagine ourselves as apes. It helps to put things into perspective.

Bernard Kok dances the Mambo

I have not seen my friend Bernard Kok for many years. We used to be colleagues while I was working as a rookie systems engineer in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia. I remember him as a very good IT salesman: he had good people skills and he was always willing to go the extra mile to keep his customers happy.

He told me once that he simply loved dancing. With his old-fashioned plastic-rimmed spectacles and his skinny frame and flaying arms, I'd always thought that he looked rather comical on the dance-floor. We used to go out drinking and partying a lot. And whenever he was drunk, he became the life of the party, strutting around the dance-floor, showing-off his moves in front of the ladies. We appropriately nicknamed him Bernard the Cock.

Our drinking sessions used to be heavy: We would order tequilla pops by the dozen and forced it down on everyone. We also used to order Guinness stout by the pitcher. I remember when Bernard decided to leave the company, we gave him a massive farewell party at the old Betelnut pub in Jalan Pinang. He got so drunk that night until he vomitted right into a half-full pitcher of stout. He was completely gone after that. We simply left him sleeping in the car and continued partying.

I also remember Bernard because he still owes me a book that he borrowed from me back in 1992: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love - that emotionally evocative Pullitzer Prize-winning book by Oscar Hijuelos. The book was made into a rather entertaining movie starring Antonio Banderas and Armand Assante. The soundtrack of the movie was especially good, featuring Mambo legends like Tito Puente. It also made a hit out of the song Beautiful Maria of My Soul; the Spanish version was sung surprisingly well by Antonio Banderas himself.

Now everytime I hear that song, I remember the book and I remember Bernard Kok and I remember that pitcher filled with puke. I have never seen Bernard dance the Mambo. Perhaps one of these days when we do get to meet again, we'll ask him to demonstrate some of his moves. And just in case, we'll have an empty pitcher ready.

Paradise is filled with Books

Yesterday evening I stepped into QB World at Jalan Sunda and came out with three books. The only way I can prevent myself from buying more books is to refrain from stepping into a bookstore at all. I am such a hopeless bibliophile that I'd buy books just for the sake of keeping them, even books that I know I'll never read - not in the foreseable future anyway - but are good acquisitions for my library. Some women can't stop buying shoes, I can't stop buying books.

These days I'd rather call myself a book collector rather than a reader because the rate of my reading cannot catch up with the rate at which my library is growing. Just here in my hotel room, at last count, there are about 47 books stacked on my desk: They range from Modern Sundanese Poetry to The Guru Guide to the Knowledge Economy by Joseph and Jimmie Boyet.

Some people treat books as disposables - worthless after you have read them. Good books - and that covers a major portion of the books that I own - are not merely a medium for the conveyance of information like newspapers, but are capsules of experience. I've never believed in renting or borrowing books from the library. Books that I have read, I must own. They become a part of my life - my extended memory.

I take comfort in the fact that at least I'm not as crazy a bibliophile as people who collect first editions, book jackets or annotated copies by the authors themselves. A Pound of Paper by John Baxter which I've read earlier this year, gives an interesting glimpse into the crazy world of real bibliophiles.

In Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, monks in a Benedictine monastery were willing to kill because of a book. In the movie adaptation of the book by director Jean-Jacques Annaud, the medieval monk-detective, Brother William, played by Sean Connery was portrayed to be a lover of books. In the climatic scene when the monastery is burning, he emerges from the fire clutching, not his fellow monks but books he had managed to save from the monastery's secret library. In another movie, The Ninth Gate, directed by Roman Polanski, which was also based on a book The Club Domas by Arturo Perez-Reverte, John Depp plays an unscrupulous book detective, hired by book collectors to trace rare and priceless books. Nothing beats a movie based on a book, about books.

There is also a scene at the end of of Steven Spielberg's Minority Report which lingers in my mind. The three clairvoyant characters, called Pre-Cogs, who in the movie are used like laboratory rats by a futuristic society to predict crimes before they happen, were in the end freed to lead a normal life. They were shown living in a country house, filled with books, happily spending the rest of their lives reading. That scene to me, is how I would imagine paradise to be like.

The Deadliest Sin

Eating is many people's favourite pastime. One hour before lunchtime approaches, the girls in my office would already be mulling over where they should be having their afternoon meal. Let's go for Tim Sum today. Another would interject: No! let's go for Manado food. A third one would say: But we haven't gone to the Batak restaurant for a long time! ....No, I have a better suggestion, let's go for noodles, at Bakmi GM...... The debate continues until 20 minutes before twelve when everyone starts rushing for the door like a pack of hungry wolves. The scene repeats itself everyday.

I believe many people are mildly acquainted with the so-called Seven Deadly Sins defined by the early Church, thanks to the hit thriller Se7en, directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt. Of the seven sins, to me the deadliest of them is Gluttony. Why? Because it is often brushed aside as being rather harmless.

Let's face it: we, the fortunate modern middleclass folks eat a lot more than we should. Probably the root cause of many of our sicknesses are due to overeating and over-indulgence in tasty but unhealthy food. Our eating habits border on gluttony itself. And yet we treat eating so casually, and consider every opportunity or excuse to eat as something to cheer for. It's so-and-so's birthday and he's buying us lunch! And off we go stuffing ourselves silly with greasy dim sum. This casual acceptance of an unfettered appetite for food spells enormous danger for us. Chiefly because we don't see it as danger. Clinically, compulsive overeating is recognized as a serious medical disorder.

I have nothing against the enjoyment of good food. I myself fall victim to cravings for certain types of delicacies at times. But this habit of being overtly obsessed with food and eating plainly for the sake of eating is one that I think is accepted with impunity. We rightly condemn people who drink or smoke. But what about overeating - eating way beyond our daily energy requirements? Why shouldn't there be an abhorrence for unnecessary eating just like how we abhor smokers and drinkers?

Over-indulgence in any of our human desires or impulses becomes a sin. Lust, greed and anger are all sins of extremes. In controllable doses, they are considered healthy, and even necessary. But why are we letting our basic need for food set loose like a lion in the fields? There is a reason why Dante placed Gluttony on the second lowest level in Hell next to Lust in his Purgatory. Gluttony is as primal a sin as lust. Better watch your eating habits: it could be the Devil's backdoor to the corruption of your soul.

By the way, where are we going for lunch?

Watching Citizen Kane

The QB World bookstore screens art-house movies every weekend at their Pondok Indah and Kemang stores. And yesterday I saw the promotional poster at their Jalan Sunda branch announcing that Citizen Kane would be the selection for Sunday night. Not wanting to miss this rare opportunity, I decided to drop by in Kemang for the screening.

Citizen Kane, directed and acted by Orson Welles and released in 1941, is considered one of the greatest movies ever made. It is also perhaps one of the most analyzed film in cinema history. What are the reasons for its greatness? As a movie, it can be viewed from two aspects: one as a technically innovative film that breaks new grounds in cinematography, editing and directing; the other as a very engrossing human story about the rise and fall of a charismatic man named Charles Foster Kane, told in a masterful manner using all the film-making techniques at the disposal of director Orson Welles.

One might think that to the average modern audience, a black-and-white movie like Citizen Kane will be quite difficult to sit through. Having so many accolades already heaped upon it, the audience could also be led to believe that this is one of those ponderous art-house films made to show off the director's technical mastery of the medium, only suitable as a laboratory specimen to be dissected by film students.

But once the movie began, I was completely drawn into its story. At its core, the movie is a mystery story about the last word uttered by the fictitious media baron on his deathbed: Rosebud. Who or what is Rosebud? As his life is slowly revealed through mock newsreels, flashbacks and newspaper headlines, we are drawn into the mystery and enigma of this multidimensional character called Kane who chose to take over a crumbling newspaper and vowed to transform it into an honest, fearless and unbiased press, albeit one defined in his own terms. With the mystery of Rosebud as the propelling force, we are led on a journey of the man's life; through his successes and failures in friendship, business, politics and love.

The use of deep-focus, the innovative camera angles and the effective use of flashbacks all contributed to a movie that does not have a single dull moment. Using a vast array of cinematic story-telling devices, Welles provided the audience with revealing glimpses of the personality and character of this man Kane; every sequence, every shot and every introduction of character building up to the drama of his inevitably lonely death - which we were shown at the very beginning of the film. And then only in the final lingering scene, the answer to the mystery of his last word is revealed to the audience.

I left QB World with a very satisfied feeling. I have always wanted to watch Citizen Kane after reading so much about it during my teenage years as an avid film buff. As I rode a cab home to the hotel, I smiled at the thought of how I finally managed to catch Citizen Kane after a wait of almost two decades, and in the most pleasantly unexpected places: at the cafe of QB World in Kemang, Jakarta, while eating spaghetti with Bintang beer on a quiet Sunday night.

Normal Nomads

Normal Nomads

Today as I was dressing up in the morning, I realised how bare and limited my wardrobe is. It has been so because I have always made a conscious effort not to acquire and accumulate too many things; it makes packing and moving difficult. It is a habit I've acquired in these past 7 years of constant travelling, leading almost a "nomadic" lifestyle.

Nowadays the word "nomadic" has become a geek term. Google the word "nomad", you'll end up with links to the latest MP3 player from Creative Technologies. Being nomadic to IT-savvy people conjures images of someone with a laptop, connecting to the Net from a wireless hotspot or dialing up from a hotel room. We have forgotten the real meaning of being nomadic.

Since the beginning of history, human beings have been living a nomadic way of life. It is initially driven by seasonal survival needs; tribes have to move from place to place in search of food, water and trading opportunities. The livelihood of people are tied to the land; and landscapes change with the seasons. Animals migrate in search of grazing pastures and water. Man and Nature are bound by an interlocked cycle of mutual embrace. As the earth revolves round the Sun, the seasons come and go, drought, floods and other cosmic calamities shape the distribution and destinies of all living creatures. We move in Space based on the dictates of Time. The nomadic way of life is in essence a normal and natural one. We move because Earth is itself a nomad in space.

The gypsies, the Bedouins and tribes and the Penans in Sarawak are still leading a nomadic life even until today. Eric Hansen's book Stranger in the Forest, which describes his years of living and hiking with the Penans in the jungles of Borneo is a highly recommended read. In some countries, the right to live the nomadic life is protected by the law, even in an urban environment. Safe camping grounds are provided for modern day gypsies and other travellers and is considered part of good urban planning.

Being nomadic drives us to be constantly on the alert for new opportunities and experiences. Every new place, like the start of a new day, is a new beginning. We are constantly refreshed by new people and places that we encounter. Like it or not, we are all travellers of Time. The minutes and the hours drive us on inevitably to our old age and death. Nothing in Nature remains static. The question we should ask ourselves is: Why shouldn't we be constant travellers of Space too - like the nomads?

An Optimistic Day

Came out this morning from the hotel to see something I've not seen in Jakarta for some time: blue skies. The sun was warm and caressing, making me feel enormously happy and bouyant. As I walked past the Spanish Embassy towards Sarinah, I almost stepped on a teenage boy who was sleeping on the streets, blissful and oblivious to the passers-by.

I'm looking forward to a fruitful and productive day. I have some presentation slides to build and lots of reading to do. Haven't watched a movie since The Matrix Reloaded but I'm not sure if I'll have the time to catch one this weekend. I also have some unwatched VCDs back in my hotel room. I'm never short of things to do on a weekend.

I was watching Talk Show on BBC last night. Sir Martin Rees, a cosmologist was interviewed on his book Our Final Century: The 50/50 Threat to Humanity's Survival. I haven't read the book before but it is interesting to find out that an eminent scientist has a rather pessimistic view about the future of science and its impact on human society. According to him, the advance of science has created unprecendented risks for the human species with the possibility of small errors leading to global catastrophes. He's not just referring to the nuclear terror but things like biotechnology and nanotechnology. He is even putting a 1.000 dollar wager that there will be a major setback to human civilisation, with massive loss of life, by 2020.

That was food for thought for a Friday night. Maybe the human race will not survive this century, but I woke up today feeling very optimistic. Well, even the sky in Jakarta is blue.

Fridays are full of Possibilities

Traffic on a Friday in Jakarta is very unpredictable. Taxis are difficult to get in the evenings. Maybe I'll unwind with a slow beer at the Matabar opposite the office first. The bartenders there always tell me that the place is filled with ABGs ( acronym for Anak Baru Gede, pronounced "Ah-Bay-Gay" - teenaged or under-aged girls) late at night. Their promotional e-mail today screams: "Tequila Madness". "Ladies' Night". It's a pity that I've never been interested to stay later than 9 pm.

The single girls in the office would normally like to go out too. But I am in no mood to spend the evening listening to their office gossips. I have a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon waiting for me back in my hotel room; and Kafka's Letters to Felice sounds like more interesting company for a Friday night......

Bathing by the Molenvliet

Today we took one hour to drive to Mangga Besar for lunch. This area in Chinatown or Kota, popular for its nightlife, is also where you could find some of the best Chinese food in Jakarta. The traffic was so bad along the way that I started studying the huge dirty drain between Jalan Gajah Mada and Jalan Hayam Wuruk closely. One could see lots of disgusting garbage floating in the dark-coloured slime that slowly oozes its way northwards towards the sea.

I shudder to think that this "drain", was once one of the key canals in Jakarta which stretches from Kali Besar near the port of Sunda Kelapa north of Jakarta to Harmonie. Bordered by present-day Jalan Gajah Mada on the west and Hayam Wuruk on the east, the entire stretch then was an upmarket Dutch residential area known as Molenvliet. The canal which diverts a portion of the Ciliwung river from its main course to the sea was initially built by the Chinese in Batavia for flood control and transportation purposes. This was during the days when Batavia was a bustling port and was known as the "Queen of the East".

Mention Molenvliet to any Jarkatan, you'll draw a blank look. But anyone would know Jalan Gajah Mada and Jalan Hayum Wuruk and they would vaguely refer to the "drain" there as the "Ciliwung river". It may sound unbelievable but this mucky canal was also one of the major public bathing places in Jakarta. Even up until the sixties, one can still find scantily-clad women in sarongs, cleaning and washing by the Molenvliet.

The "bathing beauties" are no more in sight along the Molenvliet. But late at night along Jalan Hayam Wuruk, one can see many "street beauties", bathed in neon-lights, soliciting for customers from passing cars. And the canal with its ooze and slime dribbles slowly to the sea, oblivious to its surroundings.

K.uote:

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Every night I cut out my heart......but in the morning it was full again.

- Count Almasy, played by Ralph Fiennes in The English Patient.

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Remembering Rubber

Rubber used to be the main export of Malaysia. But nowadays, rubber plantations are becoming quite a rare sight in Malaysia, replaced by up-market residential housing projects and six-lane highways. A generation ago, life in Malaysia or then Malaya revolved around rubber. My hometown in the Malaysian state of Pahang was essentially a settlement of rubber tappers.

I grew up in a middleclass residential suburb - perhaps the first of such in the town, which itself was a sleepy hollow nestled away in the hills forty miles away from Kuala Lumpur. Even though my house was a relatively modern type of Malaysian "terrace house", it was located on the edge of the residential area, next to a large rubber estate plantation.

As a child growing up in the area, the rubber estate was my playground. I remember those rubber trees with dark green leaves and scarred trunks - tattooed by the tapper's knife, rising in formation like an arboreal army from a Tolkien fantasy. They looked oppressive and mysterious at night - hiding within its dark bosom a cacophony of insects and other strange nocturnal creatures. My hometown was also considered a "Black Area" - an Emergency era label for areas with active communist insurgencies. In some of the more remote rubber estates one could hear then the distant crackle of the occasional gunfire.

In the morning, the rubber estate in front of my house would burst to life with activities. The trees, gay and resplendent under the morning sunlight, brimmed with bustling birds. Squirrels danced from branch to branch. One could see distant specks of figures in white - the rubber tappers - collecting the day's yield of milk-white latex from cups dangling from the tree trunks. In the rising heat, rubber seeds would burst out from their pods, falling like hailstones on the roof and road, with a sound like the popping of champagne in a pastoral feast. The rubber seeds have a hard outer shell, speckled-brown in colour. As children we collected these seeds and invented games with them.

Beneath the canopy of leaves, among the sentinel-like tree trunks, we played hide-and-seek. The floor was a carpet of rotting leaves, which when stirred, unleashed swarms of fiery mosquitoes. One could easily get oneself lost deep in a rubber estate; you only see the monotony of identical trees in every direction and the sunlight is shielded away by thick leaves leaving you feeling disoriented and lost like in some tropical twilight limbo.

It is an era already gone: the romance of colonial planters, estate bungalows and club houses - those characters and scenes that populate many of Somerset Maugham's tales from the Far East. What's left today are merely nostalgic references on bar menus like Planter's Punch and books like Out in the Midday Sun by Margaret Shennan, that recalls life in the colonial era fondly.

Now living in the middle of a concrete jungle here in this Third World squalor that is Jakarta, I remember those rubber trees next to my house in Pahang: they emerge like a dream in my mind, of a lost magical forest filled with the laughter and games of carefree children.

The Four Layer Stack

With the Matrix Reloaded doing successfully at the box-office, I guess the world has come to accept IT geekspeak as part of our everyday lives. The next time someone mentions about vampires or ghosts, we can assume that they are talking about particular types of rogue "programs" that have outlived their usefulness. We could also ponder whether a particularly charismatic religious leader is actually an "anomaly" of the system.

I am going to add to this pseudo-religious geek view of the universe by proposing that a human being is a "Four-Layer Stack". IT geeks are familiar with the term "stack" as used to refer to the TCPIP protocol stack or the seven-layer OSI stack. It is normally used to describe the architecture of a system in terms of vertical layers where each layer is an independent sub-system with well-defined interfaces between the layers above and below it.

The physical body of a human being is like the physical layer of the TCPIP stack or the hardware layer of a computer system. It is the lowest layer. It is something we can touch, feel and see. Our physical bodies define the first and lowest layer of the Four-Layer Stack.

What differentiates human beings from lower life forms is our ability to feel, think and aspire for greater things. We are more than molecular automatons whose only purpose in life is to hunt for food and to procreate. We are also emotional. Music moves us. We seek emotional contact with other people. We cry, laugh, love and hate. Emotions is something that sits on top of the physical dimension of our existence. It is the second layer of our Stack.

But is that all that is to being human? No. We are creatures of the intellect too. We are eternally curious about our environment and strives to learn new things. We read and write books. We analyze facts and figures and invent new products. We want intellectual conversations with someone of our equal. We want to be "stimulated" intellectually. Intelligence is something "higher" than emotions. Someone who thinks rationally and not react emotionally is looked upon highly. Hence it is no surprise that intelligence is the third layer on top of emotions in my Four-Layer Stack model of a human being.

What is the fourth layer then? It is something that is not so obvious: well-developed in certain individuals but vaguely defined in others. It is the Spiritual Layer. The most intelligent man in the universe will still find certain questions that perturbs him: Who am I? Where do I come from? Where am I going? What is the purpose of life? True, philosophy seeks to answer some of these questions but these are but intellectual attempts to answer questions that belong to the spiritual realm. If the mind is the home of intelligence, then the soul is the seat of spirituality. Of course, the soul is not something physical that can be pinpointed in space and time; It is something of the spiritual dimension. Even the best scientists in the world are driven by something more than intellectual curiosity. They long to comprehend the universe and seek to fathom God's mind. There is a spiritual dimension to all our human endeavours: peace, self-sacrifice and compassion are but glimpses of that yearning. The human species strives for something higher beyond our scientific, economic and social accomplishments. The highest layer of human existence is the spiritual one. And there are many ways for human beings to seek a connection with that layer. This is the domain of religion.

To bring things down-to-earth again, let's ask: Of what practical use is my Four-Layer Stack model? Well, for one you could use it to measure compatibility with your spouse or partner. Are you "connecting" on all four layers? Two computers communicate when all peer layers of a TCPIP protocol stack talk to one another. Is there physical attraction in first place? (Layer 1). Are there emotional feelings for each other? (Layer 2). Do you share certain intellectual pursuits together: Books? Movies? Hobbies? (Layer 3). And finally, do you share the same spiritual values: What is important in life? What makes life meaningful? (Layer 4). If you connect on all four layers, then the both of you are soulmates, destined to evolve together through space and time.

Some people connect well in certain layers but not others. Certain people are better developed in some layers and are completely clueless in the rest. A healthy human being is one who strives to develop in all layers. Do a complete stack-check of yourself. Don't blame me if one day your partner tells you that it is all over because you are "not connecting at all on layers 2 and above".

Of Corporate Cliches & Cubicle Creatures

Has your boss ever told you that you need to think out of the box? Or perhaps he mentioned casually in the team gathering that times are tough and non-performers will be managed? Or someone's success is due to teamwork?

For anyone who has worked in a corporate cubicle long enough, they will notice that all the expressions in italics are common corporate cliches which are trite soundbites used by corporate ladder-climbers to sound impressive during meetings or euphemisms to subtly remind subordinates who is actually in-charge.

We who have spent our lives working for big corporations could be forgiven for falsely believing that we are actually contributing something meaningful to the company and society at large. Didn't the company constantly remind us that people are our greatest assets? Imagine the employee's shock when bad times do come, these are the very assets that gets disposed of first.

No wonder Dilbert by Scott Adams is one of the most popular cartoon strips these days and has become the mascot for those who are victims of inconsiderate bosses, backstabbing colleagues, know-it-all consultants and endless corporate mission statement brainstorming sessions. The Dilbert Principle is the bible of the modern corporate cubicle creature who's sole purpose in life is to navigate safely from one payday to the next and avoid the next round of layoffs (the euphemism varies from voluntary severance scheme to reduction in workforce to plain simple cost-cutting).

We, modern men are deprived of the adrenalin rushes our hunter-gatherer fore-fathers experience as part of their daily lives. The fight for survival has been transferred from the savannah plains and medieval battlefields to the corporate boardrooms of multi-national corporations. Our violent instincts, ego, desire, lust and hunger are still as primitive as the ape-man; only our weapons and modus operandi have changed. How else could one explain why Sun Tzu's The Art of War is considered essential reading for every executive?

The Corporate Animal is appropriately called so because we are in essence still locked in a Darwinian struggle for survival; the size of our office cubicles is a reflection of our territoriality instincts. The Human Zoo by popular zoologist Desmond Morris is a humorous account of how similar the behaviours of modern urban people are to animals confined in a zoo.

We shouldn't be prisoners of the corporate cubicle. Life is elsewhere. We must unshackle ourselves from these false comforts and shallow pretensions. Only out there in the wild does an animal realises its true splendour.

Driving with a Dead Dog

Had the strangest of phone-calls from my colleague Edwin last night. Edwin is a flamboyant account manager who has a taste for the fancy and the luxurious. Usually busy with one of his many girlfriends on a Saturday night, I was surprised when he called me and told me that he is driving around the town with a dead dog in his car!

Apparent his pet dog has just died from sickness and he is looking for a place to dispose off its body. My sympathies, but why call me? He then told me that he was looking for the best river or canal in Jakarta to dump the body but couldn't find a suitable one as most of them were hardly flowing at all and were choked with garbage. He wanted to consult me be because he considers me an "expert" on the kali-kali (canals or rivers) of Jakarta!

Well, the reason why he considers me so is because I have often taken a keen interest in the history of old Jakarta - then known as Batavia. The Dutch had great plans for the city - they wanted to build an Amsterdam of the East with canals serving as transportation waterways into the heart of the city. It was a bad idea. In the tropics, the canals became open sewers and breeding ground for all sorts of diseases. But still in the old days one can find many boats and prahus transporting goods to and from the port of Sunda Kelapa north of Jakarta using these canals.

Today the canals serve the functions of monsoon drains and sewers. The many squatters that sprout up beside them contribute further to the ugliness and pollution of this drainage system. One can see many of these canals choked with black stinking sewage criss-crossing all over Jakarta city like festering wounds. I do admit that I am quite fascinated by them because to me, they define Jakarta: the dirty canals are symbollic of the poverty and filth that seem to ooze out from every pore of the city. Most locals do not bother to give them a second glance but I have spent weekends poring over maps and hiking across the city tracing their routes!

My friend Edwin, being an environmentally conscious fellow, did not want to dump his dead dog into a canal that does not flow. For an eerie moment I had the nagging suspicion that perhaps the dead body in the trunk of his car is not a dog but one of his jealous girlfriends. Shrugging the thought aside, I suggested a couple of options to him. Perhaps Kali Grogol which is wider than the others? Or the Ciliwung on its approach to Tanjung Priok? Maybe the one beside Shangrila Hotel, which supposedly was built to alleviate floods?

None of the options seemed to be appropriate for one reason or another. Like a couple of first-time murderers, desperation and panic began to creep in. Finally I jokingly suggested to him that perhaps he should sell the carcass to the Bataks. The Bataks are an ethic group originating from Sumatra, well-known for their fondness for dog meat. Edwin latched on the idea enthusiastically and told me that he is heading right away to the nearest Batak restaurant in Senayan!

Knowing what a good salesman he is, I won't be surprised if he tells me in the office tomorrow that he managed to clinch a good deal for his dead dog.

Reading Tea

I want to catch up on my reading this weekend. Been enjoying Smart Mobs by Horward Rheingold but I've been reading too slowly lately. I often use the bits and pieces of time - while waiting for my food to arrive and immediately after finishing eating - to do my reading. On weekends I'll park myself in a quiet cafe and spend one to two hours there engrossed in my book, while I sip a cup of tea.

I'm not particularly fond of American-styled coffee and hence I avoid places such as Starbucks or Coffee Bean. I prefer the old-fashioned kopi-tiam which serves good milk tea. This is rare in Jakarta. In fact people here normally drink local tea without sugar or milk. While "teh" would normally mean tea with condensed milk in Malaysia and Singapore, here one can hardly find a cafe that serves a smiliar cuppa - sometimes they don't even keep any milk! The kopitiam teh or the mamak teh tarik is what I miss most from home, since living here in Jakarta. But I have found at least one cafe opposite my hotel that serves Chinese-style tea with milk - the Arobusta cafe. It is one of my favourite haunts during the weekends. And I've spent many happy hours there reading and typing into my Jornada.

The worst places to drink tea are at Western cafes where they would just give you a cup of hot water with a Lipton teabag on the saucer - not even bothering to mix them together. But there are other delights in Jakarta - kopi tubruk (the local coffee with lots of sediments) and es jeruk (local orange juice). Or I can always go for a bottle of cheap Bintang beer.

A good cup of mlked tea with a good book. That'll make my weekend.

A Good Friday Evening

Everyone is happy and relaxed on Fridays. People go to the office in casuals; the Muslims go for their prayers during lunchtime; the non-Muslims, a long lunch break; everyone beams at the thought of a weekend ahead, with plans for clubbing, outings or simply catching up on lost sleep.

I'm not much of a clubber these days but occassionally I'd join my friends for a drink or two at the pub opposite the office called Matabar. It is quite a pleasant place if you go there early - before the singer starts crooning the latest MTV hits and ruin the relaxed ambience.

Once in a while, if there are visitors from Malaysia or Singapore, I'd take them to the nightspots in the Chinatown area, known locally as Kota. I am extremely aversed to noisy places, hence I avoid places with live bands. I cannot understand why people would want to have their eardrums abused by over-enthusiastic bands who mangle the latest hits and harass the poor audience to sing or clap along, adding to the already unbearable cacophony.

Gone are my days of clubbing at the Betelnut, DV8, Uno, Pyramid and Picadilly and other popular nightspots in KL and PJ. Except for DV8 (which surprising is still around), all these places are already gone. Even in Singapore, I do not patronise popular nightspots such as Zouk or Brix, preferring quieter places such as Harry's Bar at Boat Quay or hotel lounges. A relaxed glass of beer or wine with close friends is all I look forward to these days. Here in Jakarta, sometimes I'll go for a couple of Bintangs (the local beer) with my colleague at one of the cafes along Jalan Jaksa, the backpacker's alley.

Because I'm still single, people sometimes forget that I do not belong to their age group anymore. The twenty-somethings in the office are always trying to drag me to the latest hotspot in town: places such as Blowfish or Burgundy. These are the places to see and be seen. It seems rather pointless to me - I have already done enough clubbing for the past ten years. I'd rather go back early to my hotel room, have a warm shower, watch Crime Night on the Discovery Channel and slowly sip a glass of Merlot. That's a good Friday evening for me.

The Hotel: My Home, My Palace, My Monastery

One of the most common questions people ask me is: Why don't you get an apartment instead of staying in a hotel? People are often surprised that I've been calling a budget hotel my home in Jakarta for one-and-a-half years. Loneliness, claustrophobia, boredom and lack of privacy are some of the common fears for people not wanting to stay long term in a hotel. They cannot imagine how I could live, "holed up" in a small room.

I've often quipped that I consider the whole hotel my "house", and all the hotel employees, my friends and family members. And I have a retinue of servants to answer to my every whim and fancy. Living in such "opulence" and "luxury", why would anyone want to stay in a pretentious looking expatriate condominium 1 hour away from the city together with bules (Mat Sallehs) and their noisy kids who are forever splashing in the swimming pools?

I go back to my room everyday with my bed freshly made and my clean laundry hanging in my closet. I never need to lift a finger whenever I go out to catch a cab to work in the morning - the porter will rush down the streets to hail me one. And if I feel lonely, I can always chit-chat with Diki at the concierge, Marlyn at the reception or Wiwik from the sales department. Every morning I'm greeted cheerfully by the housekeeper Intan who keeps my room well-stocked with mineral water and coffee. And if I feel like it, I'll drop by at the restaurant downstairs for my complimentary buffet breakfast or hop into the gym for a workout and a relaxing session in the sauna.

Convenience aside, I have other personal reasons for staying in a hotel: it makes my life simpler. Everything I own can be packed into two or three suitcases. It helps me to maintain an austere discipline and forces myself not to accumulate unnecessary things and to keep them uncluttered. From previous experiences staying in an apartment or a house, packing up after a long stay can be quite a nightmare. The less space you have, the more orderly you become.

I like to think of myself as living the life of a Benedictine monk in a secluded monastery. The Seven Storey Mountain by the Trappist monk, Thomas Merton and The Cloister Walk by Kathleen Norris give good accounts of the monastic life. A quiet life of studies and contemplation is what I seek these days. My small hotel room serves that purpose very well. Every night I spend quiet moments in my "cell" writing, reading and typing into my Jornada PDA. Ocassionally I would stare out of my glass window into the night speckled with neon lights: deep in the bowels of the city, the night pulsates with sin and excitement - hawkers and hookers strolling the alleyways, junkies gyrating trance-like in smoky techno-clubs and ubiquitous taxi-drivers touting for customers outside every nightspot.

And I have my home sweet home right here in the middle of all this seediness - a sanctuary of peace in the Capital of Sin.

My CyberGuru

I'm not a Hindu but for many years I was a regular visitor to a Hindu cyber-monastery, reading and listening to sermons of the late Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami who passed away (attained Mahasamadhi) on November 2001. The site is updated daily by the monks in this Hindu monastery physically located on the beautiful island of Kauai in Hawaii. The late Satguru - affectionately known as "Gurudeva" - had been a leading figure in the Hindu world, responsible for raising the religion to greater heights, especially in the Western world.

What is surprising about Gurudeva is that he was an American, orphaned at a young age and started out as a classical and ballet dancer! Responding to his spiritual calling, he later went to India and Sri Lanka and tutored under the great Saivite Hindu guru Yogaswami. Gurudeva had since founded the Hinduism Today magazine and had written many books about the religion besides conducting his many retreats, speeches and sermons all over the world.

I first became acquainted with Gurudeva when I chanced upon his book, Merging with Siva at a new age bookstore in Mountain View, California in 1999. It was a thick book which I started reading then in the US, and continued doing so when I was back in Singapore for the duration of almost a year - slowly sipping and digesting the profound insights and wisdom embedded in this magnificent piece of work. The book changed my perception of life and deepened my understanding of religions. I have always been a student of yoga philosophy and eastern religions and read widely on all these subjects. Gurudeva's Merging with Siva expounds many religious concepts already known to me but it was done with such lucidity and beauty of expression, with an underlying voice that is wise, serene and compassionate that reading the book through those days and months in Mountain View and Singapore, I felt like I had gone through an intense spiritual transformation.

Merging with Siva is the book that I keep on my bedside, even here in Jakarta. I dip into it every now and then to gain fresh insights into Gurudeva's writings. Everytime I read his words, I understand something new. Like a scalpel of the psyche, Gurudeva's words help me to penetrate deeper and deeper into the inner layers of my mind and soul. I now view things and events with a keen intuitive perspective. It is a process of spiritual flowering. And my soul unfolds a little bit more everyday, watered by the transcendent genius of Gurudeva.

Dotcommed & Dazed

Last week when I was in KL drinking teh tarik with my friends, we bumped into one of the key figures of the dotcom phenomena in this region. This former owner of a high-flying dotcom company was treated like a celebrity at a time when the dotcoms could do no wrong. The whole industry then was caught up in a frenzy of public listings and stock options. He told us that he is now divorced and broke. A casualty of the dotcom crash.

The years between 1995 to 2000 were heady years of growth for the IT industry. It was a life of excitement and excess for all of us who were part of that boom. The corporate battle cries, the lavish stock options, the glitzy roadshows and the prospect of forging into brave new frontiers of cyberspace caught all of us up in a heady spin. No one wanted to be left behind: you are either a dotcom or you are part of the "old world". Everyone wanted to jump on the bandwagon. It did not matter how dotcoms were supposed to make money; hits and hypes were good enough indicators of future earnings. Paradigm change became the excuse for being unconventional. It was one long and wild party; one that finally ended with a thud and a lingering hangover.

We are still trying to recover from that hangover now. Many are still in a daze. And we are staring ahead not into brave new frontiers anymore but a wasteland of pessimism and cynicism. Like all battle-hardened warriors though, we would pick up the pieces and trudge on. Who knows, maybe further down the horizon there is another brave new world waiting for us?

The Buccaneer's Home

What a feeling to be back in Jakarta yesterday. After a week of relentless work, I have forgotten about the world I had left behind - the throng of people in malls, the smoky aroma of hawker stalls and the tumult of vehicles in the streets. Arriving back at the hotel was like homecoming with all the simple pleasures of familiar things.

I was tired but I still had some work left. I managed to dash off to Sarinah to shop for some fruits and juices and then hopped into Bakmi Toko Tiga for my favourite sapi cah kangkung with rice. A warm shower back in my room and I was back in front of my laptop, finishing my remaining work. The last files from KL was received only after 1.00am, and I spent another hour entering them into my spreadsheets. Only then did I collapse on my bed and slept like a baby.

Sometimes I wonder if I will ever have the heart to leave Jakarta for good. But life is full of unexpected turns. I've lived in Penang, KL, Singapore and Jakarta. Who knows where I'll end up next?

Everytime I'm back in KL, I feel a bit like the buccaneer Simon Danz in Longfellow's poem A Dutch Picture, home from one of his many adventures in the seas . The poem begins:

Simon Danz has come home again,
From cruising about with his buccaneers;
He has singed the beard of the King of Spain,
And carried away the Dean of Jaen
And sold him in Algiers.
..................

and ends with these lines:

..................
Restless at times with heavy strides
He paces his parlor to and fro;
He is like a ship that at anchor rides,
And swings with the rising and falling tides,
And tugs at her anchor-tow.

Voices mysterious far and near,
Sound of the wind and sound of the sea,
Are calling and whispering in his ear,
Simon Danz! Why stayest thou here?
Come forth and follow me!"

So he thinks he shall take to the sea again
For one more cruise with his buccaneers,
To singe the beard of the King of Spain,
And capture another Dean of Jaen
And sell him in Algiers.

Thoughts Over Teh Tarik

I have been back in KL since Saturday night but have not had the opportunity to blog so far. The all-day, late night sessions since Sunday at the office preparing for a tender proposal have been sucking up all my time.

Today I managed to take a two hour break from this dreary proposal marathon. It was around 6pm and the city was winding down: people commuting home, executives making a bee-line to their favourite teh-tarik haunts and working girls window shopping at the malls.

It was interesting loitering around the KLCC area. I had a chance to observe my fellow Malaysians from a "fresh" perspective. Having been working and living overseas for more than five years, I feel a bit like an outsider everytime I come back to KL. I am constantly surprised at how multi-racial the Malaysian crowd is. And I cringe everytime I hear "Manglish" being spoken so blatantly. At the same time I am taken in by the prosperity of the population, the optimism of the people and the sheer diversity of talent that's present in the Malaysian society.

In Jakarta, I have been used to streets swarmed with the working class toiling day and night to make ends meet. Life is a constant struggle. Here in KL, life is more of keeping up with the Joneses (or the Wongs, Rashids or Ratnams). And the Petronas Twin Towers soar above the skyline like a symbolic portal to a brighter future.

And there at the new 24-hour Lotus restaurant (a gentrified mamak stall in essense), I observed the crowd of young executives attacking their roti canais and nasi lemak with gusto as I slowly nursed my favourite glass of teh tarik.

The Siti Sensation

Ask any Indonesian to name a Malaysian singer that they know, inevitably they will say Siti Nurhaliza. As I'm typing these lines at my favourite Internet cafe, strains of Siti's Cindai float through the air. I realised during my many years of coming to Jakarta that a good conversation starter is Siti Nurhaliza. Most admire her beauty and her voice. Her most popular songs here are Aku Cinta Pada Mu and Cindai. You can request for both of these songs in karaokes here but beware, they are notoriously difficult to sing.

I introduced one of my Indonesian Chinese colleagues to Siti Nurhaliza's songs and now he is totally enamoured with her. I find him even slightly annoying these days with his Aku Cinta Pada Mu ringtone bursting out incessantly from his cellphone. I have another Indonesian Chinese colleague who has a huge collection of Siti's pictures from the Internet. It is interesting that a conservative singer such as Siti Nurhaliza could garner such a large following here in Indonesia when local divas like Kris Dayanti and sexy Dangdut grillers like Inul Daratista typically dominate the music scene.

Among the local Indonesian bands, Dewa, Sheila on 7 and Padi are probably the most popular ones. I have become quite a Dewa fan too. Most Indonesians are also familiar with Amy Search, mainly because of his song Isabella, which was quite a hit here back then. Sheila Majid is also quite well-known but Siti Nurhaliza is definitely the number one Malaysian singer here by a wide margin. Ziana Zain? Sorry, no one has heard of her before.

Rembrandt in Chiaroscuro

Was it vanity that resulted in Rembrandt's left-ear deformity? A BBC report brought forth the theory by a British surgeon that the Dutch painter's visibly enlarged earlobe in many of his self-portraits is caused by a botched ear-piercing job. Rembrandt, being the fashionable artist of his time might have attempted to have his ears pierced again after the earlier failure as an ear-ring is visible in some of his later portraits.

This intriguing explaination was given 330 years after the artist's death from careful analysis of his many self-portraits by the surgeon. Rembrandt is famous for his chiaroscuro style, where the sharp contrast of light and shadow helps to highlight key features of his subjects or heighten the drama of a scene. His lighting style is a great influence to many artists including modern film-makers. My favourite director Ridley Scott is especially fond of it.

K.uote:

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There's a lot of ugly things in this world, son. I wish I could keep 'em all away from you. That's never possible.

- Atticus Finch, played by Gregory Peck (5 April 1916 - 12 June 2003) in To Kill a Mockingbird

---

The Roots of Mutiny

A brief sojourn to Makassar brought back memories of other places I have visited before in the past. Upon landing at the airport in Makassar, I was immediately captivated by the clear blue skies. It is a small airport - one where you can alight from the plane and walk the tarmac into the terminal. I suddenly recall another similar airport, which I have almost forgotten about - Pune in India. I had made a short flight from New Delhi to Pune to visit a customer. I later found out that Pune was one of the places where Mahatma Gandhi had spent some time being imprisoned before. It is a quiet retirement place nowadays.

As I approached Makassar town center in a taxi, I am reminded of Georgetown, Penang. I had spent a year of my working live in Penang and have lots of pleasant memories of my days there. Makassar is like Penang, filled with many Chinese shops and there's a sea-front with open air eating stalls not unlike Gurney Drive. There's an old Dutch fort near the harbour called Fort Rotterdam, which is quite well-preserved. It at once reminded me of Fort Cornwallis in Georgetown. And like Penang, there's even a place called Tanjung Bunga! (spelt Tanjung Bungah in Penang).

Sitting there at the lobby lounge of Hotel Imperial Aryaduta (formerly called Sedona Hotel), and looking out at the calm blue waters with schooners and boats majestic in the sunset, I remembered Cebu, Philippines. Cebu is a resort island a short flight away from Manila and I once spent a couple of idyllic days there. Like Makassar, it has stunning azure skies with tranquil seas dotted with green small islets. That in turn triggered memories of another beautiful place in the Philippines: Subic Bay - the abandoned US naval base. I had loved the peace and isolation of the place when I visited it 7 years ago. The waters of the bay were translucent and I could see fish swimming in them. In such places, one begins to understand why the sailors mutinied on the Bounty. The allure and charm of tropical paradises with blue seas, green islands and friendly natives can be quite hypnotic and irresistable.

But there wasn't enough time for me in Makassar to contemplate a return to a life of noble savagery. I had dinner with the customers, worked on my slides and spent the next day in presentations and discussions with them. I returned to Jakarta this evening: Back to that grim, gritty and sweaty world - that fume-choked metropolis of mysteries called Jakarta.

Mission to Makassar

I'll be hopping on a plane to Makassar on the island of Sulawesi. Formerly called Ujong Pandang, Makassar is the gateway to Eastern Indonesia, famed for its spice islands. Besides the Makassarese, Sulawesi is also hom to the Bugis, the Minahasans and the Torajans. The Bugis are reknowned as great seafarers and they have settled all over the Malay archipelago - you can find their settlements even in Selangor and Johor, Malaysia. Of course, Singaporeans would know about Bugis Street and the Bugis Junction shopping mall, the location of their settlement there.

I hope to take this one day business trip of mine to gain a better insight into the history and culture of Indonesia. I have visions of swarthy pirates, Portuguese galleons and armoured Dutch soldiers manning forts; the colour and romance of a time when spice was worth its weight in gold. Nathaniel's Nutmeg by Giles Milton is the book to read about the intrigues and adventures during the golden age of the spice trade in the Malay archipelago.

Mulling Over Malls

I had lunch today with colleagues at the Bistro in Plaza Senayan. Plaza Senayan seems to be the most popular mall for the middleclass here. Strolling pass its many designer label stores, one cannot really tell whether one is in Jakarta or Singapore or KL for that matter. One upmarket middleclass mall looks like another.

Which got me thinking about some of the malls that I like to go to in Jakarta. I usually avoid Plaza Senayan mainly because it is too trendy - the place to see and be seen. I enjoy anonymity. Moreover, the cineplex there is expensive and crowded during the weekends.

My favourite malls in Jakarta are the lower-end ones: Pasaraya Blok M, Block M Plaza, Atrium Senen and even Roxy Mas. The people who go there are teenagers and the lower middle-class folks. One can see more of the real Jakarta here.

In Singapore, I spent a lot of time at the Junction 8 in Bishan because I lived in the area. I've also watched many movies at the cineplex there. Whenever I'm downtown, I kind of like to hang around at Raffles City Shopping Center at City Hall. Maybe it's because I used to stay at the adjacent Westin Stamford Hotel (now Swissotel, The Stamford) everytime I make a business trip to Singapore and has grown accustomed to the place. And the Times bookstore there is pretty good.

In the KL and PJ area, I still have a soft spot for some of the forgotten malls of yore, like Atria at Damansara Jaya. I used to live and work in that area and the place brings back many good memories of those days. I remember a time when the teh tarik stalls would be packed after 5.00pm and we would be having our nasi lemak or maggi mee before adjourning to the Orient Express Pub around the corner. Those were the good old days when the whole Section 22 would be jam-packed whenever there was a sale at the Parkson store there. And there was a Picadilly discotheque in the same complex that used to be the hottest place in PJ.

Nowadays, the place is a bit deserted. People like to go to newer and trendier malls like MidValley Megamall, Sunway Pyramid or Suria KLCC. Going to the mall has become a favourite pastime of the young and a typical weekend outing for families.

I pass by the oldest "mall" in Jakarta everyday - Sarinah. It is the nearest one to my hotel. The term "mall" wasn't even popularly used when Sarinah was first opened in the 60s by President Sukarno. It was the first international class departmental store (as it was called then) in Jakarta. Nowadays it is considered very old-fashioned to shop there - a place for the ibu-ibu and mbak-mbak. I like Sarinah because it has two or three floors selling traditional handicrafts and dresses and the foodcourt in the basement has quite a good variety of local food. And I'm happy that it is not "polluted" by the trendy crowd, even though Hard Rock Cafe Jakarta is situated in the same building complex.

Years from now, I know I will remember Sarinah with as much affection as I have for Atria in Damansara Jaya.

On the 54

I used to take the SBS bus to work in Singapore - hopping on the number 54 daily from Bishan to the River Valley Road, dropping off at the bus-stop in front of Liang Court. I generally avoided the rush hours, preferring to go slightly later after nine.

It was always a pleasant ride, this half-an-hour journey on the number 54. It takes you through Thomson Road, Newton Road and Scotts Road, slicing through the heart of the Orchard shopping area - past Shaw House and the Borders bookstore. Passengers included students, housewives and working people like me.

It is the trendy habit of the young in Singapore to carry with them a portable stereo Walkman whenever they commute. One can see these youngsters in MRT trains and buses, plugged into their personal auditorium, ocassionally swaying their head and tapping their feet, oblivious to the bustle of the surrounding.

It got myself into the habit of carrying a Walkman with me too when I was commuting daily on the 54. But instead of pounding my ear-drums with the latest hits from the boy band of the day, I took the opportunity to "read" by listening to my audiobooks.

Those were pleasant mornings for me, with the sun streaming in through the window and the bus gently cruising down tree-lined roads, past parks and walkways lush with greeneries; I would engross myself in an exciting narration of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or lose myself in a sonorous rendition of W.B. Yeats' poems. Ocassionally I would doze off, missing entire chapters. But that's the advantage of audiobooks, you can always rewind and listen to them again and again without the strain and boredom of visual reading.

Listening to audiobooks helped me to catch up on the reading I had missed, especially those on the classics. Now I think back on those commuting days of mine in Singapore with fondness, especially those daily rides on the 54 - my moving university.

Mind-Blowing Smart Dusts

Be careful the next time you take a deep breath: you might inhale a computer and radio transmitter into your body. Scientists at the UC Berkeley have successfully tested sensors with embedded radio transmitters the size of a small fleck of glitter, measuring 5 cubic millimeters.

These so called "smart dusts" are designed to work with one another, so that a scoop of these tiny sensors can be dispersed in remote or environmentally harzardous locations to take readings ranging from the location of seabirds to the presence of toxic chemicals.

Interesting news about the latest technologies like this come to me through a Yahoo mailing list called the Bay Area Futurists. I have my friend Dan Best to thank for introducing me to this very interesting cyber discussion group.

A Sunday Morning Bath in the Streets

Sunday morning in Jakarta. I walked out from my hotel at around 10.30am into Jalan Wahid Hasyim. The streets were relatively quiet after a very busy Saturday night. I saw a mother bathing her child in a pail; the child squealing from the water and soap that was being poured over her by the mother. Many of the faces that I see along this road have become quite familiar to me now: they spend almost all their time here in the streets - peddling food or cigarettes, playing chess or just loitering.

I have gotten used here in Jakarta to see people leading their everyday lives - bathing, eating and sleeping - out in the streets. But to see the mother and child in the pail under the bright Sunday sky, soap and water splashing and spilling onto the sidewalk, I sense a certain peace and joy in their lives, despite their poverty. These are Pramoedya's children. And like I've mentioned before, they are the Soul of Jakarta.

P. Ramlee: Anak-anakku dan Sazali

Stories about Malaysia's legendary actor, singer and composer P. Ramlee's sibblings have been brewing up in Harian Metro recently. Apparently the press has been playing up the fact that there have been some squabbles between them over the distribution of royalties from the late P. Ramlee's artistic works.

The whole thing started from a report in the same paper about one of P. Ramlee's son, Sazali (who's name was immortalized in his father's black-and-white classic Anakku Sazali and song by the same name) who is reportedly working as a street sweeper or garbage collect in Kajang. How the son of Malaysia's most honoured artiste could end up having such a fate was beyond comprehension of the public. Why is he not enjoying the royalties from P. Ramlee's huge canon of songs which are still constantly being played in the airwaves?

Sazali bin Ramlee, an old, sick and forgotten down-and-out labourer in Kajang? Sounds like something out of one of P. Ramlee's melodramatic movies. The fact that P. Ramlee has a real-life son called Sazali is also a surprising fact to many people. Some may have heard of Dian P. Ramlee or even Nasir Ramlee whose names crop up every now and then in the presses. Dian P. Ramlee was quite a popular TV personality some time back.

Now, to understand the background of this "controversy", we have to understand a bit about P. Ramlee's love life. He was married thrice in his lifetime. His first marriage was to Junaidah Harris who bore him two sons: Nasir and Arfan. Junaidah herself brought a son, Abdul Rahman from a previous marriage.

P. Ramlee later divorced Junaidah to marry fellow actress Norizan Mohd. Nor. The marriage did not produce any children but it was during this six years of life together that they adopted three children - Sazali, Norbetty and Norma.

P. Ramlee's most well-known wife was his third, the late Saloma. She outlived P. Ramlee who died of a heart attack in 1973. Their marriage also did not produce any children but Saloma herself has a son, Armali from a previous marriage to comedian A.R. Tompel. During this time, they had three more adopted children: Zakiah, Sabaruddin and Dian. Dian P. Ramlee - the well-known one - is from Chinese parentage and was adopted by Saloma herself.

Despite bringing up so many children from his three marriages, P. Ramlee in actual fact has only two children who can be considered his own flesh and blood - Nasir and Arfan, both from his first marriage to Junaidah. Arfan has already passed away in 1998. This leaves Nasir as the only surviving child with direct blood ties to P. Ramlee. However It was reported that Sazali was P. Ramlee's favourite among all his children.

One can imagine the complications that arise when it comes to claims to royalities for P. Ramlee's work. Based on a report in Harian Metro, Nasir is the one who has the legal claims to such royalty payments and he has distributed a portion of them to his step-brothers Sazali and Sabaruddin. The reports did not mention why the other sibblings are not in the picture. Dian P. Ramlee when asked on the issue of royalties by reporters, said:

"Orang dengar pun tidak bagus, daddy sudah lama meninggal dunia tetapi anak masih sibuk pasal royalti"

(It is not nice to still make a big fuss about royalties when my daddy has long passed away)

P. Ramlee has already passed away for three decades. I've watched many of his movies and try to collect the VCDs whenever possible. My favourite is Antara Dua Darjat. I also play P. Ramlee's songs in my car whenever I'm driving in KL. Listening to his songs and watching his movies makes us feel nostalgic for a time when life was simpler and maybe happier. It was the old Malaya that we all loved and P. Ramlee represents all that was good about it. May his soul rest in peace.

The Soul of Jakarta

In a previous entry to this blog I have written about some of the positive things about Jakarta that are often overlooked by the casual visitor. I have been visiting Jakarta since 1996 and have tried hard to understand what it is about this city that attracts me so much.

I often tell people that it is the culture and the history of Jakarta that I find endlessly fascinating. And these aspects of Jakarta will definitely be the subject of many of my blog entries to come. But that is not all. There is something else about the city: It has a soul.

With 10 to 12 million people crammed into this metropolis, human contact is inevitable and privacy is minimal. One can scarcely find a corner of the city that is free from the signature of human presence or activity. Singapore lacks space too but people there still have the relative isolation of individual HDB apartments with HDB estates properly interspersed with lovely green parks. The average Malaysian middleclass live in fenced-up terrace houses in relatively well-planned tamans . The middleclasses with their HDBs and terrace houses define the surban landscape in Singapore and Malaysia. They commute to work daily using MRTs or Protons. The cities belong to them.

In Jakarta, the middle and upper classes also live a life as luxurious, if not more, than the people in their neighbouring countries. Their mansions are opulent and they have a retinue of maids and servants to tend to their everyday needs. But they live in a super-terrestrial world that is removed from the real Jakarta. The city belongs to the labouring masses - the people who throng the streets peddling aqua (mineral water) at traffic junctions, salesgirls selling the latest ponsel (handphones) in crowded malls, hawkers frying gorengan below the flyover, tukang pijat (masseurs) in international five star hotels, teenage hookers in Chinatown diskoteks, menial clerks in small trading companies and vagrants who nongkrong(loiter) by the sidewalks: They define the city.

Here working class families pack into shanty dwellings that sprout between skyscrapers owned by the super-rich Indonesian Chinese conglomerates. They work, eat, fornicate, sleep and breed in this nether-world beneath the rich. Students and young workers would live in kos-kosan (boarding houses) or rumah kontrakan (rented houses) and take the rickety buses, ojeks, bajajs or mikrolets to work. Every now and then, truckloads of hired placard-shoving, slogan-chanting demonstrators of some insignificant political party would spill out into the streets to protest against yet another corruption scandal or demand for the umpteen time, the resignation of their government leaders causing macet (jams) in the city center.

Jakarta is one big chaos. But somehow by some miracle everyone seems to have a purpose, everything seems to fall into place and the city functions as one. The faceless masses give the city a certain colour and personality. Their ceaseless, uncomplaining struggle to eke out a living in whatever way they know defines the indomitable spirit of the Betawi people. And the city, like one gigantic organism, breathes and heaves to the rhythm of their activities. This is the soul of Jakarta.

Morality Report

"pak toh pun sekarang tak bolehkah?"

(Translation:Are couples not even allowed to court nowadays? Note: pak toh is Cantonese for courting or dating)

That was the question posed to Perak Menteri Besar, Datuk Seri Mohd Tajol Rosli Ghazali after an outcry broke out over the issue of a Chinese couple who was issued a fine for "indecent behaviour" at the Ipoh Padang. Apparent since the new mayor of Ipoh, Sirajuddin Salleh came on board, the Ipoh City Council has been asked to enforce these "indecent behaviour" by-laws strictly. What did this young couple do to warrant their act indecent in the eyes of the law? Well, they were just doing what all other young courting couples do in parks - hugging and kissing.

Facing criticism from both the press and the public, Datuk Tajol Rosli has asked the City Council to suspend enforcement until views of all concerned parties have been sought. Critics say that it is not the job of the City Council to be the moral guardians of the people.

In Malaysia, it is common for unmarried Muslim couples to run the risk of being caught for khalwat (close proximity) or even zina (adultery) by the religious authorities. One reason why there was such an outcry over the Ipoh incident was that non-Muslims fear that Islamic laws are slowly being enforced on the general population, though in this case, the government insists that the couple was fined based on the City Council's park by-laws which have been around since 1985.

This slow creeping-in of religious intolerance is a concern for many in Malaysia. Perhaps Malaysia should take a cue from Indonesia on such matters. Even though religious extremism does rear its ugly head here every now and then, the general population is far more open and tolerant over such things. One can find non-halal food like sate babi (pork satay) being advertised and sold everywhere; screen kisses among local artistes are also common and Indonesian singers dress far sexier than their Malaysian counterparts. No one makes a big fuss over such things. Yes there was an outroar over the sexy hip gyrations of dangdut singer Inul Daratista recently but the massive public support that rallied behind her only proved that moderation still has the upperhand.

And there are certainly no religious policemen who go around snooping on pak toh couples in Jakarta parks.

Raja Yoga: The Royal Path

Raja Yoga is one of the four paths towards God realization mentioned in the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita (Celestial Songs) and is considered the highest form of Yoga practice. The word "Yoga" is usually associated by the general public to a form of exercise involving very acrobatic postures. This form of Yoga is actually a subset of Raja Yoga, traditionally known as Hatha Yoga. Hatha Yoga consists of various preparatory practices involving breathing, dieting and physical exercises, which set the foundation for the higher attainments of Raja Yoga.

And nowhere is the practice of Raja Yoga more succinctly expounded than in the 196 aphorisms composed by the ancient mystic Patanjali, initially handed down orally from teacher to disciple. These Sanskrit aphorisms are terse, concise and sometimes cryptic, but deep in its richness of meaning. It contains the distilled essence of Raja Yoga and has been the bible, if you will, of Yoga practice for thousands of years.

An example of the economy and depth of its language is given in the second aphorism, where Yoga itself is defined:

Yoga citta vrtti nirrodha

(Variously translated as: Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind, Yoga is the quelling of the waves of the mind or Yoga is the restraint of fluctuations of he mind).

Because of its terseness, the aphorisms of Raja Yoga have been widely interpreted in commentaries by many religious teachers, academics and practitioners. I first read a rather difficult intepretation of these aphorisms by a I.K. Taimni, entitled The Science of Yoga in 1991. Difficult as it was to me then, the book left a deep impression and laid the foundation for many of my current philosophical beliefs.

Years later I was able to get hold of an audio version of Vivekananda's commentaries on Patanjali's aphorisms. Vivekananda's style is free-flowing, conversational and lucid and it helped to further my understanding of Raja Yoga. This audiobook still remains as one of my all-time favourites. I listen to it even here in Jakarta - each listening unveiling deeper layers of meaning.

Yoga teachers often repeat the fact yoga is a way of life and not a religion. I personally see it as the art and science of living. Yoga is an art because it requires an intuitive feel of one's mental states and it is a science because it outlines systematic methods to achieve specific results, using the mind as the instrument of exploration and observation.

Raja Yoga is a path for leading life, laid out by the combined wisdom of the ages. And as its name implies, it is the royal path. A path that leads the practitioner ultimate to the jewel of the crown - spiritual salvation itself.

The Mobile Menace

Reducing traffic congestion by monitoring the location of cellphone users on the road, a cellphone that monitors heartbeat and blood pressure and another that has a projector to project web pages onto large screens - these are some of the new patents issued for cellphone-related inventions recently, as reported in the New York Times and highlighted by Smart Mobs author, Horward Rheingold in his blog.

One of the inventions mentioned, which ironically, I think is the most useful and important one, is a system that is able to cut off signals to mobile devices such as cellphones and pagers. This would be extremely useful for restaurants and theatres who have a headache persuading their patrons to switch of their noisy devices. For some reason people seem very reluctant to do so.

It is common nowadays to see people shamelessly answering cellphone calls during meetings and even while doing presentations. Cellphones have become the backdoor to get hold of people who under normal circumstances would be quite inaccessible. In the old days secretaries would think twice before knocking apologetically on the door to interrupt a meeting; and it had better be something important. But these days it seems that even one's babysitter has a right to trigger an eruption of the Ketchup song in the middle of a million-dollar deal negotiation.

It is therefore timely indeed to have a system that could cut off signals to all these irritating mobile devices whenever necessary. People need to realise that not all calls are important and warrant the same attention. It is alright to switch off the phone. OK, OK. Maybe I can accept a system that sends out SMS warnings to everyone first before cutting off the signal.

K.uote:

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When one woman strikes at the heart of another, she seldom misses, and the wound is invariably fatal.

- Marquise de Merteuil (played by Glenn Close), in Dangerous Liaisons

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Dr M's Legacy

Former Keadilan leader, Chandra Muzaffar, said something very interesting about Dr Mahathir:

"I don't think Dr Mahathir is very fond of the ISA. In contrast to previous leaders, he has favoured relatively shorter periods of detention".

This comment was made in the wake of the release of 4 ISA detainees on Monday. Many of the younger generation today are familiar with all the nasty labels hurled at Dr M, such as "dictator", "Mahazalim", "Mahafiraun" and others. Very few remember that when Dr M came into power as Prime Minister of Malaysia in 1981 after the retirement of Tun Hussein Onn, the first thing that he did was to release many long-serving ISA detainees. Dr M together with Datuk Musa Hitam, his hand-picked Deputy Prime Minister - the so-called "2M" administration - was a breath of fresh air to the Malaysian political scene. They were young, energetic and visionary, promising a new administration that was bersih, cekap dan amanah (clean, efficient and trustworthy). Though Datuk Musa Hitam resigned as Dr M's deputy not long after, Dr M continued to transform Malaysia from an agricultural backwater to one of the leading industrialised developing countries in the world.

When one travels to other third world countries such as Indonesia, one begins to appreciate how far Malaysia has progressed. This was not achieved without great difficulty and many I think, underestimate the achievements of Dr M. We all know about the Penang Bridge, Proton Saga, Twin Tower and the MSC. Not many however remember the small but not insignificant things that Dr M initiated like how he forged closer integration with Sabah and Sarawak by putting the whole of Malaysia on a single time zone (Peninsula Malaysia had to move its clock half-an-hour forward and Singapore had to follow suit). We have Dr M to thank today if we are pleasantly surprised that when we fly to Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai or Beijing, we do not have to readjust our watches.

The ISA could be an anachronism in today's world where human rights and freedom of speech are considered as basic a need as food and water. But Malaysia is transforming, albeit slowly. The Malaysian government is cautious about drastic change. Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, the present Deputy Prime Minister sums up the Malaysian approach succinctly when he said:

"If we have erred, we have erred on the side of caution".