Ambang, Ambang, Ambang, Ambang Raya!

Another four more days before we celebrate Eid Mubarak. And this is going to be my fourth Aidilfitri that I won't be around my beloved mother, father and siblings.

The thing that I'm gonna miss the most is the opportunity to kiss my parents' cheeks and to hug them passionately. This is because only on Aidilfitri (and a very, very few and rare occasions) my parents "allow" us to perform this. And only on that day as well, I will cry like a small child.

Only on Raya too, my siblings and I will have the ketupat with not one or two but four or five dishes. And my favourite, as always, will be the rendang kerang. My all time favourite! We will also have chicken rendang, beef rendang, sambal udang and if we're well-behaved on Raya eve, normally my mother will cook an extra dish, either peanut sauce or rendang peparu.

Since I was a little boy, I don't fancy fire crackers. So, I don't miss that thing definitely. Pasang pelita? Yeah... I'm so blessed to have a father who loves to light up oil lamps and put them around our house. And every three or four years, he will change with new design. And I love the one that my father made them by himself, using bamboo. That was five or six years back, when I've just started working and was a bit nervous to give out my first angpows to smaller cousins.

Instead of joining my two younger brothers go for takbir raya from house to house, I will patiently accompany two of my younger sisters changing the curtains as well as cushion cases. Go on, guess what was my role?

"Senteng tu!"
"Labuh sangat!"
"Kedut-kedutkan dia."

Because of my big mouth, I always get this from them.

"Along pandai sangat kan, nah buat!"

Oh, God... can I still have this at my aunt's house?

In the Mood for Celebration II

The celebration started on last Thursday with the birthday of Danny and yesterday was the birthday of Amy, one of my travel buddies. Today is the special day of another friend of mine, Shai and tomorrow will be a double celebration for Julianaa (one of my karaoke buddies) and Wok. The next day will be the birthday of my cousin, Marlia and the day after will be the birthday of another friend of mine i.e. Shy. And on this coming Wednesday, it will be a triple celebration for three friends of mine - Herman, Alin and Malik.


Wow, a full week of birthday celebrations. Happy birthday to Danny (4th), Amy (5th), Shai (6th), Julianaa (7th), Wok (7th), Marlia (8th), Shy (9th), Herman (10th), Alin (10th) and Malik (10th). Good luck in your future undertakings and may Allah bless all of you with more rahmat, berkat and joy.


I wish I was there to join the celebration with you guys. Since I can't find any picture of birthday cakes on my laptop, I hope you guys don't mind me uploading the following pictures instead.





Go on... guess where was I when having this delicious dishes?

Bantahan!

God is Great! One of the proofs is us - His greatest creation. He created us in all sizes and colors and alhamdulillah, each one of us has our own taste and preference. To those who really knows me, some (if not most) of my taste and preference are totally different from the mainstream. Some are posh (sikitlah!) and some are kampung. I'm not proud of those poshness and I'm not ashame of those 'kampung'ness. At the end of the day, this is who I am. If you like it... thank you very much. If you don't... I can just pity you.

My beloved mother always says this to me, "Love yourself as much as you love Allah and your mother."

Although I'm a subscriber to National Geographic magazines, I'm not ashame that I read Panca Indera and Bintang Popular. Although I watch Wong Kar-wai's, Mike Leigh's, Lars von Trier's and Uwei Haji Saari's, at the same time I listen to Ramlah Ram, Anuar Zain, Nora, Ramli Sarip, Ning Baizura, Jamal Abdillah and Adibah Noor. I don't feel ashame that I knowledge of international artistes is limited to Roxette, Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Robbie Williams and Josh Groban.

Lars von Trier - Danish Filmmaker with great films like The Idiot, Breaking The Waves & Dancer In The Dark

This is simple because I'm different from all of you and vice versa. And what make me and my friends more civilised than a couple of people in a private radio station in Malaysia is that my friends and I respect of each other's taste and preference. Although at some point of time, we got a bit carried away but at the end of day we still managed to put a stop at that and move on. And our golden key is never dictate or impose on others of our views or choices.

But I totally can't understand how a firm run by so-called professionals can simply ignored this common sense and trying to act like policemen - to control what we listen to, to dictate our taste and preference. If they can play a request by my adik for a song by a newcomer with limited vocal capability why can they grant my request for Ketentuan by Ramlah Ram, whose 'kampung'ness showmanship during the opening act of the Voice of Asia competition, had opened the judges' eyes to talents from Malaysia. In that particular year, Ziana Zain brought home our first time win of this singing competition annually held in Kazakhstan.



So, I guess it's timely for me to reset the pre-set frequency on my radio players. I already have Hot.fm, Muzik.fm, Hitz.fm and KlasikNasional.fm, so is it IKIM.fm or Fly.fm? Or Suria.fm? Definitely, not Sirna.fm or Xfresh.fm! Why? Abang borek, adik rintik...


p/s: I append I strong condemnation of Radio ERA's unprofessionalism.

From: arenaKu@gmail.com
To: azrullah_nor@astro.com.my, webmaster@eraradio.com.my
Cc: adam@hmetro.com.my, hanizam@bharian.com.my, akmel@bharian.com.my, online@utusan.com.my

Merujuk kepada beberapa artikel di akhbar serta kenyataan balas ERA, saya membantah KERAS di atas tindakan Radio ERA sama ada melarang mahupun melewat-lewatkan penyiaran lagu-lagu nyanyian Ramlah Ram. Tindakan yang kebudak-budakan ini, tidak melambangkan langsung nilai-nilai profesionalisme Radio ERA ke arah memperkasakan seni hiburan tanahair. Apakah ini yangdikesalkan oleh YAB Pak Lah tentang mentaliti dunia ketiga!

Lantaran itu, saya minta agar pendaftaran e-pass saya (untuk laman Astro, Eradan lain-lain) ditamatkan serta merta.


Fallowfield, Manchester.

Happy Birthday, Danny!

Today is another special day in my life. It's the birthday of one of my close friends. Those who might not know about this good-looking guy, might not have a good first impression of him. But trust me, he's the kind of friend who will stay with you, regardless good or bad days.

I tried to write a poem about him last minute, but I don't why I failed miserably. Well, I said to myself, never mind... I've more or less another 24 hours to get myself together and write beautiful prose for him.

I went to tutorial, one class after another, broke my fast in the bus on my way home and quickly sat in front my laptop after Maghrib prayer, but still... those words seem just do not want to come out.

Oh my God... is this a sign or what!

Danny... I would like to take this opportunity to wish you Happy Birthday. Good luck in your future undertakings. May Allah bless you with more rahmat, berkat and joy. Aamin.

Thank you for being such a dear friend.

Liberation Via Grameen Bank

Today's class was given by Dr. Anul and he talked in lengthy on one of my favourite subjects i.e. Micro Finance. He kept stressing that micro credit is not micro finance, but sub-set to micro finance. And in his class I heard for the first time about BRAC (previously known as Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee), an NGO established by Mr. Fazle Hasan Abed in 1972. If this fact is correct, this means BRAC was providing micro credit to poor much earlier that Grameen Bank!

To learn more, I googled the Net on this topic. Basically, most of the literature that I found, clearly mentioned how Dr. Muhammad Yunus was inspired during the terrible Bangladesh famine in 1974. He made loans of $27 to a group of 42 families, whereby at the end of the day, all were fully repaid.

The Grameen Bank (literally, "Bank of the Villages", in Bangla) is the outgrowth of Muhammad Yunus' ideas. The bank began as a research project by Yunus and the Rural Economics Project at Bangladesh's University of Chittagong to test his method for providing credit and banking services to the rural poor. In 1976, the village of Jobra and other villages surrounding the University of Chittagong became the first areas eligible for service from Grameen Bank. In 1983, it was transformed into an independent bank by the legislature of Bangladesh. As of mid-2006, Grameen Bank branches number over 2,100. Its success has inspired similar projects around the world. (Wikipedia)

Other points worth mentioning include the fact that majority of the beneficiaries are women and the repayment rate is around 98%. This raises a numbe of good questions, are women good paymaster than men? Or is it all this while the formal financiers have been sexist by denying a lot of women (at least in the case of Bangladesh) from financial services, especially credit? Are poors really bankable? Or like what Sudhirendar Sharma pointed out that micro credit is just a macro trap - landed poor communities in a perpetual debt-trap?

Let me do more reading on this and if you guys interested to find out more about this, just email me personally.

Grameen Bank might have operational issues like other banks (in the light of latest development, even big boys like Citigroup are financially affected by the US sub prime crisis), but what I find it fascinating is the Sixteen Decisions - a set of values incorporated by the Bank and there are as follows:

1. We shall follow and advance the four principles of Grameen Bank: Discipline, Unity, Courage and Hard work – in all walks of our lives.
2. Prosperity we shall bring to our families.
3. We shall not live in dilapidated houses. We shall repair our houses and work towards constructing new houses at the earliest.
4. We shall grow vegetables all the year round. We shall eat plenty of them and sell the surplus.
5. During the plantation seasons, we shall plant as many seedlings as possible.
6. We shall plan to keep our families small. We shall minimize our expenditures. We shall look after our health.
7. We shall educate our children and ensure that they can earn to pay for their education.
8. We shall always keep our children and the environment clean.
9. We shall build and use pit-latrines.
10. We shall drink water from tubewells. If it is not available, we shall boil water or use alum.
11. We shall not take any dowry at our sons' weddings, neither shall we give any dowry at our daughter's wedding. We shall keep our centre free from the curse of dowry. We shall not practice child marriage.
12. We shall not inflict any injustice on anyone, neither shall we allow anyone to do so.
13. We shall collectively undertake bigger investments for higher incomes.
14. We shall always be ready to help each other. If anyone is in difficulty, we shall all help him or her.
15. If we come to know of any breach of discipline in any centre, we shall all go there and help restore discipline.
16. We shall take part in all social activities collectively.

So, if you find something similar by Maybank or Public Bank, quickly alert me, please. Thanks.

What a suprise!

I was surprised to received a mail from Kuala Lumpur and by looking at its squarish envelope, I've a feeling it consists of a greeting card. Raya card? Cannot be... I don't think I've given my UK address to anyone in Malaysia, including my family (well not yet). So, who could it be? Come on... think, think really hard this time.

Without waiting for my mind to make another wild guess, I opened the unglued (another indication that it's a Raya card) envelope and yeah... it is indeed a Raya card, Bank Negara Malaysia's Raya card to be exact. Hmmm... this is weird, but I'm very positive that I've not given my address to anyone in the office, except... could it be someone from HR department, then?

Yes, indeed! My first Raya card that I personally received this year (because I was informed by a colleague of mine that there are a couple of Raya card sent to me using the office address) and it's from the Director of the HR department - Encik Kamari Zaman, who used to be one of my bosses when I was in the previous department. Thank you very much En. Kamari and of course his AA. Terima kasih daun keladi.

Well, I'm sure all the scholars will receive theirs as well (not only me, of course) but it really makes me happy today to be receiving the could-be-my-only-Raya-card. Actually a couple of my friends did ask for my address but I would prefer to receive e-card this year because it will be easier for them and especially for me because I don't know where to get my Raya cards here. At least, if I receive the e-card, I can reply it using e-card as well. Plain and simple.

But I really, really need to get at least one Raya card for my parents. Once again, I'm going to bother my "senior" - Fendy - where to get it as soon as possible because I don't know Abah and Mak to receive my card weeks after the first Syawal.

p/s: I really like the painting on this card and it mentioned at the back of the card that the painting was by Syed Ahmad Jamal, titled Langit dan Bumi II (1998).

Jatidiri? What's that?

I attended my first tutorial today, which was held in the Arthur Lewis Building, and we're divided into 4 groups and each group has been given a paper each on the issues of the relationship between financial development and economic growth.

I'm in the same group as Mohamed, a Sudanese but was raised in Canada and Sarah, from France. There is supposed to be another person by the name of Xing Zhan, which my wild guess must be from China, but unfortunately he or she can't be contacted (emails sent to him or her were bounced back) nor that he or she turned up in the class today.

And we're required to give a 15-minute presentation in front of the class.

I don't want to comment on our group's presentation but I'm quite moved by the presentation given by a Chinese student which I forgot his name. Coincidentally, the paper that he's presenting touched on foreign experiences, including China and Taiwan in integrating the financial development with the human capital in order to promote economic growth. The moment he mentioned Taiwan, he quickly added with "which is not a country, but a province of China".

Obviously, his actics drawed laughter from the whole class except one Chinese female student, who's from Taiwan!

Then, he continued with how the exiled leaders stole capital from mainland China and brought it to Taiwan, bla... bla.. bla...

I guess he got a bit excited and decided to give us some historical "lecture" on why Taiwan is part of China". Luckily, the facilitator stopped him and let us continued with other presentation.

Well, I don't want to be judgemental because I've very limited knowledge on this China-Taiwan crisis, but I really, really admire his courage and intention to stand up for his country. This reminds me of an episode which happened in Taiwan not long time ago, regarding a Malaysian who improvised the national anthem, Negaraku by adding it up with racist lyrics.

When I attended the fresher's week and as I passed by the Malaysian Students Society booth, a couple of multi-racial Malaysians - Malays, Chinese and Indians - joined hand in hand to promote, of course the society, but don't forget they are also promoting the beautiful country of Malaysia to all freshers (I hope I don't sound like a politician).

And I really think this is the step towards building a strong jatidiri among Malaysians, which can clearly be seen among the Jewish, Palestinians, Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese or even our own neighbour, Indonesians.

Like what Marina Mahathir said on her blog, saya anak bangsa Malaysia - is this just a slogan or it can really be internalised by all of us, Malaysians. Some may said, it is easier for her to say this because she already there at where she is now. She has everything, yeap... everything.

Hmmm...

p/s: Terima kasih daun keladi for this picture, Lee.