Journeying (2009)

 JULY 4 — A week is a long time in politics, so it is said. This is strange because it really is just seven days whichever way it’s stretched. It is not as though you can add a bit here, and subtract a bit there, a week is a week, but I take the point. The all-pervasive point is — a lot can happen in one seven-day stretch. This week I have dragged myself, practically kicking and screaming, cold turkey shivering away from my ever active computers. Divorced myself from the impressively handy yet awfully addictive Internet and therefore also separated from frankly fascinating Facebook and gigantean Google. Instead, I have been journeying physically and spiritually, as opposed to virally virtually through cyberspace, on my own external and internal odysseys. I journeyed physically — to Kedah. I was accompanying my stepson north on his first day at university, a fresher beginning a startling new journey into the twilight world of late teen education — a wannabe Lat, possibly a Zint or Puyuh, but probably not a Redza Piyadasa nor an Ibrahim Hussein — his star yet to shine. Each kilometre of travel brought a fresh revelation, with said teenage stepson ever busy saving his energy, for what I know not — sleeping on the rear seat, and my wife, bless her, navigating not the highway I was travelling, but her way through dreamland. In that sense, I journeyed with a car full of passengers — but solo. This week I also journeyed spiritually, in the sense that, due to the week’s momentous events, I was forced to take pause, catch my breath and reflect upon other people and their own, equally engaging and yet very disparate, journeying. In one extraordinarily full week, but still only holding the regulation seven days, two celebrities, in Los Angeles and California respectively, took their final transcendent journeys across the Styx from the land of flesh, moving inevitably on to other, more ethereal, intangible places. The once black, but increasingly whiter, moon-walking, healer of worlds, stranger in Moscow Michael Jackson and the larger-than-life, coiffure-bouncing Bionic Man marrying, ex-Charlie’s Angel posing Farrah Fawcett left for their own individual journeys beyond this mortal coil. The King of Pop was finally deposed by his own heart, which, ever too large for one gentle man, gave out and reluctantly ushered in the uniquely unimpressive post-Michael Jackson era. Older people, saddened by yet another departed star, recalled where they were when they heard of Elvis Presley, or John Lennon, dying; younger people, not caught up in the moment, wondered just what all the fuss was about “‘cause it’s not like he was Bono or the Jonas brothers or anything”. Michael, now Mikaeel Jackson, has began a fresh journey, one of the soul/Ka/Atman alone, sans the other four Jacksons, sans Bubbles, sans everything. Farrah Fawcett, once Farrah Fawcett-Majors and pin-up to the 1970s, finally succumbed to the cancer which for so long had been held in abeyance, denying her chances of ever appearing in Playboy magazine, again. And while the world looked to America, and wept a crocodile tear or three, 26-year old Neda Agha-Soltan was gunned down amidst the Iranian election protests. Her death, in Tehran, enabled her to achieve the fame she was unable to realise in life. As her death whipped around cyberspace on Facebook and YouTube, outraging those who needed to be outraged by her death, many thoughts were spared regarding legitimate protest and undue repressive force. Where fans of the two media stars — Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett — had wrung their hands and engaged in some degree of self flagellation over their deaths, the death and ultimate journey of Neda Agha-Soltan inspired yet more political protests against overwhelmingly oppressive injustice. Though, ultimately, Neda’s 15 minutes of fame will dwindle as more, and yet more, atrocities come to life, there will be one corner of the Internet which will be forever — Neda. Closer to home, one small silvery insect — the lepisma saccharina — was much lauded in the Bangsar suburb of Kuala Lumpur. This tiny blue/gray lover of papery environments — newspapers, magazine and even old books — 10 years previously had lent its common or garden name to a newly nascent enterprise begun by one Raman Krishnan (T.R.R. Raman) During tenth anniversary celebrations The lepisma saccharina (Silverfish) or to give it the proper title — Silverfish Books — celebrated 10 years of its existence in publishing and bookselling. This highly successful enterprise was spearheaded by the much loved and frequently misunderstood Raman Krishnan, organiser of literary festivals and controversy. The first Silverfish decade is over, and, while small publishers everywhere are cautious and concerned about their futures, Silverfish marches on. Having brought fresh writing to eagerly waiting bibliophiles and launched many local writers, including yours truly, into Malaysia’s stellar orbit, Silverfish Books now takes its first, tentative, baby steps, journeying forward into an undoubtedly continuing illustrious future. There is a sense of new lamps for old, of decay and re-birth in the air as that celebrated chanteuse, lissom, multi-talented Fly FM DJ Hunny Madu finally said yes to Khairul, and now begins a wholly different journey towards marriage, being a spouse and fecundity. To the immense disappointment of many Malaysian men, and no doubt many others worldwide the delectable Hunny, aka Hani Farhana binti Mohd Hatim accepted to become affianced to Khairul Azhar Abdul Wahid. At some point in the not-too-distant future, they will marry and journey together. Change is everything, and everything must change. Change is the one definitive factor in this world, nothing remains as it was. I move from my post in front of endless reams of information, on the Internet, teenagers move on, media icons pass from this world to the next, young protesters too. Anniversaries are celebrated and new partnerships solidified. Ideas change, relationships change, we move forever forward on our own personal odysseys, going towards the unknown and unknowable, forever metamorphosing towards destiny/fate/Kismet and forever journeying.