Of Transforming Speakers and Ents (2009)

 Good day dear reader, or if you are reading this at night, good night dear reader, sleep well. Today, or indeed tonight, we begin our journey together, and, hopefully, it will be as good for you as it will be for me. I wish it to be mutually fruitful – I see mangosteens are already in the stalls, and some Thai durian too, so dig into the delights, but as Jim Reeves plays gently in the background, I say – say because I can’t sing (my wife will attest to that) – ... welcome to my world, won’t you come on in. And what a world.... Here in the rural heartlands and amidst the pastoral kampungs it is the actuality of life which counts, and concerns. Simple, honest things like have the wandering water buffalo attacked my mango saplings once again, does my wife know I still secretly smoke or what was the last excuse I made not to do that particular vital, but non-urgent, task. Other game-playing tends to be limited to the much beloved football, badminton or sepak takraw. More intense and sophisticated games are left to those with a mind and stomach for such things, like Locusta and Lucrezia. Having said that, and, breathing a huge sigh of relief, I am pleased to announce that peace has finally returned to my beloved land of water buffalo, mining pools and frogs who parp like Toad’s motor horn. In fact, in this lengthy dry spell, no frogs have parped for some time, so Toad’s horn remains as silent as the non-existent winds, and the ground continues to become crispier, crunchier. Despite distinct moments of, no doubt stirred, portrayed insurrection, vain, inglorious uncivil war has been narrowly averted in these silvery lands. Convoys of laden military and police trucks have been seen returning from whence they came, and all is relatively quiet within the hallowed halls of quaintly politicking peoples, their machinations and whisperings kept out of the public’s hearing. But, deeply within the Machiavellian machinery, which purports to be the state government, lawsuits abound with lawyers continuing to make money as previous Speaker sues incumbent Speaker for assault and false imprisonment, when it was only a simple miss-hearing. The Speaker needs a pick-me-up, is what was said, but sadly in these days of decreasing standards of English, what was heard was – the Speaker needs to be picked up, and carted off. There is a thought that, no doubt at some point, the incumbent Speaker will sue the vanquished Speaker for broken fingernails, pulled muscles and loss of wind, though it seems that is one thing politicians are never short of – plenty of hot air. This back and forth suing, the initial coup-de-tat, the subsequent court cases et al, demonstrates just how elastic law is in this part of the world. Perhaps it is a legacy of the British, as most evils here are purported to be. They were, after all – with thanks to Sir Henry Wickham and Henry Ridley – responsible for the huge rubber plantations, the gathered latex, and hence the expectant elasticity. The claim and counter-claim fiasco leads to an intensely farcical situation, perhaps worthy of Brian Rix and Whitehall, or a belly laughing P. Ramlee comedy – replete with a ballad or two, to take the sting out of the satire. But, thankfully, coffee slurpers are now free from molestation by uniform-wearing, baton-wielding servants of government. They may now continue to slurp whichever beverage is their particular delight and are no longer dragged kicking and slogan screaming from kedai kopis in front of wannabe Steven Spielbergs and their YouTube mini-films. Those individuals burning candles, or wearing black, are now allowed to burn candles or wear black, both even, at the same time, without arrest. I wipe a much fevered brow, and confess that I was a little concerned when the electricity went out in the kampung, for fear that I would be arrested for lighting nightlights. I sharply pulled the curtains shut and crouched over the flame. Intensely aware that it was now illegal to wear black, I managed to get away from the fashion police, by wearing my black Marks & Spencer underwear under seemingly legal and conservative trousers, as no be-uniformed protector of power would want to go down there, believe me. Further afield, there are rumours, that in a bid to save the ailing local car manufacturer, and to strengthen the national guard in preparation for the next general election, Proton are to team up with Mattel, maker of the original Transformer toys, to make a cross between Robocop, Transformers and the original Proton Saga, called – TransRoboSaga Gen Tiga. This all in one battle robot, quick change artist and family saloon will be on our streets minding our government for us, so we don’t have to worry about their safety at the next general election. All the public will have to be concerned about is how long the Milo tin body armour will last, and where to buy hard hats to fend off the flying auto parts as they transform. As road running cyclists prepare to burn a token amount of rubber at Tanjung Rambutan, a strange expectant silence has descended under the now infamous democracy tree, along with even stranger threats from the council to destroy the plaque now embedded in the tree, and quite possibly the tree too. Maybe the council thinks that the tree is an Ent, and is concerned that, having wandered far from the Forests of Fangorn, the Ent may, mistakenly, bombard the Ipoh dewan mistaking it for Tolkien’s Isengard. But, out here, amidst the mining pools and the distant blue mountains the biggest fear is the lengthening dry spell, and how much longer do we have to keep watering our gardens before the rain eventually comes. Frog noises we endure, political wrangling too – all we need is enough water to dampen our plants, fish in the mining pools and rice. As seen in The Malaysian Insider Saturday June 20th