there's nothing much to look forward to on weekdays beside your daily boring routine..im jaded.

yah i know, whining isn't gonna do much help...weekends have always been the best remedy for acute attack of fatigue..but the problem is, i just have 48 hours to do almost everything and to meet up almost every one...but that 48 hours have always been enough to spare me from being mentally handicapped for the next 120 hours.

i never knew tutoring/teaching could be utterly exhausting...our voluntary tuition project in desa mentari proved that right...it was great to see the number of our students multiplied from 8 students to almost 30 students..the commitment showed was overwhelming, both from the students and the tutors...indeed education is an ongoing process...the process is challenging...it requires patience of the highest degree..a good lesson for me, i believe, as the last time i remember tutoring was my youngest brother..he would end up crying his eyes out and pledged not to be taught by me ever again..i just lost it every time!

and to my amazement, i wonder how do i do it, that my level of patience has to a certain degree improved...i thank God for that.

later that afternoon, far and me went to IPK KL to provide legal representation for those arrested after the police crackdown on peaceful assembly in klcc...and it's nothing new that right to legal representation has been for the million times denied. it's no longer funny nor weird. the crucial right protecting one's liberty has been grossly violated. imagine, on one fine day, you, or your family member is suddenly arrested and detained by the Police...and you or your family cannot in any way have access to lawyers...i wonder how does that feel if it ever happens to us?or are we gonna just turn away and say it's none of our business?

on sunday afternoon, we were literally "locked up" inside the pudu jail, waiting for remand hearing...statements were taken and the detainees were walking around barefoot. something struck me in the head. how can humanity allow such degrading treatment on human beings...cant we even afford to provide slippers which cost RM2.00??"innocent until proven guilty" principle was not meant to only be on papers.

and one thing for sure, you will be questioned by God for every single thing that you do or fail to do..

or have we done enough to fight for those who cant fight for themselves?

working life can be utterly drudgery, physically or mentally, hence one day off from work can cause me and my possy (read: nad and far) extreme happiness that we decided not to go straight home after work. we went to section 17 pasar malam, reminiscing the great times we used to have 7 years ago...carefree, being immature about lotsa things...lepak session almost every day...those were the days...

then we were wondering..where to eat, definitely not at our place, it was depressing having to head back home early when the next day was a public holiday. we decided to hang out by the lake somewhere in pj..the place was a little dark, and the chances of being robbed were pretty high,we decided to go to some other place safer...a padang in front of amcorp mall seemed perfect...we talked about so many things, from nonsense to no-nonsense subject and laughing over nad's tongue tied-ness which sounded more like "sesi cakap2 manja":

"commercial loan senang je TABI..." (read: tapi)
"having to deal with banks is hard..especially *** JANK (read: bank)
"sedapnya chef ni masak, eh..dia letak FISH SHOSH (read: fish sauce)
"..memang..tambah2 lagi bila MAJOR EK-JEM (read: major exam)

i guess that's enough for now..it's always a big mistake to get tongue-tied in front of either me, far or nad..as this would be used against us for at least a month...God, i wonder what life would be without friends who'll be with you through bad times...

still couldnt get the good memories that we had in penang out of my mind..well, penang has always been our second home and we literally drive all the way to penang once a month, just to hang out at queensbay, eat tandoori chicken at kapitan and jalan2 in batu feringgi with encik abu haimi...and during the last week penang trip, we pledged on something that will materialize in 2009...in short.."FREEDOM"!

and starting to miss my sister and abang azlee...i know they'll be just fine...

..and i wish..

simplicity has always been the way i see how my life is lived...being around good friends..friends who simply make me happy, friends who i look up to, and friends who i would run to whenever i feel down...shoulders to cry on...doing things that ive been dying to do...it has always been enough for me...but sometimes things do not always work that way..things can get complicated as you grow older...simplicity doesnt really work all the time...

last week was so compelling that i could hardly sleep...working life has become demanding...still, decision had to be made...being put in a position where you have to choose and there's actually not so much of a choice...my boss told me that i should have the confidence in me for what was bugging me was the fear of letting people down...and my boss told me that was not even a reason...

yesterday, when i was in court, while i was waiting for my file which had yet to be found, Radziq told me something ..."make the decision first then pray to God that it is the right thing to do"...hopefully...

and all that i could think of right now is to run away from this place, and disappear for a moment, cut off any human contacts...God i wish this will come true..

IT'S A BITTERSWEET WEEKEND

2.30pm-5.30pm--the desa mentari voluntary tuition project went perfectly well despite the fact that we initially had only eight registered students in the beginning...the moment we stepped into the room, i could feel the anticipation from both the kids and the parents..and i hafta admit that it kinda freaked me out a little..far and me were like "nervous nya...because the parents are here"..and to my amazement, the number of students multiplied and filled up every inch of the room...after wrapping up, we realized that there's a lot of things need to be done..

6.30pm-10.30pm--getting ready to meet up members of monitoring team for the Anti-ISA candlelight vigil which was scheduled to be held at dataran merdeka...it was fairly a quiet night and it was drizzling...enough said on the constitutionality of right to peaceful assembly and unconstitutionality of requirement of police permit, GMI (Gerakan Mansukhkan ISA) and its coalition members together with conscious and concerned citizens waited patiently for the police to announce the result of permit application which was made a few days before (as there were series of inconsistent response from the police on the status of permit application including missing application form (funny how cekap betul dan amanah thing can cause such mishap eh?)well..it's a bolehland anyway...entrance to dataran was closed, FRUs were in position...(i never knew that ordinary citizens with candles in their hands can be such an imminent threat to national security...if it's accordance with their unilateral and biased definition of threat to national security..i guess bolehlah kot...

for me, it was just another event of expressing your belief on something...why is that any different from people who are allowed to celebrate new year or go to a concert and the ones who are just expressing themselves against injustice and maladministration of justice...national security?who gives them the right to prematurely determine what amounts to national threat..for example, new year celebration (which i would never go, i see no point of going, getting myself exposed to people who are extremely drunk and get susceptible to sexual harassment, note: no offense people,it has always been my principle on this, not trying to play saint here)...but would it be fair if the whole idea of celebrating new year with your family be ruled out just like that?as far as im concerned, the Police would be at the place, try to maintain the situation and only engage whenever necessary...it has always been that way..question? why the double standard attitude when it comes to peaceful assembly...since when it's a sin to express your feelings on injustice??weird isn't it..but that's reality!

*8 random things about me*

nad just tagged me for this 8 random thingy…hmm..about me??nothing fancy, nothing new, and the list goes:

1. I’m a sleep-a-holic-I sleep a lot..a lot as in A LOT!!…I can go on sleeping for one whole day without eating anything…I still remember when I was in my secondary school, on every Monday we were forced to assemble and listen to our principal’s endless yap, and the torturous part was, we had to remain standing, sometimes for hours…and that never stopped me from sleeping while I was standing…

2. My resistant force is quite illuminating, (at least for me)..for instance, I’ve banned carbonated drinks and starbucks for almost 2 years..(like what Kak Lat said “yah..starbucks??it’s politically wrong..)..I have my reasons to impose such restrictions on myself..people can guess I figure!

3. I’m one hard case for my family to deal with…hardheadedness has gone beyond repair, particularly when it comes to principle…I don’t ask permission from my parents whenever I wanted to do something. More of notifying them, giving notice kinda thing..all that they can do is pray for me and my safety..:)

4. I’m such a cry baby…all the so called “macho konon” thingy seems to fail the moment I see someone’s crying, war victims, my mom getting her finger cut, 12 year old boys celebrating 8As in UPSR exam..weird!

5. Sensitive. Particularly to people that I’m close to…I still remember when I was in boarding school, for God knows what reason triggered me not to call home just because my mom said something about being tough and not to be carried away by homesick syndrome, I decided not to make calls home at all..and after a week I got a letter from my brother—“ke hadapan adindaku yang disayangi…telefonlah kami di rumah dan usahlah merajuk hati lagi”…God, how funny that was!

6. Independent. Yeke? Let’s see. I’m so used to doing things all by myself…It’s just not me to be too dependant on others because I don’t like the feeling of putting people in a position of having to do something because I ask them to…a BIG NO!…ill find my way…

7. I am an old school kinda person- hence the IT illiteracy, doing things old school, conservative sentiment!

8. Passionate.passion keeps me alive..passion gets me going, passion makes me happy! passion is my drive! Passion teahes me to have some faith…:)

NEW YEAR

how time flies...2008 is approaching and i still remember Toni saying "next year we'll be 25, and another 5 years we'll be 30"..it strikes me in the head, God, how time is ticking fast and I'm so afraid that i couldn't keep up...there are so many things on my "achievement list" that i have to work on..and i keep telling myself that everything is gonna be just fine because dreams keep oneself alive and they are capable of being materialized..it's just a matter of determination..for me, what really matters is to have people who are supportive and willing to be with you no matter how hard things get...

I'm blessed:)

happy new year every one! [having too much lamb at edmund's christmas party makes me all pumped up today, hence this early new year greetings]

traffic jam = mental torment

Wednesday, 19/12/2007

9.00pm -everyone hoped in the car, everyone was so thrilled to be going home to celebrate aidil adha...and I said earlier "we take off a lil late, as in around 8 pm, just to escape heavy traffic in kl"..i was right, the traffic was ok around bangsar, and the moment we were in Sg Buloh, there was a long stretch of cars..."accident kot, jap lagi ok la ni (in denial)...

10.00pm -still in rawang...30km/hour, "God, why am I not living in Uganda??"(wishful thinking)...everyone in the car stopped talking...non-stop laughing session stopped for a while and suddenly kenny rogers radio ad was played..for the first time in my life, the song is in played in Malay- "ayam panggang kurang lemak"...the moment the song ended everyone's laughter broke the silence...we were wondering, who on earth translated the song and came up with "ayam panggang kurang lemak"..it was darn funny and I bet the translator applied literal rule of translation and he/she must be proud every time the ad is aired..

1.00 am - I just couldn’t stand driving 60km per hour that I decided to stop at Tapah RNR and sleep...Toni, Faj, Far and my cousin wanted to grab something to eat and suddenly everyone was like “it smells like KFC, and we were jumping like little kids…and we kept on singing “ayam panggang kurang lemak” over and over again, eating the fried chicken….

1.30am -it was Toni’s turn to drive…the traffic was still the same…I tried to sleep and every time toni applied the brake, I’d be awake and “ayam panggang kurang lemak” was sung from the top of my lungs…and I kept on telling everyone that once I got home, the first thing that id do before going to bed was to hang a parang on my door knob (an implied sign that ill run amok if anyone tries to wake me up).

5.00 am - Penang Bridge seemed deserted, we dropped far and faj off and headed to alor star.

6.00 am -finally we got home safely (zombi mode)…it took 9 hours instead of 5 hours to reach home…I figure we could have reached zimbabwe by that time (over exaggerating)..over exaggerating is forgiven, given the mental state of everyone that was involved or rather stuck in this madness!

11.30am -I got up from sleep, (parang on the door knob thing??-just a metaphor)..took a shower, put on baju raya, and balik kampung… I had a great time with family and friends. Home sweet home:)

23/12/2007, Sunday

7.00pm-took off from alor star

3.00am-got home…again..the traffic was such a nightmare…slept at 4am, woke up at 8am, went to work..

11.07am-Monday blues mode…God, I need a miracle today!

BEING TYPICAL?

“Dying for Freedom is nobler than living in The shadow of weak submission, for He who embraces death with the sword Of Truth in his hand will eternalize With the Eternity of Truth, for Life Is weaker than Death and Death is Weaker than Truth”.-Kahlil Gibran.

Life is not always fine and dandy…I know that my recent activities and postings have been classified as “serious” by certain individuals. I have not changed. It has always been me all along. My housemates (and not forgetting nad) can confirm on this.

Last week crackdown on peaceful march to celebrate international human rights day has a real big impact on me and my comprehension on what I believe in. it’s a sad fact that justification is longer based on justified reasons (talking about doing something for the right, justified, and legal (the legality of law is important as we are capable of having unjust law too) reasons). Superficiality and arrogance have transcended sacred values of justice.

When we speak so much of justice, it’s as if we speak of bombing the whole world. When we speak so much of justice, it’s as if we are going against the government. When we speak so much of justice, it’s as if it is so alien to us that it is never revealed by God in the Holy Quran and other Divine Scriptures.

Again, perception is the real issue here. To be more precise, understanding which is resulted from the process of proper deliberation, through a process called education or in brief, the antipode of ignorance. Education is not only confined to going to schools, colleges or universities, it’s more of a process of liberating your inner self from ignorance by searching for the truth, and the closest source that you can access to in the history of humankind is religion.

“Be practical, idealism won’t work!change won’t happen overnight”-only God knows how often these words are uttered these days…I respect the concern and it’s a true contention that change can never take place overnight…so does human perception! The struggle to educate the people is never and has never been a walk in the park…

As day passes by, being fooled by our own definition of a civilized country, we will be surprised that a lot of people still do not comprehend the basic principle of justice hence these typical statements:

1) “ why do lawyers represent these criminals, it’s for sure they are bad people”- the misunderstood principle : one is presumed innocent until proven guilty (concept of justice under criminal law)

2) “when we say/criticize/against something that is inconsistent with the current ruling system, we are deemed to go against the government – the misunderstood principle : there is no superior authority over any individual except God (by Syed Qutb on social justice in Islam)- (the core principle of a democratic system)-we ARE against the system, NOT the government!

3) “illegal assembly”- the misunderstood principle: Article 10 of Federal Constitution affirms the right to PEACEFULLY assemble, therefore the requirement for permit under Police Act is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. Period!(you can make reference to the statement issued by SUHAKAM on this issue—when the PM said no one is above the law, it must also mean that the Government must not also be above the law. The second misunderstood principle: “Be steadfast witnesses for Allah in equity, and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly. Deal justly, that is nearer to your duty. Observe your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is informed of what ye do”. (Sourat al Ma'eda, 8).3

FREEDOM by Kahlil Gibran

And an orator said, 'Speak to us of Freedom.'

And he answered:

At the city gate and by your fireside I have seen you prostrate yourself and worship your own freedom,

Even as slaves humble themselves before a tyrant and praise him though he slays them.

Ay, in the grove of the temple and in the shadow of the citadel I have seen the freest among you wear their freedom as a yoke and a handcuff.

And my heart bled within me; for you can only be free when even the desire of seeking freedom becomes a harness to you, and when you cease to speak of freedom as a goal and a fulfillment.

You shall be free indeed when your days are not without a care nor your nights without a want and a grief,

But rather when these things girdle your life and yet you rise above them naked and unbound.

And how shall you rise beyond your days and nights unless you break the chains which you at the dawn of your understanding have fastened around your noon hour?

In truth that which you call freedom is the strongest of these chains, though its links glitter in the sun and dazzle the eyes.

And what is it but fragments of your own self you would discard that you may become free?

If it is an unjust law you would abolish, that law was written with your own hand upon your own forehead.

You cannot erase it by burning your law books nor by washing the foreheads of your judges, though you pour the sea upon them.

And if it is a despot you would dethrone, see first that his throne erected within you is destroyed.

For how can a tyrant rule the free and the proud, but for a tyranny in their own freedom and a shame in their own pride?

And if it is a care you would cast off, that care has been chosen by you rather than imposed upon you.

And if it is a fear you would dispel, the seat of that fear is in your heart and not in the hand of the feared.

Verily all things move within your being in constant half embrace, the desired and the dreaded, the repugnant and the cherished, the pursued and that which you would escape.

These things move within you as lights and shadows in pairs that cling.

And when the shadow fades and is no more, the light that lingers becomes a shadow to another light.

And thus your freedom when it loses its fetter becomes itself the fetter of a greater freedom.

Kahlil Gibran

Comment: “Stop. You’re under arrest for taking a walk!” (re-posted:from the Bar Council website)

Contributed by Shanmuga Kanesalingam

Monday, 10 December 2007, 01:27am

Malaysian Lawyers have been arrested, and are being held in a police lock up without bail, just because they dared to hold a walk to celebrate International Human Rights Day. PS Malaysia sits on the United Nations Human Rights Council. It’s Sunday night, 9 December 2007. It’s not yet Human Rights Day as I now wait in Perth airport for my flight home to Kuala Lumpur. I have been receiving a flurry of text messages all day about my lawyer friends, who have been arrested at the Human Rights Day Freedom Walk in Kuala Lumpur held earlier today. Amer Hamzah Arshad, Latheefa Koya, N Surendran and Sivarasa Rasiah were walking to get to the Bar Council auditorium, where the Festival of Rights was held in conjunction with International Human Rights Day. Together with them was Eric Paulsen, a non practising advocate and solicitor and several others. I received these messages as I witnessed Falun Gong practitioners hold a peaceful march in Perth, where the police accompanied them with a police escort to ensure they were not disturbed. I saw Burmese refugees peacefully demonstrating in the middle of Perth’s busiest shopping district with not a policeman in sight. On 10 December 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Malaysia celebrated the 50th year of its endorsement of this noble charter for human dignity when we had our Merdeka celebrations earlier this year having joined the United Nations as an independent nation in 1957. The Bar was celebrating International Human Rights Day, together with the entire community of civilized nations. Malaysia, who now incongruously sits on the United Nation’s Human Rights Council despite not having ratified most of the defining international covenants on human rights, will on International Human Rights Day charge these advocates and solicitors of the High Court in Malaya for the grave crime of walking without the permission of the government. Edmund Bon, another friend of mine and Chair of the Human Rights Committee of the Malaysian Bar who recently won the thirs highest number of votes in elections to the Bar Council, was arrested as he tried to reason with DBKL enforcement officials who were attempting to trespass onto the Bar Council’s premises to remove banners. As I write, these lawyers are spending the night in a police lock up because they have been denied bail. After all, the Constitution allows the police to detain suspects for investigations for up to 24 hours so the police obviously feel they should use the full time period to make their guests feel the full might of their brute force. Never mind that all those arrested are well established lawyers. Who cares that all have close links to the community? Does it really matter that all would no doubt have willingly offered themselves to the police at everyone’s convenience for further questioning and investigations, if necessary? Of what consequence is the certainty that all would have obeyed a summons to Court to face charges against them? What is important to the police is this: Malaysian lawyers must be taught a lesson. They are beginning to show the rakyat that Malaysians have rights. They have begun to display - overtly and effectively - a fierce independence. They constantly call for reform to ensure justice and fair play (hitherto unknown qualities in the machinery of the State in Malaysia since the full onslaught of Mahathirisation) become once again integral parts in the administration of this country. Knowing my friends, however, I know they must be loving their time in the police cells. They know what to expect, having heard the horror stories from clients all these years about the gross conditions of detention. The police will be at a loss to see my friends cheering, laughing and singing. Those lawyers know they have won a great moral victory. They have done absolutely nothing wrong. They walked peacefully in order to get to a destination to celebrate an international festival of the United Nations. For this peaceful walk, they are being abused by the Government of Malaysia - a grim testimony indeed to the state of our democracy and the so called liberalisation of rights in Badawi’s Malaysia. Malaysia Boleh .. tapi tak boleh Jalan! (Malaysia Can* .. but cannot walk!) *Malaysia Boleh or Malaysia Can is the national feel good chant propagated by the Government. It is a phrase that evokes a wry and cynical smile from most thinking Malaysians.