2011 tahun getir. Mana ada tahun yang tak getir. Yang aku tahu, tak banyak yang berubah. Kecuali diri sendiri yang makin tua, makin terpaksa dan biasa-biasa saja.

Tapi 2011 juga tahun luarbiasa. Ada kesedaran. Tentang kelemahan diri, keutuhan niat dan survival. Barangkali sudah puas menghukum diri, ataupun tak larat dah. 2011 ialah tahun penerimaan.

Ini hidup aku. Aku pertahankan.

Bukan macam yang orang melayu kata ‘pasrah’. Terlampau defeatist perkataan pasrah itu bagi aku. Ini penerimaan Agung la, babi.

Tidak dinafikan bahawa kadang-kadang memang terasa jengkel untuk turun ke padang setelah bertungkus lumus dengan kelas, kerja-kerja perkeranian dan segala karenah pelanggan dan birokrasi.

Namun hakikatnya, dasar pendidikan negara mewajibkan aktiviti sukan di sekolah. Justeru pentadbiran sekolah-sekolah cuba melaksanakan dasar ini dengan seadilnya dari aspek perkongsian beban kerja. Maka semua guru, tidak kira jantina, jawatan dan kepakaran, apatah lagi orientasi pendidikan (sains, sastera atau agama) wajib memikul tanggungjawab ini bersama.

Agak mengejutkan, (untuk aku, at least) bagaimana komentar sedemikan boleh dikeluarkan, dengan sewenang-wenangnya, tanpa setitis ironi, di khalayak ramai, termasuk pelajar. Bukankah ini mencerminkan kecetekan ilmu dan sahsiah si pengujar sendiri, memberi suatu gambaran negatif terhadap sistem pendidikan negara khususnya yang berorientasikan pendidikan Islam?

Nampaknya usaha ke arah pendidikan menyeluruh dan lebih progresif masih lagu suatu konsep yang abstrak dan jauh dari pemikiran kolektif segelintir ahli profesyen keguruan negara.

The thing I’m going to miss most is the 6 am duel between the surau and the hindu temple next to the field along a substantial stretch of Jalan Kemunting. The call and beat of the faithful. A solemn,  unadorned  azan  before or after the parp and thump from the belly of the temple.

The old house had monitor lizards and squirrels and lanky black foxes that climb down from the tree next to the zinc-roofed park shed. I found a green snake once in the main bathroom. The porcelain blue sink broke providing entry for serpent to wiggle in from the  drainage. I panicked and told Abah and he panicked as well. Both of us pathetic little boys, grossed out by creepy crawlies. I hesitated on calling the fire brigade; it would be acquiescence to my cowardice. Abah took the old yellow bike and went to a neighbours to maybe ask for help. He got distracted and just made small talk with Pak Cik Ali or whatever his name is. I finally went over to the field opposite our house and offerred a bunch of kids some money if they could catch the little serpent whereupon a middle-aged chinese gentleman took hold of the situation and bumped the snake on the head with arwah Nenek’s walking cane.

My wife hurt her ankle in our room in Kemunting. She was on a chair, trying to get hold of a suitcase on the wardrobe so that she can pack up and leave me. The plastic chair broke, she fell and tore a part of the skin covering the flexor hallucis longus tendon above her right ankle. The yellow walls bore witness to blood and tears. There’s a  heart-shaped scar tissue (happy belated valentines’, baby) where the old wound healed to mark my guilt.

I wasn’t even home. I was the snake in the drainage, breathlessly gliding towards the light to escape from the filth below only to confront the error of my ways. Thumped on the head.

]]> http://kuburandakwat.wordpress.com/2010/02/20/herpetology/feed/ 4 Izzat http://kuburandakwat.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/mancrush/ http://kuburandakwat.wordpress.com/2009/11/22/mancrush/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 20:22:59 +0000 Izzat http://kuburandakwat.wordpress.com/?p=610 Continue reading →]]> So how the fuck you’ve been man. I haven’t seen you for, like what, five years?

There’s a photo of us in London, with it’s old clock in the background. We were overdressed as usual in our shiny red boots. And those Kangols, man. We were rocking in it like it was meant to be rocked: kampung style.

So K, my friend, lemme just have this out in the open: I have a mancrush on you. Not of the gay sort, you follow? We had some great times and I just think that men are allowed to have mancrushes. Like some people have for Lance Armstrong (“Manwhore“, Blair Waldorf) or Khairy Jamaludin (“Mr. Smarty Pants”, the population of Malaysia under 35).

I’d just finished invigilating a lower secondary form and walk out to the corridor and see the Senior Assistant and proceed to tell her of the talk about these pesky creatures. She tells me that all of us should start using this new product. Some kind of cream or oil or ointment that would repel the bunians.

I walk downstairs to go to my car which is parked at school front. I am at the back where I meet a friend, Saiful who doesn’t even teach here (I last saw him 10 years ago). I ask for a ride to my car and he obliges. We get into his car (a late model Proton) which then begins to swerve around wildly. As if someone or something else is grabbing the steering wheels. I begin chanting verses.

I’m at home and talking to an unidentified member of the family about the bunian driver. The conversation drifts into another topic: the paranormal history of the house I live in. There is an entry in Wikipedia (searchable by address) about this house, apparently. You’ll find a list of people who’ve died here. I remember trying to avoid reading the entry.

I’m in a room in the house which peculiarly looks like a hostel dormitory, surrounded by family members (again unidentified/unremembered). There is a baby. Maybe a newborn because it is very little and wrapped in a white cloth. I carry the baby ans start to put it back down on the mattress when the people around me warn that it was taking a crap.

It isn’t crap at all. The baby just ‘gave birth’ to another small baby, about a couple of inches tall.

P, my brother comes into the room, picks up the newborn peanut baby and starts to joke nonchalantly with it, putting it against my mother’s earlobes (who’s apparently there all along), as if it was an earring.

I wake up.

I went out looking for lights and furniture earlier tonight with my wife. We’ll be moving into our new home soon. So we subject ourselves to market forces pulling us in different directions while trying to keep our funds in check. We certainly don’t have much but I guess it will get us some semblance of the comfort that we think we deserve.

Then dinner at Hai Tian. Some chopped-up pieces of mackarel (I think) stir-fried in soy sauce, garlic and shallots. Kailan in soy sauce and sotong in batter.

We were about to leave when T came. He’s the friend I mentioned. He’ll be a married man tomorrow. I’ll be taking pictures of his wedding. A big honour, because we tight and shit.

So I ordered another bottle of g and the three of us sat and talked. It was gossip but I prefer to call it catching-up.

My wife left after a while. We drove off to another friend’s (WA) place, had a couple of joints on the balcony. Gossiping (catching-up) and cracking jokes and having a good time. Quite a stag party it was. Orange cordial on the back of bobo. Bobo is WA”s car. A blue Persona SE. He was in a pair of flannel boxers. Yup, partay! On the porch and it was drizzling.

On the way home, I took some pictures of light through T’s windshield and my 50mm f1.8.

How was your raya? As empty and devoid of meaning as it was for me? Quite difficult to celebrate the triumph of abstinence over consumption when one doesn’t abstain, ever.

I was in the living room that bright raya morning, waiting for some semblance of feeling. An approximation of how raya used to feel like when I was younger. You know, the ghost of joy that wasn’t exactly happiness but made your heart swell up with love and forgiveness. Usually it was strongest during the annual on-yer-knees-asking-for-forgiveness-kissing-and-crying rigmarole. You just knelt and mumbled apologies and usually the tears that came after weren’t feigned. You felt something.

It’s wearing off. There is a noticeable decline in the range of emotions experienced during this most well-meaning of rituals. When I was a kid, I genuinely felt that I wronged my parents and really wanted their forgiveness. For the times I ditched school, or whined or protested or beat-up my brothers or knocked-up a maid. This year I didn’t even bother mumbling out the “Selamat hari raya Abah, mintak maaf mintak ampun, halalkan makan minum Along” and shit.

Not because I haven’t wronged anyone this year. I just didn’t feel like it.

It’s nice to smoke out in the open again, though.