Ruminations

Second Spring

It was a short drive. One minute we were in downtown DC and before we knew it, we were already at Anglers' Inn, one of the points of entry into the Billy Goat Trail - a hiking trail which, in the words of a DC resident fellow hiker, is a DC institution. (Though if the number of obscenely obese people I've seen in Washington is any indication, a hiking trail - and hiking in general - cannot be that strong an institution in this part of the world.)

The trail is also apparently connected to downtown DC by the C&O Canal which apparently leads to Ohio. A trek that I might consider after graduation. Not.

It was a gloriously sunny day, but it was cold. I wore three layers including my winter jacket - a big mistake as I was later to find out; I was swimming in sweat not even half way into the hike. Apart from the need to navigate through clusters and clusters of boulders, it was a relatively easy hike. It had to be. I survived.

The hike consisted mainly hiking along the Potomac River, good conversation, photo taking and occasional pauses to absorb the colours of autumn. Albert Camus was right: L'automne est un deuxième printemps où chaque feuille est une fleur. Autumn is indeed a second Spring; when every leaf is a flower. It occasionally struck me that parts of the scenery presumably have not changed since pre-Columbian times.

Sigh. America, America. So tame and man-made and contrived. And yet so wild. I might still come to love this country yet.

Mind (Not Only) Our English

This is a classic. Yet another demonstration of how various dimensions of language can be tapped to express identity. Reminds me of the German-speaking community - was it in Schleswig-Holstein? - which stopped writing their nouns in capital letters to dissociate themselves from the Prussia-dominated German Empire (all nouns in German always begin with an upper case letter). Or how the Bosnians started using the words and pronunciation of the Sarajevo dialect to create a language that is distinct from Serbo-Croat, a language previously commonly spoken in both Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. So much blood and ink have been spilt over the question of language and identity. And I'm not holding my breath that more won't be.

Soulmates

My rational, objective bent in many things notwithstanding, I believe in soulmates. (As well as jungle spirits - but that's another story.)

The ancient Greeks have a nice way of explaining this romantic notion of "soulmates". The first humans created by the gods apparently had four arms, four legs, two heads, two hearts and two sexual organs - one male and one female. The gods were amazed at the perfection of their creation but amazement soon gave way to fear. Would it not be possible, the gods wondered, that such creatures - so perfect, so beautiful, so intelligent and so strong - grow to be so invincible that they would one day overthrow us, their creators?

The gods pondered on the matter until it was decided that to reduce the menace posed by humans, their strength and beauty and intelligence must also be diminished. And thus the new creations were cut into half, with each human having only half of what he originally had - two arms, two legs, one head, one heart and only one sexual organ.

Our soulmate, according to the Greeks, is our other half. That other part that is so vital for us to revert to our original state of perfection. The missing half that we spend our life seeking.

It's a beautiful idea, no?

An Equal Language

A friend of mine frequently rails against the numerous pronouns we have in Malay and how this perpetuates the feudal mentality among Malay speakers. For the first person alone, we have several words, ranging from the casual aku to the royal beta. We also have a few words for the second person like kau, kamu and awak, but since it is considered rude to address people directly in the second person unless you know them very well or are deliberately trying to be rude, the use of these words is limited. The Malay speakers' obsession with politeness and social decorum has engendered a situation where the English word "you" could be translated in more than 20 ways into Malay, all depending on the social status and age of the person being addressed.

Penyengat I

Di mana tempat mentari jatuh?
Di balik Penyengat, di hujung laut,
Di mana tempat bahasa tumbuh?
Di hujung kalam, di tubir mulut.

Where do the rays of the sun perish?
Behind Penyengat, in the seas westward,
Where would our tongue fruitfully flourish?
At the tip of the pen; in the spoken word.

***

The man was persistent. I tried to fend him off by trying to seem like I knew my way around and that I had done this a thousand times before. Inwardly, I cursed myself for not sticking to my usual practice of trying to blend in with the locals. Wearing a tight T-shirt, a pair of calf-length denim shorts together with leather-looking sandals and wielding a shiny digital camera, I stood out like a sore thumb in a crowd of school children, fishermen and village housewives coming back from their weekly grocery shopping. I might as well have carried a gigantic placard saying “I am a tourist. Please come and rip me off.”

To the Core

I was out having lunch the other day when I noticed how much prices of foodstuff had increased. Just a two days before, the Department of Statistics announced that the country's Consumer Price Index has risen by 3.7% for the month of August, its highest in six years. At this rate, even spoilt, financially inept brats like me - who, in the words of Oscar Wilde, live so far above our means that we effectively lead a different kind of existence - are feeling the pinch.

I lamented as much to a friend, who, like me, is a bit of an economist wannabe. He reassured me by saying, "Fret not, my friend. Though headline inflation may be shooting through the roof, core inflation remains contained. And as long as this is the case, we shouldn't worry."

Manis.Sweet

Buah mengkudu kusangka manggis,
Manggis terletak di dalam cawan,
Gula madu kusangka manis,
Manis lagi senyummu tuan.

A bitter lemon I took for a berry,
A berry picked from a garden here,
Sweet I thought were sugar and honey,
But none so sweet as your smile, my dear.

And yes, it is because I'm not Italian that I can like Eros Ramazzotti's songs without losing much street cred. Bah!

Where are you?

Hilir sudah mudik pun sudah,
Rumput seberang habis disikat,
Bergolok sudah bergadai pun sudah,
Yang dicari juga belum mendapat!

Di manakah kau?

Wear Anklets, Be Different

Semua orang bergelang tangan,
Saya seorang bergelang kaki,
Semua orang berkata jangan,
Saya seorang menurut hati.

Bracelets are worn by all and sundry,
With my anklets, though, I would not part,
Many - oh many - have sought to stop me,
Though all alone, I followed my heart.

Henri Fauconnier once wrote of a certain kind of regret that does not forgive and would never let us go;  the regret over all the things that we could have done but didn't do.

Think, but not too much. Act. Do. Be true to yourself. Wear anklets if you want to. Be different. Live life.

Never mind them with their boring bracelets and stale admonitions.

Leaving and Arriving

Detroit International Airport

There is a certain sensation that often hits me whenever I queue up to board for international flights. The feeling is particularly palpable when the majority of the passengers in the queue are citizens of the country of destination.