Ruminations

Tembikai

Buah tembikai masak tak manis,
Masak sebiji isinya merah,
Cakapan bagai embun ditapis,
Badan dan nyawa rasa terserah.

Ripe, sweet melons I could not find,
For a juicy red melon I pine and ache,
Thy words are as dew, refined,
My body and soul are thine to take.

Kota Gelanggi

They found a long lost city in Johor. And all historians can't even begin to speak about the possible implications. Could the city really predate Borobudur and Angkor Wat? Could it really be the Kota Gelanggi alluded to in Sejarah Melayu? All history books on the history of the Malay people may become obsolete, and some of the theories which are at the moment on the periphery of historical discourse may be validated.

Could Kota Gelanggi be yet another kingdom that vied with Sri Vijaya and early polities for the position as the inheritor of the ancient Melayu kingdom? Or could it be just another Sri Vijayan capital before the flowering of Palembang? An inscription in Southern India enumerates a list of kingdoms that were pillaged and attacked by the Chola kings. Which one of them was Gelanggi? What kind of people lived in Gelanggi? Were they even ethnically Malay? Or only had cultural allegiance to the long-lost kingdom of Melayu? Did they know the joys of ulam and belacan?

How blessed I am to live during such exciting times. Hopefully they'll unearth some answers in my lifetime.