Ruminations

Why I Might Not Attend Your Halloween Party

(Or Buy Anyone Roses on St Valentine's Day.)

The two of us were in the car, queuing for petrol.

“So, when are you leaving, again?”, she asked me.

“Next week. But I’m coming back end of the week after.”

Her face took on a sympathetic look. “Halloween’s on Saturday and you’ll be away on a business trip! It must be quite depressing for you.”

For a second or two, this statement didn't compute. But even as my brain ran through its logical course to interpret these two sentences, I could feel a wave of irritation building up inside me. The remark was well meant, but something touched a nerve. I couldn’t quite put my finger on the cause, but I gave way to my instincts and was audibly irritated when I asked her, “What do you mean?”

Of Monetary Serpents and Other Species

A snake has been sighted in my office.

I would have been none the wiser had it not been for an e-mail from a well-meaning (and obviously well-informed) colleague:

"Not to alarm anyone or anything, a snake was spotted yesterday a few levels down, hissing and hanging from the ceiling. However, just checked and it has yet to be caught, and someone noted one floor's ceiling is another floor's floor, and the building's many ducts and vents could be conduits, so just keep an eye (and ear) out, in case."

Hissing and hanging from the ceiling? So much for "not to alarm anyone or anything".

The Near-sneeze Experience That was Puteri Gunung Ledang the Movie

Have you ever had a near-sneeze experience? Your entire body braces itself for a sneeze - a good, satisfying sneeze that brings that tinge of pleasure in your nostrils and leaves you empty but fulfilled - your mouth opens, your eyes close, your nostrils expand and you throw back your head to expel that itch in your sinuses, but in the final split second, everything stops and the would-be sneeze vanishes, leaving you feeling cheated and confused.

That was more or less what I felt after watching Puteri Gunung Ledang last Sunday. The subject matter and publicity promised the world. Heck, even when I was in the cinema and after the movie had started, the costumes, the soundtrack, the script and the acting tantalised me with a thousand ways in which the film could only get better. Alas, as the movie progressed, I began to fidget in my seat, wondering what had gone wrong. What happened to the promising narrative at the start?

The Mirror in Tun Teja's Bedroom: A Historical Perspective of Puteri Gunung Ledang the Movie

I had my own images of 15th century Melaka as told by Sejarah Melayu and of the colourful characters that populate its hallowed pages. However, even allowing - by a wide margin - for the excesses of my own romantic ideals and my feeble pretensions as an amateur historian, I was not prepared for the letdown the movie Puteri Gunung Ledang had in store.