Everything

“In the beginning were words. But not the sort of words you might expect.” – Amir Muhammad , Once Again – Trash, Our Trash Generation: A Collection of Contemporary Malaysian Ideas (1997) I don’t remember a world without language. Always, language and imagination, speculation, utters of sound. Words, beginning of words. What would I be without language? My existence has been determined by language, not only the spoken but the unspoken, the language of speech and the language of motion. My childhood was the oral tradition of Melayu people – which included my immediate family of one elder sister, one younger brother, one youngest sister, my father and mother. My world was the world of several places in memory; Changlun and Yan (Kedah), Lenggong (Perak), Jalan Pekeliling, Sungai Besi and currently it is Taman Tun Dr. Ismail (Kuala Lumpur). The years when I was an offspring (baby to 12-year old), I grew up within a people who didn’t get well with education, including my...

Assalamualaikum :) I’m writing this in library, alone. It is the hour most of friends in class and the view in here is ‘splendid’. Splendid enough to see the contentment of married couple facing me with the cheeky smile from the wife at the same time as the husband keeps teasing her. The newlyweds I think. Semoga bahagia ke anak cucu . :) Well, that’s not the precise story I want to convey. It is about being single-handedly, alone and unaccompanied. Vaguely I wonder why this moment seems so special. I feel truly calm though the library has small construction outside so it produces noise which supposed to get on my nerves. I don’t feel the heat, though. Besides, the vista and such noise help me enjoying my moment, feeling wedged among these people, especially they who sit in crowd for I feel more relief by sitting on my own. I am sure you know what I mean. We all need the compassion of human companionship but somehow we want to escape and be entirely by ourselves, through differen...