Walking the Talk aka For the love of an Ice Blended Mocha

Marina Mahathir walked the BERSIH walk. Imagine that.

While I was following the whole rally via Twitter and Facebook in the comforts of my home, the daughter of Dr Mahathir is with the very people her father – and a host of like-minded others - so deeply detests.

She started her post with a simple sentence: So I went.

Marina, you have both my envy and admiration.

Having read Marina’s BERSIH 2.0 experience, I am ashamed on at least two counts: one, for not being there despite my belief in the thrust of the rally’s objective, and two, for having doubts as to whether the BERSIH was worth it.

The latter came after witnessing the torrent of propaganda masquerading as “news report” churned out by TV3 and RTM1 news much, much later in the evening.

A TV3 reporter, supposedly reporting at the scene complete with the irony of an empty street for a backdrop, even quoted “unnamed sources” – aren’t they always - warning of God-knows-what unknown threats of unspecified nature but connected with all probability with the Haram Demonstrators still lurking around somewhere.

Pure bollocks and baloney. Nothing’s changed, I thought.

On top of these were particularly venomous postings and comments from the FB circle of friends.

What the freezing hell was that all about? Why the hatred for people who were basically walking to highlight their constitutional grouse for fair elections.

I was thinking, thus, of posting something along the lines of “So, have BERSIH actually achieved anything despite the euphoria of its supposed success…” and, in my mind, its mostly in the negative.

That was before I read Marina’s post. I’ve realized thus that in many counts, BERSIH has achieved something after all.

BERSIH has shown that it is possible to rally to a Rights centric cause in a non -partisan way. The rally last Saturday is ironically a showcase of the much spoken 1Malaysia concept with its diverse composition of walkers.

I particularly liked her comments of “reformasi” chants being drowned by a bigger chant of BERSIH. Rightly so, this is one movement that no one can hijack as it belongs to the Rakyat.

Sure, as one FB friends puts its “… so what if you have 100,000..”

Numbers are just statistics. God knows the current Governments churns them out on a regular basis with the consistency of a well blended iced tall Mocha Latte with whipped cream.

Notwithstanding the almost haphazardly organized look of the rally, this was a group that truly believed in their ideals and keeping to it.

Imagine that by 5pm, everything was back to the way it was and my so many FB Friends who lamented being burdened with not being able to lepak around KL can do so with complete abandonment.

Some roads will still be jammed through, BERSIH or no BERSIH.

But, who cares, right?

Muse Tinkerer

For brief moments last Monday, I shamefully sank to the “Western Great, Elsewhere Less So” kind of thinking.

I had signed up for a technical report writing course at a city hotel in glitzy Bukit Bintang with all the initial impressions but promising.

It started with my being unable to locate the said hotel, which turned out to be at the rear portion of another (bigger, more luxurious hotel) and having to park my car quite a distance away. The classroom was located right at the end of a cramped corridor. This same corridor doubled as the "buffet snack" serving place, for want of a better word.

Care to guess that (early) morning dish? Char Kuew Tiow. “It cannot be any more Malaysian than this,” I thought deciding to skip the meal and opting for coffee only as I step into the function room.

It was dimly lit, classroom styled setting with two whiteboards and, on the table, an A4-sized booklet. I flipped it open' ready to criticized and did just that after the briefest of glance: “How drool.. This is going to be one dry course.”

By then, I had decided to stay on just until lunchtime and skipped the rest. A daughter down with abdominal pains being the other reason – never mind that she was already with a nanny.

Just a week before, I attended a similar one-day event in Singapore. The hotel was great, the food sumptuous, the speaker a Texan who injected humour into his presentation. I forgave his rushing through the session as he was just such a darn great speaker. A communications expert, as the marketing slip went.

Nancy – the local course speaker – is meanwhile a former banker turned freelance trainer.

Four hours into lunchtime, I ate back every prejudiced thought of her. She was simply superb, making a dry subject into a very entertaining session without the need to turn it into a guffaw fest just to keep eyelids open, interest from waning and minds wandering. And after lunch, the session’s end came fast; too fast in fact, a sign of how well things had gone.

Of course, the food was still horrendous-tasting, the corridor a source of body-brushing sessions as participants of other courses and seminars pass our room to get to the corner washroom but Nancy was worth every bit of inconvenience.

Did I absorb everything she taught in the two days? Not without some re-reading, but she certainly managed to wake some participant’s muse.

(Note: the “muse” is mentioned in Stephen King’s “On Writing”. They supposedly have a bag, pocket, knapsack of writing ideas in their safekeeping. His is a gruff, cigar chomping, hairy little guy who makes Mr. King do all the work while he loafs about. I haven’t found mine. My guess is that I am not looking too hard for him/her.)

On hindsight, Sturtevant was okay as was Nancy with solid knowledge and expertise in the subject matter their clarion call.

The latter just offer greater value in Ringgit and Sens. Not to mention the chance to ogle at the urbane souls of the KL Pavilion crowd whose life seemingly revolves around fashion and exercising their consumer rights of buying and buying and more buying.

Very deep pockets, hmm?

Ghost in Shell