The Beginning...

The road to my old kampung, Kampung Kuala Kepis about 10 km from Kuala Pilah.
My house is towards the end of this road.

I NEVER knew I could write. In fact the 24 years I've spent as a journalist with the Business Times was a wonder, considering the only contribution I made to my school yearbook was that passport photograph the editorial board requested from every student leaving school that year, in 1978.

  I like to read though, and I read everything from entertainment magazines to the Roget's Thesaurus. And I would like to think that I have a great gift from God in the form of my sharp memory. I remember things, happenings, right from the day I was that small child running around the then white sandy beaches of Port Dickson, the place where I was born and where I spent perhaps the most wonderful decade of my childhood.

 Coming from a family of nine siblings, I spent a considerable part of my growing-up years on my own. Not that I was a neglected child, far from that in fact, but more so as my elder brothers and sisters were busy chasing their own dreams and future. My best friend was my younger sister, Roziah, and she remain so to this day.
 Perhaps I discovered my ability to write when people started telling me they liked reading my letters. And boy, do I have the passion for writing letters.
 When I began to take the liking towards members of the opposite sex, the internet, had I hear the word then, would have sounded like a super-weapon in a science fiction movie. We didn't even have a house telephone until I was about 18.
 As one who keeps his feelings to himself, never with the courage to tell them out loud, I wrote about how I felt in a little notebook I kept with me at the time. And in the few times that I actually sensed responses from those I admired from afar, I wrote them letters.
 Some say that I write with emotions. I didn't know what that meant then. All that I knew was that I wrote with much sincerity. Had I spoken to them, I will tell them the same things I wrote in those letters. And stories, yes, I had plenty of those to tell.
 And so too, this perhaps being the last leg of my career as a newspaper journalist, much of what I will write hereon will be recollections of my formative years, my school days and of the 24 years I've spent as a journalist with the Business Times.
 Thanks to the Business Times, I have seen much of the world, largely on account of covering visits of former Prime Minister Datuk Seri (now Tun) Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the three years or so that I served as correspondent of The New Straits Times in New York.
 The job has presented me with the golden opportunity of widening my perspective of things, and not to think that the best must only be what's in my own backyard. There have been instances when I thought people in the West have better values than us and likewise, there were times when we were obviously better than them.
 In the end, I decided it was better to celebrate our differences than to focus too much on shoving our own values down each other's throats. That way, I have managed to erase all prejudices against others, and to accept different surroundings as they were and more importantly, to adapt.
 That helped me a lot in my travels. When I stepped out of the immigration counter at the Indira Ghandi International Airport in Delhi once, the fact that I wasn't anticipating things to be as squeaky clean as they were at Changi or Narita helped keep my anxiety at bay. Soon, I began to enjoy a very vibrant and colourful Delhi.
 I will not be writing about the economy and the intricacies that comes along with it. There are many writings out there on the subject for all to savour. Neither will I be writing in-depth about politics as politics remain as difficult for me to comprehend as the 'diffrentiation' topic in high school additional mathematics subject.
 I will be writing of what I have seen and of my little personal views and experiences. Never will I attempt to either make judgement calls nor influence any of yours. I consider myself inadequate for such roles.
 But I will write of things that perhaps will strike that little chords in your hearts and hopefully too, make you smile for a while. I'd be more than happy if I could do just that.

ENDS