Iqbal Abd Ghaffar

The lights of the urban skyline heading towards what essentially is the backbone of Peninsular Malaysia where the only casino in this country lay perched look brighter than usual today. The velvet colored dark sky hosts a bluemoon (not literally k). Now I know how the phrase “Once in a bluemoon” came up (click on the link).

The first decade of the new millenia has come to an end. What a wacky decade!

Have you ever had one of those hit the forehead with “Oh I get it!” moment? Well I did, a few days back. I think it was Mix.fm’s old tagline, “playing today’s hit music from the eighties, nineties, and noughties”. Hearing the last word over the air, made it sound like naughties. And I thought naughties? That doesn’t make sense at all! A few days back, as I stumbled upon some articles of reflections of 2009, I came across the word noughties, and then I realized, “I remember my English (as in England) maths teacher called zero nought (or was it not)”. And so it hit me faster that you can say doodle-my-chicken-before-it-poops, “Oh! This is how this decade is referred to!”

Where am I going with this? umm…oh yes! A decade past by so bloody fast. I didn’t notice it right until this morning that we’re heading into a new decade.

It was exactly 10 years ago that mankind and you, me, and the rest of us were all hoping that the new millennium would usher in a new era of hope for mankind. Hopes of peace, end to war, hunger, poverty, more prosperity, equality, green peace (and the list is endless). But 10 years into this new decade and we’ve got a world paralyzed with a war on terror, the imminent danger of climate change and global warming on overdrive, global scale pandemics starting with SARS, bird flue and now H1N1, major natural disasters becoming as common as a mamak in every taman, and a systemic failure of capitalism driven to the extreme by man’s insatiable lust and greed that has costed governments insane amounts of money to fix (pump priming will in-debt future generations).

But all is not lost. All is not gloomy. Despite the doom and gloom that seems to prevail in society today and the amount of negativity that is portrayed in the media (hey, bad news sells), there is still hope for mankind. There are still people who for the love of god would go to extremes and fight for the survival of this planet. There are still people who care about the poor children of africa dying of hunger. And there are still good samaritans who would go all out to put a smile on a strangers face.

I remember a funny story shared by a friend of mine who probably never really cared for any of the above. The story goes that one day he and a female accomplice drove up to a petrol station to refuel. At one corner was a dumpster and there were probably a dozen cats, loitering around and playing with each other and scavenging for food. A couple of minutes later a pickup drove up to the dumpster and a man walked out from the car carrying a bag. This bag was not a garbage bag but was in fact cat food (friskies maybe). The good man spread a sheet of newspaper, poured the cat food on to the newspaper and a dozen or so cats came digging in the nutritious feast.

The friend of mine said to his lady friend (as he got into the car to ready to drive off) “It’s heartening to know that there are still good people like him in this world. Thanks to people like him we can continue being a**h***s”.

The above story folks illustrates… nothing. I just wanted to share that with you. I liked it because its hilarious. *ROFL*

Back to the story…one decade has gone by so fast. That’s 10 years! We’ve added 10 years into our lives. I had just finished high school at the end of the last millennium. I think its pretty awesome that we’ve lived to see the turn into a new millennium, a new century, and a new decade. Thinking about it…the next millennium won’t be here until 989 years from now!

So one decade down, nine more to go in this century. How far are you with your hopes and dreams?

I think that’s the beauty of time. With time, comes experience and hopefully wisdom (sadly some people never get it). I’ve always thought that events in life are nothing more than mere experiences worth recalling, reflecting or worth deleting from your hard drive!

Last year alone, I’ve had quite a roller coaster experience. And I’ve seen events on other people that have impacted my perspective and view on life. But I must admit, a lot of time was spent on soul googling (a new term i coined for soul searching *laughs*) and soul refining (I wonder if there’s ever such a term). And I’m pretty sure the friends and people I know go through the same s**t and had done their own soul refining and soul googling. Perhaps that may just be Google’s next big project!

Moving on to the 28th year of my existence, I’m beginning to comprehend and appreciate the overly used and taken for granted advise that can be summed up in one word: “Bersyukur” or “Be grateful”. Okay, that’s two words in English. Thanks for pointing that out captain obvious.

Go on try it yourself. Reflect on these two words. And I really mean deeply reflect upon it and let it sink in! For some of you, it won’t hit you on the head the first time, it’ll probably take some time. With all good things, it comes with time and patience.

New year party’s over folks. Fireworks are finished. Its the morning of first of January Twenty Ten. Frankly, new year celebration is getting ever more boring. Its repetitive with MC’s and TV announcers having to be hyped up on TV yelling to the audience behind them “SAY HI TO THE CAMERA! IT NEW YEAR! WOOOO!” (what a retard). She made a complete fool of herself.

There’s probably 10 tonnes of waste created from last night’s celebration at KLCC alone (my guess is as good as yours). Its back to work for the hard toiling labors who clean up the mess you’ve made from last night. Respect to these unsung heroes that we take for granted.

Point is that, everyday can be a new year. I don’t see the point of celebrating new year, when on the first day of work come monday, you’d feel all depressed saying to yourself “SSDY (Same Shit Different Year”.

Life is short. Life seems much more shorter now since time doesn’t fly, it travels at warp speed 3.

Anyways, the noughties is gone. Its a new decade. When this decade is over I hope that it won’t be just another 10 years added into your age.

Now…I wonder what’ll this decade be called…the teenies?

Merry New Year and a Happy New decade!

IAG

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilifitri!

Kepada umat Islam yang akan menyambut salah satu hari kebesaran Islam, ingin saya ambil kesempatan ini untuk mengucapkan Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri.

Kepada kaum kerabat keluarga saya, sahabat-sahabat, rakan-rakan sekerja, rakan-rakan taulan, serta kenalan-kenalan, saya memanjangkan jari sepuluh kerat ini memohon maaf atas segala salah dan silap saya baik yang zahir atau batin. Sebagai manusia tidak mungkin saya terlepas dari membuat kesalahan dan dosa.

Semoga kekal dan bertambah mesra persahabatan dan persaudaraan antara kita, dipanjangkan umur, dan dimurahkan rezeki.

Kepada pembaca setia blog saya, Salam Hari Lebaran, dan Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri. Terima kasih di atas sokongan anda. Nantikan artikel-artikel saya sesudah saya puas bercuti raya.

Selamat Hari Raya Aidilfitri!

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To all muslims who will be celebrating one of the grandest days in the muslim calendar, I’d like to take the opportunity to wish you a Happy Eid-ul Fitr.

To my family memmbers, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances, I’d like to seek for forgiveness on any wrong or grievances I may have caused you. I’m only human, thus I cannot escape from committing errors and sins.

May our friendship get closer and grow in strength. May we have a longer life and become prosperous.

To my avid readers, Eid Mubarak and Happy Eid-ul Fitr. Thank you for your support. Stay tuned for my articles when I done holidaying and celebrating eid.

Eid Mubarak!

-IAG-

IAG to All: Don’t Racialize Kugan’s Death

Iqbal Abd Ghaffar

It was an untimely demise of their beloved son.

Kugan Ananthan,  22, died while in police custody on suspicion of stealing luxury cars.  His death which was first reported as due to fluid in his lungs has been reclassified as murder by the Attorney General’s Chambers, after his family and many dissenting voices revealed photographs of bruises on the deceased’s body.

His funeral procession held on the 28th of Jan from University Malaya Medical Center to Batu 14 Puchong looked more like a mini rally. Some prominent VIPs and politicians attended the funeral. A sizable amount of people who attended the procession could easily have been members of the outlawed HINDRAF organization, who could easily have used this event to ignite the flame of anger and dissent against the government.

It is unfortunate that the death of a civilian, in this case a suspect of a luxury car theft case was caused by police brutality. The event triggered an out cry from the public particularly the Indian community of the ill treatment that they have been receiving from the government of the day. It has been widely acknowledged that the community is stricken with many social ills and mistreatment, but the latest untoward incident while in police custody adds salt to the wound.

While a lot of attention has been focused on uncovering who were the officers that caused Kugan’s death, an underlying issue has been largely overlooked; why did Kugan commit the crime?

The real motive remains forever buried six feet under at the Batu 14 Puchong Indian Cemetery. But nonetheless, a number of reasons could easily point to his inability to find work,poverty, or he wanted to provide for his family. But it was unfortunate that this young man had to resort to crime to get access to money.

And to this, we have the MIC to thank for not doing enough in helping the community that they represent out of its hardship. Through years in power, money has flowed into the pockets of the few individuals in the party to enrich themselves. Enough should be said about UMNO and its corrupt ways, high ranking officials and party members of the MIC are as corrupted or far worse than their UMNO counterparts.

The Indians can thank MIC for building a university now embroiled in debt. Indians can thank MIC for breaking up the Indian community into many more factions and groups. And finally, the Indians can thank MIC for giving birth to HINDRAF which now has been out-lawed.

But let not the powers that be and those who are emotional get carted away into thinking that this is a racial fight of Malays against Indians. It never is, never has been, and never should be.

It is a case of police brutality, violation of trust, and a humanitarian issue.

Put it this way, if it were a Bangladeshi who died while in police custody, would the MPs, VIPs, ethnic NGOs and groups and yourself  storm into the mortuary to take photographs of his body, demanded a second post-mortem, and taken part in his procession? Would the press give as big a coverage as it does now with Kugan?

If your answer is anything less than yes, then it just goes to prove that there’s much to gain from racializing, politicizing, sensationalizing and getting overly emotional over one Indian’s death as a case of racial discrimination than looking at it from a case of police abuse, brutality, ignorance, and negligence. – IAG

I hadn’t realized that the last post on this blog was exactly 2 months ago!

A lot has happened. It wasn’t my intention to stop, I was more in a dilemma of trying to find my substance and define my writing style.

It’s easy to vent anger and write an article that’s got “I am pissed” written all over it. But then again, I guess, controversies sells better doesn’t it?

What are the core issues? What is my passion?

It’s a dilemma of what really this blog should represent. What’s its substance? What’s the pull factor or what the  marketeers would call “Unique Selling Proposition”?

One thing is clear, I don’t want this to be “just another angry political blogger” type of blog.  Nope! There’s far too many of that in cyberspace and real space.

I’ll stick to my motto “Behind the Reading Glass”. That should guide me and the readers in what this small blog really stands for.

IAG

But we didn’t panic. The only person that panicked was the cashier as he had keyed in the wrong codes. LOLZ!

Unfortunately, my camera phone had a huge 3 sec shutter lag. So by the time I snapped the photo of the RM4,004,000 price tag, the display showed 0.00.

It was great fun to see a huge price tag for a set lunch.

Reminds me of Zimbabwe and their 2.2 million percent inflation rate last month. Poor fellows have to pay 100 billion Zimbabwe Dollars just to buy a loaf of bread!

I hope that the Malaysian Ringgit does not depreciate to those ridiculous levels.

Regards
Amused

I’m no footie fan and through out my life, I’ve only watched a live match thrice. Once was in Old trafford with Man U against Reading in 2006, 2nd one happened a long time ago, I think it was some youth cup competition also in Shah Alam, in 1996 perhaps and the 3rd is this match.

I would never watch football on TV…only sometimes, but when our Malaysian squad plays, I will cheer for them, even though they are in the 140s ranked against other football nations.

I am dissapointed to see so many folks dressed in blue. I mean come on guys, those who cheered for Chelsea against Malaysia are truly an ungrateful bunch. You would choose some English club over your own team? Where’s the sense of patriotism? I saw more mat salleh dressed in the Malaysiam jersey than I did see Malaysians in yellow and black!

I’m guilty too for not wearing yellow and black but only because I didn’t have one…at least I did wear black….:D

Me in the center, left is Asni, right Ajes.

At the Malaysian post