JUDEO-CHRISTIAN-MUSLIM TAPESTRY

The creative minds of descendents of Adam to depict God's affairs.

Walla-hu-'alam

INTERMISSION: NOT ANWAR'S KOTE MAMAK

Definitely not Anwar's.

The name is Cassia grandis. The plant, a medium size tree is an introduced one likely from/through Burma-Thailand. It prefers dry areas.

The more than foot-long fruits dangling from tips of branches are green in colour and turn black when ripe. They are ribbed and bengkok.

The Malays (northen states) called them Kote Mamak. I don't the think trees are happy to have such a what-you-see-is-what you call name. I tell you why later.

In the ripe fruit are many flat, roundish seeds covered with thick blackish mucilage which are edible of sweet-sourish taste. Kids like them and were sold at 20cents each in Kedah.

Left: This leguminous tree is also known as pink shower or coral shower.






Right: A 22 year-old, heavy fruiting tree in arboretum at MARDI Station Hilir Perak grown from seed obtained from a tree at Marang's beach. It is thought that such a hardy tree species can be useful as shade trees for cocoa.

Kote Mamak is definitely an abnoxious name. The edible fruit, pink flowers and nitrogen fixing (?) roots as many leguminous plants are can be useful for agriculture and landscape.

How a landscape architect could advise a housewife that a Kote Mamak is good for shade tree without blushing? In the end people shy away from using the tree for whatever purposes, as it is happening now hence leading to its rarity. Who knows it may have medicinal/aphrodisiac properties?

We have to give a good name to the tree away from the courseness of language. Kasia grandis? (grandis maknanya besar!)

PELURU TUK JANGGUT RATAH SGT. HASSAN

Filem P. Ramlee yang kedua ialah Sarjan Hassan, yang pertama Penarek Beca. Filem tersebut adalah true story. Inilah (kiri) rupanya Sarjan Hassan (1927-1991) yang lahir di Mantin, N.S.

Selama berkhidmat dengan Rejimen Askar Melayu selama 16 tahun, 1946-1962, beliau telah membunuh 54 orang pengganas tidak termasuk yang dicederakan atau menyerah diri kapada beliau.

Sebut saja beliau masuk hutan buat operasi, komunis kecut perut. Dimana saja ada hotspot, wira bangsa ini akan diperintahkan untuk menghapuskan musuh.Pengebonanan beliau mendapat penghargaan negara dengan dianugerahkan beberapa pingat dan di naikkan pangkat leftenan akhirnya.

Nekat dan keberanian Hassan ialah membalas dendam kerana pembunuhan isterinya, ibu mertua, nenek mertua, dan anak saudara isterinya oleh kumpulan Bintang 3, suatu gerakan Malayan People Anti Japanese (MPAJ) di Pantai, Jelebu yang diketuai oleh Lai Su Ting.

Sebaik sahaja Jepun menyerah diri pada 14 Ogos 1945, Bintang 3 telah mengambil kesempatan memerintah Malaya selama 14 hari, ia-itu pemerintah Cina, sebelum BMA (British Military Administration) mula mendarat di Singapura pada 5 Sept. 1945 yang diketuai oleh Lt. Gen. O.L. Roberts.

Sementara pemerintahan Bintang 3 selama 14 hari inilah berlaku banyak penganiayaan keatas penduduk terutamanya kapada mereka yang ada bersangkut paut dengan pemerintahan Jepun. Penghulu Ismail di Salak, datuk kapada Hassan turut ditangkap.

Untuk melengkapkan diri dengan ilmu bebatinan mempertahankan diri dan melawan Bintang 3 Hassan bersama dua lagi saudaranya berbasikal ke Bkt. Katil, Melaka untuk berguru dengan Kiai Yusof Rahimullah selama 1 minggu. Kemudian mereka ke Sg. Choh, Hulu Selangor untuk belajar dengan Tuan Guru Ahmad Bakhtiar. Seterusnya mereka berguru pula dengan Kiai Mohd. Salleh di Batu Pahat.

Hassan mengambil keputusan untuk berkhidmat dengan Kor Rejimen Askar Melayu. Beliau menghadhiri latihan asas ketenteraan 6 bulan di Port Dickson dan kemudian ditempatkan dalam Battalion Kedua di Kem Bagan Pinang, P. Dickson. Ia wira yang warak, tidak suka bercakap kosong dan taat menjalankan perintah.

Pernah komunis mengumpan Hassan dengan 'matahari' seorang amoy cantik tetapi tidak berjaya.  Malah ia dinasihatkan supaya memujuk kawan2 yang dalam hutan menyerah diri. Ramai keluar menyerah.

Hassan tak lut peluru Tuk Janggut, ketua tertinggi komunis, di Perak:

Rujuk: Harun Johari. 2001. Kapten Hassan: Wira Negara. DBP

BERSIH 5.0 - MOTHER OF ALL BERSIHS

Objective:
To demand the Malay rights not to be bastardized by Malays.

Modus operandi:
Calling all Malays of all ages that have been bastardized by nincompoop and corrupt leaders at all strata of political, public, private governance/agencies be it at national, state, corporation, company, department, institution, university, college, school, district, mukim, qariah, kampung, (even) home levels to spit peacefully against the shenanigans at Putrajaya, Dataran Merdeka, Penang bridge, Causeway and anywhere deem of  strategic impact.

Bring your own kapur-sireh-pinang. Gobek is not allowed for it can be a weapon. We will paint the town red.

Date/time:
To be announced.  

LIBRARY-CUM ARCHIVE-CUM MUSEUM

They have upgraded the Blogger and my laptop browser cannot support it. I have a minor problem for most of the pictures are in the laptop are yet to be transferred to the desktop computer. Using the pictures available in the latter I have to make do with this self-agrandizement post. Pardon me.

TS Sanusi Junid probably has the largest collection for a personal library numbering more than 20,000 books.

Allahyarhamah Alijah's Gordon's collection through MSRI (Malaysia Sociological Research Institute), Jalan U Thant found in 4 steel containers, air conditioned has more than 3720 books according to the CD library list provided to me. The books cover topics on Islam, politics and social aspects on the Palestine-Israel conflict, the Middle East, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia.

Pak Kadir's (Capt. Rivers) library in his attic room at Cameron Highlands is being catalogued and nearly 3,000 have been registered. He said the oldest book published is dated 1790 on maritime.

Part of the book collection in an apartment meant for my library-cum archive-cum museum (L) at Taman Equine.

My collection numbered about 3,000 books, journals, references etc. I have yet to list them. It's a poorman's collection because most of the books selected were bought during sales at exhibitions and university bookstores here and overseas.

The buying spree began at garage sales and used book stores while studying at Oregon where books can be bought at a fraction of their price.

One Peace Corp family who spent time in the East Coast of Malaysia gave me several boxes of hard-to-get books about Malaysia. During my travels I look for books also.

By the time we were about to go back to Malaysia the boxes of books almost filled up the 2-room apartment of the university housing. My wife and 3 children still reminisced such cramped living experience! However, they now can write faster and better than me!

About 3/4 of the books/journals/magazines at the apartment library are on agriculture while the rest on history, Islam, general knowledge, references etc. Some of the books are also classified by countries such as China, Egypt, Thailand, USA, India-Pakistan. Once a while I would spend time in the so-called main library. Apart from that I kept a working book collection of books at two other living places, Kajang and Tronoh.

Display: Lower jaw of elephant (above) obtained from an abandoned veterinary department's laboratory.

Instamatics and SLRs (L); old records (R) mostly rocks! I am in the process of looking for a secod-hand record player.

Of late I have been frequenting the Sunday Market at Ipoh to scrounge for used books and encyclopedias.

"My only regret is that I cannot finish reading all the books" I quote from someone.