Still Thinking…

Few things in life will repeat itself. You either make it better, experience it worst, or notice remnants of deja vu in another setting that will, in some obscure way, put a sweet smile on your face. I experienced that somewhere between 1.20 am and 2.45 am in ZB’s patio, sitting on a cushioned wooden chair underneath a bevery shade, inhaling the nicotine-laced air that was fighting furiously with the fresh smell of curry leaves in her garden, and twirling the green beads that was hanging from my neck.Around me was the company of four men and four women with whom I have spent endless hours arguing, laughing, eating, criticising and encouraging. Their sheer passion and dedication amazes me.Their confidence is contagious. Their energy encapsulates my every dream of what a team should be.

I love this team. Making JALAN was somewhat a rite of passage for not only me, I discover, but also a few others I know in the team. I am glad that JALAN made superman Naz to feel so proud of his Malay roots, Intan to get to have a story to tell her kids, Raudha to know intimatelt the endless energy of Singapore’s streets, Fad to show me and Zai what bravery in the name of adversity means,Halim to feel the surety that there is still an info-ed in him, Wan to have the world discover his talents, Sanif to impart his fierce focus style of work, Yem to raise the bar in intelligent tv hosting, Jo to show that there is indeed room for drama in documentaries, Norfa to demonstrate calmness in the midst of a trigger-happy crew, Haider to make me hold on to the belief that 50% of a good program comes from audio, and confidence for In, Muni and Liyana in their growing years.

JALAN had its whoppingly fun and introspective wrap party yesterday. We had 4 hours of wild laughter complete with spoof awards and food, and another 4 hours late into the wee hours of the morning talking about our lives and hopes. The day ended with an activity we all so loved – cam whoring, at 3 am, no less.

But JALAN to me was a lot more. It smoothens this difficult transitional moments when I am about to move and leave all that I know and love behind to start a new life and chapter with DH,my true North.

Thank you Allah for this team. And thank you for making JALAN happen the way it is. You showed me once more what the power of doa is.

No, that is not a crop circle. It is, an aerial view of Mashad, a city in western Iran that is home to the burial grounds of Imam Reza. The makam is located right in the centre of the city, and all roads literally, well, lead to it.

Mashad and happy boys carrying Iranian breads on their heads have been keeping my mind busy. It took over my swirling headaches about the parties, the boxes that are screaming to be filled up, the letters that I have not opened and so many other mundane worries and have-to-do’s. All because Leila and Kazem are coming.

There are many countries where I was blessed with the warmest, unexpected hospitalities. The Balabanis in Melbourne, where Mrs Balabani will hug , kiss and say ve-u-ti-fool! ve-u-ti-fool! every 15 minutes and insisted her husband took me fishing in the middle of the sea, the Chengs in Spain where Auntie Cheng will cook up mean bowls of ginseng before we girls head out to town painting Madrid walls red, the Davies in Dubai who literally handed the keys of their villa for me to live in for 2 whole months while they are away, the Michaels in New Zealand who took care of me and my friend when we had a tragic accident and I lost a favourite cousin, the Roslans in Colorado who calmly took us through a fierce snowstorm on the way to Aspen only to be forced to turn back, and many more that I am forever, forever thankful for. I have always realised that I have been very blessed to have travelled to so many places at so young an age, but none of these countries showered as much magic as Iran did to me. A lot of it has to do with Leila and Kazem.

I met Leila in 1997 while I was sitting quietly in Nabawi Mosque in Medina, in my own world talking to God, in a way I knew how. She approached me and said an unsure hello, and we set off chatting about her newly married status and the Internet. That chat was merely 15 minutes, and we parted afterwards. What followed was a courtesy one email per year, just to keep in touch. Then, Leila dissapeared from the radar screen.

Six years later, on a hot afternoon in the Dubai office, I had an urge to Google for Leila’s name and saw a forum where someone whose name is similar to that of her husband’s, posting a thread. I sent a Yahoo message asking if he is THE Kazem that I knew, knowing full well that it was a long shot. Well, he was. And the weekend after had me flying to Iran, after numerous emails to MFA to ensure that I am allowed to travel there, and them documenting the addresses I would be in, just in case I had to be evacuated. Yes, I was nervous.

It was only 4 days. But Leila and Kazem showed me what hospitality means. They took me into their home, where I slept on the same bed with Leila on the first day. Kazem turned his plans around just so that we can take a 3-hour drive to Northern Iran to visit his uncle in an Iranian village just because I mentioned that I love long drives and don’t favour swanky places when I travel. They bought airplane tickets to Mashad just so that I can see the power of reverence that imposes itself in the structural map of a city, and rushed me to Tehran where I felt lucky I was allowed into the home of the late Ayatollah Khomeini rolling with a DV cam, thanks to Kazem cajoling the guards.

I have a big guffaw when I laugh. With a hijab on head, that is hardly the image of a demure, Muslim woman that I thought Iranians would be expecting me to be. I foresaw that I have to giggle instead, and help Leila serve tea to Kazem and his uncles so that I do not disrupt dynamics. I read in the media that Iranian women wanted more rights, and Iranian youths wanted more liberation – so I was prepared to be the accidental traveller and observe. So when Kazem offered to wash and iron my abaya, and his uncle in the village ran excitedly out of the house just so he could catch some chickens to feed me – I was stumped.

I was so touched by their efforts to make me sample the real Iran, that I vowed that when I am ever loaded, I will fly them to Asia and let them sample our own Melayu warmth.

So when they told me today that they are coming, I was heartbroken.I will not be here when they arrive, because by then I would have left for Canada. Chances of them being able to change their dates are slim. And worst, I do not know when I will be able to travel to Iran again. I remembered wanting to go to Iraq while I was in Dubai then, only regretting now I never did.

I am still hoping that my Iranian moments can be relived, because Leila and Kazem showed me a world that I never expected to stumble into. When it is meant to be,it will happen. I have learnt that.

And I am hoping to relearn that lesson again.

They say time is a great magic. It heal wounds, reunite losses and often, so very often, provides closure to questions left unaswered for years.

This one is a question that was unsolved for 21 years. No one (in my batch at least) knew why there is a turtle in our school crest.

Now I do. Thanks to JALAN.

Alas, my life is complete and I can move on.

Hee.

Women and parties are like fish and water. Or maybe, is it more like the bird and the skies. Lame.
I know, I know! It is like sambal belacan and ikan kering. No?

I foresee this coming February to be my party-happy month. There are 3 swirling in my head right now –

A) A wrap party for the JALAN crew
B) A farewell party that GAB is kindly and exuberantly organising for my departure
C) A Celebrating The 30’s party at D’s house possibly – women only!

Like writing, all 3 has distinct target market, and boy it has been a headache just thinking about them. With Party A, the options swayed from the typical eat-at-buffet-restaurant-until-you-burp-with-leftover-production-money type, to disco rave at Ministry of Sound thanks to the sweaty wants and desires of the male species in the crew, and to a Mediteranean I-cook-so-you-guys-better-eat ensemble at ZB’s movie-poster filled apartment. How do you make a hardworking team happy – when the range of members range from the teens to the mothers and fathers of school-going kids?

Party B is technically headache-free since I know GAB is a queen at organising such dramatic ones. Take how she organised my hen party 2 years ago at Samar. I heard that GAB, in her true legendary style, actually HAD time to go to a spa in an Indonesian island and had her hair relaxed and moisturised a few hours before the hen party, lugged the belly-dancer costumes all the way there and still make it in time – and err, VERY energetic when I arrived. And I thought I WAS the bride-to-be. GAB is still hunting for locations as of now, and kept pestering me on what kind of party I wanted. And me, well, just like my wedding video saga, I just can’t decide.

Party C was initially conceptualised as a housewarming for D’s huge place overlooking the runway, with a Retro theme. We wanted to relive the ‘function’ days where How Do I Know by Whitney Houston will be THE song that will have us girls prancing on table tops. Then, it evolved into a farewell one for me instead since I am leaving in a month, and the idea is to have just a few of us cackling good ol’ school days away. And then, as of today, Party C has morphed into a supremo gathering of celebrating the 30’s with a guest list that can form holding companies. I didn’t realise that so many of my girlfriends are women in their own rights now because when we all meet, it is just plain banter about politics and shallow gossips about this and that. The challenge is – how DO you organise a party for a noisy group of Type A’s who have travelled to the corners of Tuscany and sky-dived in the Australian skies at 20. I don’t know, because it is damn scary! I surely do not want to be leading the planning for this one.

So it will be Party C that will be the task for the month for some of us. In true women style, the planning kept on changing because hey, the flowers has to colour-matched and the cutlery has to be shiny silver – the kind that can double up as a mirror to touch up the noses. What I do know, Cooking Swatch will be summoned to draw up a halal list of mouth watering gastronomic elements. Gosh it is so nice to have friends in the party business.And he has NOT even been informed!

I seriously don’t know if Party C will happen. All I have in my head right now is a vision of a big Big BIG flower arrangement of lovely tulips and sweet lilies.

Ah women. So hard to please.

Here’s a conversation that happened today while walking along Bukit Pasoh with a director friend. Who also happened to marry someone I grew up with. Whose daughters also call me Mama XXX. Ok, you get the picture how comfortable I am with him.

Director Friend: So…has it been satisfying being an Executive Producer for JALAN?

Me: Ah? Hmmm….uhh…hmmmm…(look at apek walking in front)…oklah. Good hires, bad hires. Always have to remind myself I am paid to lead and therefore make the best of what I have. But I realise I work best with….(car zooms pass)….

Director Friend: So you’d do it again?

Me: Yes! JALAN Vietnam..JALAN China…

Did anyone ever think of JALAN Ellesmere Island? Now THAT would be cool eh?

Of all the scenes that I managed to go on set for the filming of JALAN, this one must be one of my favourite. It speaks volumes of the dedication involved amongst the crew – which resonates well with many others in the team as well.

This scene was slotted for Episode 6 – where Y, the host – ventures out to Changi in search of a railway that was once there sometime during the WW2. It was a reenactment of how the Malay Regiment Soldiers were tortured by the Japanese, and this scene had 2 of the soldiers running from a bomb explosion.

I did not have the likes of $2 million in my coffers to allow the director and the crew to make extended, expansive and elaborate reenactments and so they made do.To Punggol they went, camera in hand, lallang in the midst, mosquitoes in their most friendly moods, and lots of inspiration from Band of Brothers to make this scene realistic. While running alongside the actors, the crew nearly fell on top of each other, but they persevered. They took a few retakes of these – and the actors obligingly walked 100 metres back only to run in ‘exasperation’ again. My bright orange pants was in-shot in some of these scenes unfortunately,and so you may not get to see it on TV when this episode air eventually.

JALAN has seen its virgin episode aired last Sunday, at 8.30 on Suria. That was the episode on the rich Boyan heritage that was wiped out by development in Serangoon.Seven more episodes to go – before I can finally start packing my waiting bags and abandoned boxes to finally jalan to Vancouver.

I am one of those lucky ones who have all the windows in the house facing a mosque. It is the atypical, contemporary Singaporean mosque – built from the thousands of contributions from the half a million Muslims or so here, along with 67 others around the island-republic.Its design is modern – with clean and straight lines contouring the edges and large, flat blue slabs plastering its facade. There is nothing curvy about Darul Ghufran, very unlike the usual Moorish architecture that often draw gasps of oohs and aahs from observers. There is nothing historical about its design too, just a functional piece of work designed by an architect salaried by the Housing Development Board, and built for 4,000 Muslims residing in good ol’ Tampines. Very Singapore, if you ask me.

There was something about it today that made me almost cry, however. I rushed home early from Oak 3 just so that I will not miss the Eid takbir with my mother, which I painfully missed during Hari Raya Puasa eve. I was fussing about in the kitchen when the first melodious sound of the Takbir came cascading out of the mosque’s speaker system at maghrib, and I was stumped.

It was a strange feeling. I have heard this same Takbir before, from the same mosque every Raya eve. On some years, I was also in the congregation takbir-ing together with the jemaah. Yet, this year the takbir seems louder,and poignant. I looked hard at the mosque’s blue minaret resting against a reddish sky, and watched the clouds slowly pass above the looming tower as the Takbir resonates God’s beauty. It was so magical. It was, as they say – a moment.

In ancient Sanskrit philosophy, reality is a string of moments sewn together. I felt that I was trapped in time when the moment of awe struck me earlier, and therefore, it did not feel like reality. It felt surreal, and I am not very sure why but I sure felt lucky.

The flat design of Darul Ghufran beat the day I witnessed the majestic dome of the Mahram Al Reza in Iran, the too-huge Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the hundreds of staircases of Sagrada Familia, the famed Catholic church built by Gaudi in Spain, the rustic Jumeira Mosque in Dubai, the very pink and pretty Masjid Putra in Putrajaya, and many others I do not instantly recall in my days of travel. I am always very fixated with how man build tall structures, as if to reach out to God – when building places of worship. This time, Darul Ghufran – in its flat, unartistic, blue sort of way – hustled history and heritage and showed that all it takes is a willowy and poignant call of the Takbir, to win hearts over. Beauty, is in the sacrifice of the material and design, and indeed deserves a moment all of its own.

Eid Mubarak to all. May you have found your moment too.

W passed me two of his band’s discography CDs earlier at the office. The usual Friday rendesvous with cousins in town today resulted in me having platefuls of Ayam Penyet and tonnes of bad jokes spinning in my head, so the first thing I did when I reached home was to play the CDs – LOUD, mind you, in my room.

The moment I heard the first riffs and W’s basslines, I was immediately transported to a realm so familiar yet so distanced at the same time. Sang Froid is incredibly tight-sounding, and I must say that for a non-heavy fan – I became an instant one.

Right after the last song, I caught myself dragging a big box of CDs from under my bed just so that I can find CDs of my own former band recordings, many eons ago. Those jamming days were the kills! F & C, the first band I sang with – was actually a group of tired journos, me included – not of the profession, but the sometimes stupid demands of the newspaper editors we worked for. We used to jam on the 7th floor of Times House, in the same room where journalists were trained to report world affairs succinctly. For SSM (our lead guitarist) and RLB (our bassist), it was a case of getting the chords right, and nothing beats those better, not even a former DPM being accused of sodomy.

The Boon’s studio at Macpherson was our playground on weekends. Tucked in a small street in an old rundown area, Boon’s does not actually cater to drivers. I remember always, always fighting for parking space with the rest of them whenever we jam. Sometimes, when I am lucky – the guy I used to go out with then would send me there -but not until he gave a long face as a mark of disapproval that I jam at all. Ah.. sigh. One of those holier-than-thou cases, if you ask me. Glad I didnt marry him!

Our first public gig was at No.18 at Mohammad Sultan Road. That fateful night, CB, our other guitarist chose to wear a huge colourful wig. He ended up blocking the drummer with his head and in another gig, where I was absent, he could not even hear himself cos the wig was an Amazon. The night we played at No.18 we had the club packed with …well…almost all the journos from the entire ST newsroom. I am pretty sure strangers who walked into that gig must have thought we were one bigtime band with the amount of media personnel there. But alas, my offkeys would have been too much of a tell-tale that we were not.

After almost a year of jamming, we decided to record. We pooled our blood money from reporting and spent 3 days on a weekend at Lions Studio. I remembered sweet ol’ Tian who was mixing for us, and MS (our drummer)crazy antics. I shudder thinking of the tense moments between RLB and SSM abt the tracks, and me wearing a hat instead of the hijab while in the studio. Alas….the exuberance of youth.

I thank God for those sessions. Notes From a Lost Weekend was the name of the album. Call it wild, but they were defining moments of creativity, if you want to call it that. I am sure W, and many others who ever had a band would agree.

Rock on. Music lives.

How the mind escapes.

Last week, a riveting scene of a man standing alone on a beach in Thailand, with an impending huge wave engulfing him froze me. I sat there silently, stumped and numbed all the same time, on the blue seat in my TV room as the BBC docu unfolded scenes after scenes of real-life video footages recorded by the tsunami survivors. The reality of me being there only 2 days before the disaster, right in the heart of Patong last year, was something I never wanted to express in writing. It was ironic, that only DH can write about it in this blog and I could not bring myself to pen it down. The scenes of men and women running for their lives in Thailand brought waves of emotion, but I did not want to identify them. The emotions were just as quickly engulfed by other more pressing worries, like work and how the scripts and filming of JALAN are turning out.My mind did it again…it escapes.

Just yesterday, I caught myself feeling a very sharp pang of nervousness when someone mentioned about the possibility of SIngapore being hit by an earthquake in Sumatra. This prediction was by the same guy in Thailand who predicted last year’s tsunami, whom everyone ignored then. I have read about this before, and at that time I remembered thinking – apart from this prediction, I have 24 books to see to publication. Singapore and the tsunami can wait. My family will be in Malaysia and I will be in Vancouver by then. We will be safe. That was my mind escaping again then. But somehow, the mention yesterday was a bit more biting,if not reflective.

Today, I flipped through the newspapers and read a review piece on the tsunami documentaries that will be flooding the tv screens over this next few days. One of them, was about how a group of scientists is racing against time to see if the Cascadia Fault will reap apart again and cause a ruckus it did in the 1700, when the first recorded tsunami destroyed Japan. The scientists are fervent that North America will be hit by a tsunami soon, killing half a million. Vancouver may be one of the cities possibly drowned by tidal waters. So where do I go now? And to where, does my mind escape to?

God has a way to press the point that our minds have limited capacities. He has taught mine.

Six million dollars.

That was the amount a certain British company was paid for making a 3 hour documentary on the history of Singapore. I, on the other hand, am making an 8 hour series on various aspects of Singapore history (and this is tougher mind you, since we are not going chrono with the stories) with slightly more than 2.5 percent of that. Do your math.

This entire production has been an eye-opener for many involved. It showed many with industrial experience what demands documentaries make and a reaffirmation in others of the dearth of talent in Singapore. A quick word with colleagues only ascertains the suspicion – that generally there is a lack of story crafting and depth in thought-process when sewing pieces together.

So will $6 million dollars give the room and capacity to any producers to churn the best out of the best? Did that $6 million documentary knock the hell out of other Singapore history docus with that big a budget?

I saw an hour of the docu and I was already irritated with the repeat archived stills, too many topshots of Shenton Way, various angles of PSA-corporate video materials (read: containers being lifted left, right and centre) and a rather, chubby and flabby Raffles in the reenactments.The VO script was content-packed, but only for a cursory chrono view of what happened from the year Raffles landed. They had good interviews with Tim Barnard, Mary Turnbull and Wang Gungwu but it was Lim Chong Yah who stole the show with his very Singaporean accent. Who else would be most interested in the history of Singapore if it is not for the Singaporeans. Everyone else would have an agenda.

Documentaries are point of views. Only this time, it is one that chips away at six million dollars. I reserve my most critical comments for my own learning journeys in producing the best.

Watch ‘JALAN’. It is on 15 January now.