I do not need a reminder of the 'if only(s)'.

I don't. There are sometimes, the flashes in the dark; they keep you up, staring wide-eyed waiting for something you know will not arrive. Most of the time - a word along the corridors, the whisper of the wind, the sigh at the end of a day- those are the daily, endless reminders of what I have tried with no ease to deny. To have heard - the the crisp sound of the words, so effortlessly spoken by an uncanny offender is to feel the unhurried opening of a healing wound. 

I don't need the reminders. But they are there - undefeated.

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"Ring the best that can ring.
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in."

- Unknown

Months in the foreign winter breeze, and then on to the greener grass and the rather out-of-place ducks in the English spring, I learnt of Ivan Cameron (son of British Conservative Party’s Leader), Susan Boyle (accidental Scottish singing sensation), Gordon Brown’s smear campaign, Andy Murray’s rise to the clay court challenge, Liverpool possibly losing another Premier League title to unworthy winners (a baseless personal opinion) and most importantly online shopping. I live a decadent life among peers who behave as if Panini(s) in Rome is an unthinkable proposal and sandwiches in Prague by the River Vltava would be close to fashionable.

And, in my indulgence in both thought and expenditure in the most cultured parts of Europe, art and all the European romance it affords are becoming monotonous. Painters and architects, churches and courtyards, Florence and Barcelona - advertisements lie and so does my flagrant imagination of European glamour. The Italian on the red Vespa and the Catalan matadors never made it in their leather jacket and red velvet cape to the dinner table next to mine. Instead, it is the shrill laughter of a table of Malaysian girlfriends who fill the emptiness of a bleak European restaurant. Even that, it was a Chinese restaurant in Rome and an Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam.

At the end of every European getaway, it leads me inevitably back to that small, musky room in an unfashionable student hall in an even smaller town in south-east England, to unpack away the postcards of Van Gough’s sunflowers, the bookmarks of Park Güell, the memories of learning the unkind truth of my unfounded imaginations. And, then the holding on to my maroon passport and the emblem of my country – a symbol of the unification of every state and as a result, everyone in that small country and the mighty tigers which stood on each side of the emblem to represent our courage as a nation and as individuals of that nation, I always thought of how short the queue would be in my airport. There, I would not be non-European.

The roll of the Malay language on the tongue of a middle-aged entrepreneur in a small Malaysian fishery village; the sight of Ringgits in a pink, neatly folded envelope kept at the corner of a drawer with Euros, Pounds and Dollars; the sight of the red and white stripes trapped on a closed window; the exchange of Britain’s Got Talent videos over three series and then the exchange of Singaporean advertisements created and brought to life by the talent they don’t have; the awkward, almost forgotten Malay on the tongues of idealists abroad searching for a place in a broken scheme, talking about dirty British flatmates.

So, I place again, the small maroon booklet, filled with the evidence of my European rambles and adventures in the drawer with the knowledge that after another few weekends away from this room, I will be placing it on the biometric reader in KLIA. The passport does not define who you are. But, every once in a while it reminds me of where I left my heart and where it will remain for some time - where the light gets in.

[[ mood ]] working

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"I can't pretend to feel impartial about colours. I rejoice with the brilliant ones and am genuinely sorry for the poor browns."
- Winston Churchill

I am the brown with a splash of orange. Or was it red? I can’t recall.

Today, I woke up with the consciousness that the ordinariness of a day-to-day routine has resumed. So, I took that small effort and made that small difference. Instead of the usual Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Formula with Vitamin E which claims to soften, smoothen and relieve dry skin, I used The Body Shop’s Peach Body Lotion which apparently is a lightweight moisturiser with peach oil and Community Trade soya oil. And, I now smell like a fruit. This is not a sponsored post.

Bon Jovi’s Always in the grocery store.  Natalie Imbruglia’s Torn in the room I had to clean. Then, a dash of memories and recollections of what has happened in the past weeks, past months. ‘If only’ seems an absurd start to a sentence. In isolation, it is in itself a sentence. A decree so disquieting, so damning, so demanding. Choices are what we make of it, or what we refuse to make of it. The cul-de-sac is a common, convenient excuse. What a mess. Retrospectively, it’s still quite a mess. Nothing and no one has changed. Just that splash of orange or red.

It is simple, almost effortless. Live, simply live. Live when there is still life or breath or a beating heart. To see, to taste, to feel again and to love again. Living is simple; a sentence must not violate that simple, sacred covenant. And, in its small variation of shades or strokes against perhaps a different canvas make a new world. I don’t remember myself happier. I don’t remember myself unhappier to know myself never happier.

[[ mood ]] working

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Certainly not.

1 pm: Facebook. God's gift to mankind - a saviour in the times of entrapment caused by unreasonable weather. It is a site now commonly infested by statuses about snow, snow storm, bad weather, cars not working and albums of students in snow, snow storm and bad weather with snowmen. Mostly - not British.

2 pm: Spoke to my sister who is currently soaked in the tropical sunshine with an imaginary Pina Colada in her hands although she is under-aged, who told me that Dad has bought me shorts which I will not be wearing in winter for jogging. Creativity is his strength. A whole lecture on how I lost my reference number for my return tickets. ‘I can't believe you', she says. Being away means everyone forgets the pecking order in the family. I am on top.

3.35 pm: Went trotting in the snow for 20 minutes for a 60-minute lecture and felt absolutely like Sarah Brightman in her ‘Winter Symphony' cover. Somehow, the slush on her boots always goes unnoticed. Instead, all you get is a picture of a middle-aged woman holding on somewhat tightly to her coat with her raven black dyed hair less than presentable. That is Britain's familiar everyday story furnishing most soprano lover's collection. Creativity, perhaps, is not her strength.

5.20 pm: And, 108.0 Classic FM in Berkshire - my loyal companion on a cold winter day where the DJs are applauded for speaking as little as possible and the audience praised and thanked for listening. Britain. Somewhere in the middle of this, I will start humming to the tune of Claire de Lune. No, it's not Debussy; it's a name I can barely catch and definitely cannot pronounce.

6 pm: Cintan noodles - an embodiment of all things great about Malaysia in the absence of Ramly's burger, teh tarik, pisang goreng and nasi lemak on a winter's evening. Had 2 friends over who couldn't and wouldn't stop talking loudly, who also overwhelmed British flatmates with their noise. A long discussion about food we are buying and eating from Morrisons.

Life ends when the sun sets. And, in Britain on a winter's day, sun sets rather early. The weather, my friends, is not just a conversation; it's a lifestyle.

[[ music ]] Classic FM

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"War is not nice."
- Barbara Bush

‘Diplomacy falling on deaf ears’ is the euphemism for International Law and its shaking knees. If international humanitarian law and international human rights law ever stood at all, it looks like it will not stand very long. Certainly, I am in no position to write a commentary on it. After all, the only international law encounter I have had is in sporadic moot court competitions and the only international law module I have taken in my years at law school is International Children’s Rights.

But, has international law got more right than I in the matter of time immemorial Jewish-Arab territorial aspirations?  Europe in all its morality and purity has stood aside, refusing to form a united stand against or for the recent attacks at Gaza. Sarkozy and his French pride and arrogance flew in with his red cape for a peace mission he himself could not and probably did not count on. What use are repeated publications of statistics of fatalities and statements of ‘deep concern’ of statesmen who do no more than watch from afar?

One death is a tragedy. But, a situation like Gaza adds on only to a mountain of numbers of fatalities already recorded or under-recorded s. Those are simply statistics. And, statistics however staggering are distinctly separate from tragedies. Even the death of one Joker had the capacity to evoke more emotions. People mourn tragedies, not numbers. And, how have international law and the United Nations mourn the death of the thousands of casualties in Gaza? Simply by reciting out again and again and again that international peace and security, and justice should not be endangered.

When the League of Nations failed as the international governing body, our creativity came up with the United Nations. So, when the chanting of Article 2 of the UN Charter acts the lullaby which ‘falls on deaf ears’, is it a plea for us to replace the UN with a more effective international governing body?  Gaza is one example, as was Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam and a never ending list of international conflicts of territorial integrity. What the UN Charter has left out is not what hollow order or conceited security should be achieved, but rather a list (already known) of who are allowed to violate the sacred articles of the covenant without any international law sanctions imposed.

Or, do we lack a common enemy? There is no Hitler or his dancing Nazis and no Japanese bicycle invasion. And, when there is no focal point for similar or shared emotions, there is no effective opposition. So, when the European Union could not agree if they should call for humanitarian aid to be allowed into Gaza or if they should condemn the invasion altogether, they could not form an effective opposing stand. Because, America has a newly elected president and an ex-president who has the habit of choosing to violate Article 2 of the UN Charter at the twitch of this eye, she can only express a ‘deep concern.’ And, a ‘deep concern’ for what exactly ....?

Why had I not taken any international law modules? Because, international law is not law. If law is to govern human behaviour, or to impose a sense of structure and order, or if law is simply just black or white, international law is simply ... grey. And, it is a variation of shades of grey.  Because, international law does not stand on its own.  It is a documented list of ideals of statesmen who were a part of the party who break the very conventions they set up, supported by the belief in the ideals and crumbled (every time) by any one of the deadly sins. Because international is the law always standing on its shaking knees, and smiling with its clattering teeth.

[[ book ]] Milan Kundera - The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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