Day: January 24, 2008

Tan Sri Megat Junid bin Megat Ayub passed away of cancer at the age of 65.

I remember him from the days when he was the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs (when my father was still the serving Inspector-General of Police), right through my days in politics. Apart from that he was also a close family friend by virtue that he hailed from the same kampung as my father. I remember before the 1999 General Elections, I was asked to go to his constituency to run a program and gauge the situation there. I was the only dissenting voice, predicting doom for him while the rest were all giving him good reports. In the end he lost and his press secretary rejoined TV3 as a result of that (another press secretary, Aziz Desa, who was press-sec to the former MB of Kedah, also rejoined TV3 for a short while).

I would bump into him at PWTC during general assemblies when I was still active in the National ICT Bureau, and we’d hang out together for personal and political chats at the Riverside Cafe. Then as a preparation for the 2004 general elections, he officiated the course on Psychological Warfare and Provocation that my friends and I conducted at the training center in Janda Baik.

I last saw him on Christmas Day 2004 when he attended my younger brother’s wedding. When he saw me he called out for me and we hugged, talked about old times. He looked frail then but he was his usual jovial self. We’d be talking in Perak dialect and joked quietly about polygamy and how he thought he was better than I am as he could practise polygamy being older than I am. He’d address himself as ‘Uncle’ to me no matter where we would meet: be it a political function, or a private meet.

Being in this state of isolation from my family has caused me to not know when he actually passed away.

And I am going to miss him and his jovial self.

Rest well, Uncle, al-Fathihah.

I last went to this particular bridge in Putrajaya after breaking of the fast (buka puasa) in Kajang back in September 2007. I did not have my camera on me that night. So this was taken one night when I decided to pay the bridge another visit:

Early last evening, My eldest daughter Hana, asked me to help her write a sonnet. She is now learning Shakespearean sonnet and was asked to write one her own by her English Literature teacher. Apparently she was not taught what a sonnet is, or how it is being written, apart from learning what Quartrains and Couplets are.

A sonnet is a little song, and depending on which sonnet you do, will have to end in rhyme, and will have to conform to the type of sonnet you write. In this case, it is a Shakespearean sonnet; so it has to have 14 lines in all: 3 Quartrains (each with four lines) and a Couplet (with only two lines). A sonnet is also written in iambic pentameter: therefore it should ideally have ten syllables per line. A Shakespearean sonnet would have to rhyme in such a way:

a-b-a-b, c-d-c-d, e-f-e-f, g-g

But of course, I make my own rules.

I wrote a sonnet for Honey via SMS as I drove just now:

Alone again I wish I am not,
and you are back dancing in my thought;
disappearing from my reality,
existing only in virtuality.

You are my favourite waste of time,
being together is of course our best crime;
I know that we’ll be together again soon,
for now I’ll be like an owl waiting for the moon.

I am going to miss you I cannot lie,
please do not ask the reason why.
I love doing nothing with you,
as I love doing everything too.

For now I shall just wait for you my dear,
Until again you and I are near.

Not a perfect sonnet, but she liked it.

Just call me Billy Shakes His Spear.