Thursday, August 31, 2006

 

naguib mahfouz is dead

I don’t know any Arabic literature apart from the two famous classics; the perfumed garden :of the shyakh Nefzawi (Trans by Sir Richard Burton) and the Arabian nights. I have the good fortune of getting a complete 5 volume Arabian nights ‘literal and complete French translation of Dr J.C Mardus’ hardcover version very cheaply in kolkata, India sometimes in march 2003.Took a long train journey from new delhi to kolkata to spend a few days in my opinion one of the most fascinating metropolis of the world and on the last day there I wandered aimlessly around the city and as often happened stumbled into something pleasantly unexpected and in this case the ‘maidan’ and they had this cricket match so I just spent the whole afternoon watching the game and as I was going away saw this huge annual kolkata book fair that they are having right there at the other end of the maidan.

Wandered in the huge area from book stalls to book stalls but nothing really caught my attention until I stumbled upon a corner where some artists sell their paintings but saw nothing spectacular until I came to a skinny Bengali boy squatting in the dust with some charcoal drawings spread out in front of him and I saw some fine charcoal drawings of bulls in different charging poses. I asked how much each cost but he couldn’t understand English (surprisingly this being India and kolkata at that) but a young lady came to my aid as a volunteer translator and in the end I came away with three great charging bulls for unbelievably cheap price and here they are now hanging on my walls ….and almost at the closing time I came upon this book stall that sell old books and oh my what a treasure trove…I can still remember they have some of the most difficult to find books on moghul rulers…some histories, biographies etc…but I just don’t have the time to have a closer look but just grab this 5 volume Arabian nights and they were so sorry looking and moldy but the Bengali stall attendants were so helpful and anxious to have the last sell of the day that a couple of them came and cleaned up the volumes and I came back with another steal in fine condition. To this day I keep dreaming that I’ll go to kolkata again sometime soon and make sure it’ll be during the kolkata book fair and I’ll go straight and look for this stall again….

And how I got to respect naguib mahfouz happened in somewhat similar fashion…like many people I know nothing about mr mahfouz until he won the nobel prize and when he got into the wrong side of my fellow lovable jihadists and the scandal caused by his book ‘children of gebelawi’. It so happened that sometimes in the late 80s or maybe early 90s I found this book in our local library , borrowed and read it and immediately come to detest this man. My fellow jihadists were right...this book which consisted of short chapters each based on muslim/jewish old testament prophets was rather disrespectful and derisory when it came to the chapter based on the prophet Muhammad…so I don’t care very much about him…just another bloody secular wog…another stupid arab…

…and then in 1997 I went to KL international book fair at PWTC and as it happened stumbled into this stall selling Arabic publications and they have stacks upon stacks of naguib maahfouz books…I got very sore when I saw this and I mentioned to the arab/Egyptian guy who was manning the stall and declared to him that I don’t like mahfouz…he insulted islam and so on and so forth…in short I just insulted this man… but he fought back…told me that I was gravely mistaken, mahfouz was the greatest arab writer, oh no I already read his children of gebelawi I said, the book is simplistic, nothing but insults to me as a muslim… oh no no don’t judge by that one book…he insisted me to try his other books…no honestly I’m not trying to SELL you books, he said , but want you to know that he’s a real good writer… look, just buy one ok I give you big discount here …in the end I relented and bought his collection of short stories ‘the time and the place’….but like most books I bought I never read them but they sit there patiently in my library gathering dusts….

But then his name keep on appearing in the literary worlds and refuse to die out like most other nobel winners… so one day many years later I read a couple of his short stories in this volume and I was transformed! He IS (or was, now) truly a great writer! I was wrong again ( as I so often am)… and I start looking for more of his books… every time the kl international book fair came I went looking for this stall and the man who insisted me reading mahfouz but he never came back , I never see any stalls selling mahfouz books again…but then unexpected surprise again… I found the first two volumes of his cairo trilogy (Palace Walk & Palace of Desire) , ‘Midaq Alley’, ‘The Thief and the dogs’ and ‘miramar’ (with an introduction by john fowles) in PAYLESS second hand book store of all places…. And now I have a fairly good ouvre of the best of mr mahfouz writings with me… the only problem is to find the time to savor them all…I still feel angry with his children of gebelawi but lets see..i’ll try to read more of his other writings …he may be gone now but taking all things into consideration mr mahfouz was one fine man …I’ll say my fatihah to him…may he be included among the people who Allah favors amen….

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

 

good bush bad bush

I read a nice column “camus comes to texas” by Maureen dowd in the international herald tribune last Thursday aug 17 on thai airways on the way back from Bangkok. It originally appeared in NYT I believe. Go check it out for it’s a hilarious piece about george bush reading camus’ the stranger during his recent Crawford Texas vacation and the writer feels it is odd that mr bush would choose camus over grisham – according to this same article George W once mocked an NBC reporter as “intercontinental” for posing a question in French to the French president in france. It’s not surprising that one Canadian minister once referred to him as a moron…

I’ve yet to read ‘the stranger’ myself but this article described the book ‘is about the emotionally detached Mersault, who makes a lot of bad decisions and pre-emptively kills an arab in the sand’…whoever suggests the reading materials for George W must have a fine sense of humor….

That reminds me, the evening before this I was walking along the street around nana skytrain station looking for a replacement computer bag and among the rows of shops selling all kinds of things there was this place selling all those funny t-shirts and I kind of regret that I did not buy this one that showed a picture of a lady’s torso with the panty half way down showing a bit of pubic hair and the caption below “good bush” and beside it a picture of george bush’s mug with the caption ‘bad bush’…

I don’t particularly care if USA has a moronic or bad president but it is sad that this very same man is the single most responsible person - as the article beautifully put it as -creating chaos by trying to impose moral order to the globe….

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

 

lost my moto in porto

Japan!...the land of the shoguns! Samurais, economic warriors, Sonys and Toyotas! And all those art & culture! All those woodcuts, hiroshige , erotic ukiyo-e …how I love all those graphic shunga woodcuts of samurais with ridiculously oversized phallus and their geisha partners with beautifully patterned kimonos only revealing the always profusely hairy pubic region… all those utamaros …and the funny culinary predilection for eating raw animal flesh ( and how I love sashimis…) and greetings by bowing to each other …and so on , and so; I was quite looking forward to my first ever visit to Japan and japan being one of the most advanced countries in the world I thought it’s going to be fun all the way and never expect to have any problem here…wrong! I’ve never had worse problems from my quite considerable travel than here…


It didn’t start well from well, the start…arrived at kansai airport Osaka early in the morning and took the 50 minutes bus shuttle to sannomiya station, kobe (1200 yen) and a 15 minutes connecting hotel shuttle bus to portopia hotel from here (free) . First thing and first surprise. My mobile phone didn’t work…showed ‘no service’ and I made a quick mental note to check it in the hotel. I never expect this to happen in japan of all places. I have this very cheap Motorola c380 but it’s good enough for me to do the only two things which I need mobile phones to do, call & sms…and I can use it almost everywhere, UK, USA, (ok advanced countries ) but also no problem in the remotest area in Vietnam ( Sapa, Ha long Bay, Vietnam/china border even) or Cambodia, or everywhere in Philippines , Thailand Indonesia, Laos , Moscow, siberia ,mongolia tibet china …everywhere in fact except yangon mynma…but myanma is hardly japan by any stretch of imagination…


Second problem: I was completely clueless how to work out the bus ticket machine. And it was early morning, information desk was still closed. Instructions are in Japanese and what instructions! A nasa space shuttle SOP manual don’t have that much details. I know that the Japanese are crazy about details but oh my how they really pile in everything. I soon found out that even bus stop timetable looks more like a computer program manual…subway stations schedules look like those Chinese anatomical acupuncture diagrams, now I understand why these Japanese are so clever…if they can make out what on earth all these are about they can do anything…if these were in Malaysia I’m certain that most people will not be able to go anywhere or work out anything except if you’re an engineer or a professor… but as I was saying I was wandering how to work the ticket machine but here was a nice young beautifully uniformed Japanese girl standing by the machine ready to help you. (Japanese knows that there are a lot of idiot foreigners like me so they make a point of putting their staff at airport ticket machines at all time to help you ). So one problem solved. And it was a pleasant ride from kansai to kobe…the whole stretch is nothing but immaculate concrete jungle and I’ve never seen a bigger port in my life…the whole of Osaka to kobe route seemed to be nothing but a long stretch of port and not just any seedy port ala port klang but beautifully architectured buildings , bridges, bays inlets and all the rest…



But when I reached the hotel, third problem. The room won’t be ready until 2.00 pm and that was 5 hrs waiting time! And this is not just any crappy hotel… cost me 15,000 yen per night (shhh…company expense…) but ok…if that’s the case I’ll put my things in the luggage room and go to Kyoto which is a relatively a short distance away for a short visit….

So again went to Sannomiya station …grappled with JR ( I suppose this means Japan rail?) train ticket machine again but swallowed my pride and asked a young girl to explain how the bloody thing worked (tip: if you go anywhere, and clueless, always ask for help from young school girls… they are always willing to help and are honest…never ask guys with beer breadth and with strange tattoos…)..and it took about 50 minutes to reach the futuristic looking Kyoto train station (and took out 1050 yen from my pocket). But this is just a normal daily commuting time for most Japanese salary men. And god help them if they missed their last train after a groggy session at karaoke bars and need to take taxis home, the cost would be staggering. The same distance will set you back around 40,000 yen. More expensive than a return ticket from kl to Jakarta on good airlines.

On the kobe- Kyoto JR train I had my first really ‘japanese’ experience I kind of expect… at one stop these two young girls in kimonos came pattering into the train in that manner you saw in the movie ‘ memoirs of the geisha’ (not a terribly good movie if you ask me) and sat a couple of seats in front of me. And at the next stop here came these smashing couple of ultramodern girls one with bleached blonde hair and another looked like she was wearing a nightie with pink fluffy ball of hairpin stuck beside one ear…and both sat opposite the kimono girls… a very nice juxtaposition and symbolic of what japan is now….and if I had a bad thought I would swear that these girls just came back or are off somewhere to do the Japanese porn movie…I couldn’t help oogling at her and I didn’t feel terribly guilty as she soon fell asleep and so, all the way to Kyoto I was staring at her and I confessed that err …my mojo was quite alive….I had an involuntary hard on…

but as I was saying, I had a short time to spend and need to get back to kobe before 6.00 pm so looked in my lonely planet for recommendations but couldn’t decide what to visit. So off I went to find the tourist info centre (by asking one nice young lady) which is conveniently situated in the Kyoto station and finally decided to visit the Kyoto national museum and the famous sanjusangen- do temple which is one of the numerous ‘national treasure’ sites in Kyoto.

Kyoto national museum is quite forgettable and I don’t quite understand why they installed rodin “the thinker” replica in front of the museum in japan?? Currently there is a special exhibition on 100 years of national Kyoto museum but at 1000 yen I thought it was rather steep so I passed that one (not to worry as I’ll be visiting a lot more museums in Tokyo in a week’s time) but sanjusangen-do temple across the road ! The building itself is nothing to shout about but what is inside is breadthtaking! They have these 1001 identical gold plated buddhas lined in rows occupying the whole of the temple and one huge one with 1000 arms …simply awesome (as my American friends are wont to say)…

I planned to visit Kyoto again today to see the golden pavilion at kinkukaji temple (made famous by yukio mishima in one of his stories ) and may be Kyoto imperial palace and the famous Japanese garden but what disaster!... since my mobile did not work I left it on my bedside table and went out to attend this little international conference but when I came back my moto was gone!.... I will NOT suspect the maids as this is japan, this is good hotel , for all I know I must have misplaced it somewhere…not an unusual thing for me to do… but it is lost… I’m sure if the hotel people find it they will return it… but for the moment I feel strangely stranded….this is the first time I really lost a mobile… yes, I have my fair share of mobile mishaps …one time in pnom penh I dropped it as I alighted out of a car and it was immediately crunched as the car moved away…another happier time was when I accidentally dropped it as I alighted out of a taxi in Vietnam but the driver was good enough to send back to me 15 minutes later…same thing happened in Singapore…and one time last year I didn’t realize I lost it and when I couldn’t find it I asked my friend to call the number and a lady answered and said that she has been waiting for the call for three hours and returned to me… hope I’m lucky again this time but not too hopeful…for one thing my mojo is not working here so no use calling it…just to keep my mind off it I went out to see some more art in kobe museum. T0ok a subway from sannomiya station to 'shin kobe station' and hopped on 'city loop' tourist bus and stopped at #15 stop but being clueless as usual i had to ask for direction and this time chose a 'govt official' type man and turned out he was a very helpful man...walked me all the way to the museum and we got to talking and he mentioned that he has a filipino wife...hmmm...no harm in that except that i can't help wondering why,...there are so many smashing looking japanese girls ( not that filipinas aint smashing )...but back to kobe museum, not much to say and my mind wasn’t in it… I missed my moto…

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