The (attempted) murder of joy (reprise)

For years I have had an ambivalent attitude towards Christmas. It would require a 3,000-word essay to clarify why I tend to feel a deep sense of futility and weariness whenever the “jolly season” rolls around.

Last year I managed to survive the “jolly season” by taking a two-week vacation in Sungai Buloh Hospital. It wasn’t much fun for my folks, I realized, so I won’t do it again. Besides, you only get to experience resurrection once, right? Unless you happen to be a coward with a habit of dying a thousand deaths.

This year I have indisputable cause to feel depressed.

Somebody murdered my dog in cold blood. Roger Putra wasn’t just any dog – he was more like a second son to Anoora and me.

We both doted on the chubby little tyke who celebrated his second birthday in November and was in the prime of health and beauty. Roger was the only dog – apart from his father the late illustrious Mr Wong – allowed into the house. Some nights he insisted on sleeping in the bedroom, curled up beside me on the floor. In the morning I would awake to see him smiling at me – and if I decided to laze around too long, Roger would jump on the bed and make himself comfortable next to me until Anoora shooed him off. Then he would leap over my horizontal body and run outside to lie in the sun.

Roger Putra was the embodiment of joy around here. Whenever I felt irritable, weighed down by the density and abominable quality of some people’s consciousness, Roger would magically appear with an ear-to-ear grin on his face and I would instantly cheer up.

There is a particular rock under a shady tree I enjoy sitting on and watching the river flow, with Roger beside me. I would run my fingers down his neck, looking for ticks I could flick into the river for the fish. It was a daily ritual, almost, that never failed to fill me with a profound sense of contentment. Roger Putra was good medicine for my soul.

Roger's Rock where I often sat with him, contemplating eternity

Today I sat on that same rock and felt him as a familiar presence. My hand involuntarily reached out to stroke his thick fur… but found only thin air. I thought about the man who killed Roger, not with anger but with unfathomable sorrow. What a nightmare it must be for him to even live each day. Only a soul devoid of any self-esteem and zest for life could descend to such depths of depravity and gratuitous violence.

So who killed Roger Putra and why?

A friend had gone for a long walk early on the morning of 14 December. Roger had followed her, accompanied by two female dogs. When she returned an hour or so later, Roger wasn’t with her. My heart sank. “Where’s Roger?” I asked. She assumed he had gone home ahead of her. I was unable to go look for him right then because I had visitors, so she took off again with another friend to try and retrieve Roger. After my visitors left I drove down the trail as far as I could and headed to a spot about 20 minutes’ hike from where my friend had last seen Roger. I called for Roger over and over again, my voice echoing around the hills. At a river crossing I called again and within moments a figure appeared… it was Anoora’s stepfather Rasid.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Looking for my dog, have you seen him?”

“Yes, not long ago, running through the rubber forest.”

“He seemed okay? I’m concerned about boar traps around here.”

“He’s probably on his way home,” Rasid said.

I felt a surge of optimism. My main anxiety had been the jerat or wire snares set by Orang Asli to catch wild boar. A year ago Roger had been caught on one of those horrible devices and it took him three days to gnaw through the wire and liberate himself. He managed to limp home with his right leg almost cut through at the shoulder. Took him a month to heal but he was completely fine.

Mary & Ahau taking Roger to the vet after he almost lost his right leg to an Orang Asli snare

Rasid’s report gave me a surge of optimism. I was praying hard that when I got home a familiar furry thunderball would be charging down the grassy slope through the undergrowth to greet me. Instead, I found both my friends standing at the top of the steps looking forlorn after a fruitless search. Over the next few days I kept going back to where Roger was last seen, hoping to find him busy licking some horny bitch’s bottom, lost to the world. The best case scenario was that he had found a willing playmate in the vicinity and decided to stay close to her – out of sight of Mary’s dog Baggins, who would never give Roger a chance to mount any female found in heat within his territory. Bitches remain in heat a least a week. And male dogs in love tend to forget about food. Roger, I figured, had enough body fat to last at least that long.

A whole week passed and I forced myself to remain hopeful that Roger was merely undergoing his rite of passage into full adulthood. There were times when I felt Roger didn’t like being pampered too much – his male pride, perhaps. He possessed a strong sense of the dramatic and heroic, always standing on a high rock gazing into the distance, beyond the treeline, nose twitching at the scent of monkeys and other assorted fauna. It was as if he was always listening for the call of the wild…

On the lunar eclipse solstice of 21 December, we were at a restaurant having lunch when Karim the deaf mute appeared, intoxicated as usual. He rubbed thumb and index fingers together and showed me five fingers. I opened my wallet and found only four ringgit in small notes to offer him. He took the money and went off, only to reappear a few seconds later. Karim pointed to my van, indicating he would like a lift back. I gestured to a chair and he sat down. Using his hands and inchoate noises from his larynx, Karim managed to communicate that Roger had been slashed by somebody wielding a parang. He saw a little dog run whelping towards the river and collapsing. As Karim acted out his story I saw an image of someone in my mind. I uttered his name and Karim nodded – but only just. A few days earlier I had chanced upon this man at the river crossing and asked if he had seen my dog. He said no in a nonchalant tone and carried on his way. There had been a slightly surreal air to this encounter but I decided not to make too much of it at the time.

It was at that point that the gravity of the situation hit home.

I noticed Anoora had moved away to another table to join Ahau. She heard but didn’t want to understand. Her face was impassive but I saw her breathing heavily and there was a flash of silent fury in her eyes. What had once been a tranquil, relatively crime-free Orang Asli village had now become unsafe. Anyone who can murder a dog in cold blood can easily murder another human being.

The heavenly hologram we live in appears to have been infiltrated by the legions of hell whose headquarters are now located in Putrajaya. Demented sadists and killers abound within the corrupt law enforcement agencies – that much is clear – but to see this emotional plague spread to the fringes of the forest and infect even the Orang Asli is deeply troubling.

Since 1998 the Orang Asli psyche has progressively deteriorated. The older ones with a memory of their ancestors’ teachings have mostly died, leaving a lost generation raised on low-grade TV dramas and subjected to systematic brainwashing through the Jabatan Hal Ehwal Orang Asli which openly espouses Umno’s Us-versus-Them ideology. Being rudely thrust into the cash economy has made the Orang Asli insensitive to their own environment. They not only throw rubbish everywhere like the majority of Malaysian picnickers, but now they, too, have become greedy. Harvesting bamboo for the Chinese towkay is a way to earn more cash – but in recent months the amount of bamboo cut down has increased almost tenfold. The Orang Asli don’t seem to have enough foresight to realize that in four or five years, the riverbanks will erode with so much bamboo being removed so carelessly - and the streams will be badly polluted. This will undoubtedly degrade the entire rainforest ecosystem.

Under the influence of Saruman, the Orang Asli males are visibly transforming into Orcs. The same subhuman species that gravitate towards the police, volunteer militia and armed forces. Devoid of empathy, compensating for their own feelings of emasculation by treating with heartless cruelty anyone or any creature they perceive as weaker than themselves.

Remember Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, the lovely eight-year-old girl who disappeared on the evening of 20 August 2007 after she went downstairs from her apartment to buy something from the night market? Almost a month later her body was discovered in a gym bag outside a shophouse. Nurin had been brutally violated by sexual perverts and murdered. The perpetrators of this hideous violence against a totally powerless child have never been identified and caught.

Nor have the perpetrators of an equally nauseating crime against all sense of decency ever been identified and brought to justice. I refer to those who ordered the abduction, torture, and shooting of Altantuya Shaariibuu, a Mongolian translator who got herself entangled with unsavory characters from the defence ministry over some shady arms deal – topped off by her corpse being blown to smithereens with C4 plastic explosives in the wee hours of 20 October 2006.

And, of course, we haven’t forgotten 22-year-old Kugan Ananthan, arrested because he was reportedly rude to a police officer, accused of being involved in a car theft syndicate, and savagely tortured and beaten to death in a Petaling Jaya police station in early January 2009.

Six months later another young man named Teoh Beng Hock was tortured by Anti-Corruption interrogators, and found dead the next afternoon, having apparently fallen from the 14th floor Selangor headquarters of MACC.

On 26 April 2010, a 14-year-old boy named Aminulrasyid Amzah was shot in the back of his head by policemen on patrol for absolutely no reason at all, apart from the fact that he was speeding and driving without a licence. A few weeks ago, several teenagers were executed in cold blood by the police in an incident shrouded in mystery. The authorities are not at all interested in investigating these cases – only in covering them up and hanging on to power.

The mindless, utterly meaningless murder of my beautiful, brave and beloved Roger Putra has made me feel a deep sense of kinship with the family and friends of all those who have encountered a similarly cruel fate at the hands of the demented, the despairing, the degenerate debris of humanity - many of whom moonlight as public servants, as security guards or soldiers, policemen or even prime ministers' wives.

Who is ultimately responsible for this state of moral degradation?

The King, of course, and all his fellow rulers. When monarchs and icons of leadership fail to uphold equality, integrity and justice – entire nations begin to morally implode and eventually fall into ruin. The Chinese character for king - 王- reveals a great deal about the nature of rulership: the three horizontal strokes represent heaven, humanity and earth, while the vertical stroke which holds the celestial, existential and terrestrial realms together and apart symbolizes the upright, honorable and noble qualities required to maintain balance and harmony on all levels. When the central pillar of justice, compassion and truth is rotten to the core and devoid of courage and integrity, we are faced with inevitable collapse and disaster.

In February 2009 the Sultan of Perak sacrificed honor and justice when he succumbed to greed and connived with Najib to wrest control of the state government from the popularly elected chief minister, Nizar Jamaluddin. Two months later, the Yang Di Pertuan Agong acceded to the official installation of Najib as crime minister, knowing full well that here was a man indifferent to all notions of integrity, burdened with a long history of corrupt practice and profligacy, and ineluctably linked to a high-profile murder. The King failed to heed the warning signs – a petition bearing thousands of signatures had been sent to 141 members of parliament urging them not to endorse the appointment of such a morally tainted figure to the nation’s highest office. Especially one not even popularly elected to the post but pushed up the ranks by political manipulators.

Only a complete idiot or outright villain would plead ignorance in such a matter of national importance. In less than two years of Najib and Rosmah’s enthronement in Putrajaya we have seen the negative outcome of this ill-fated endorsement and exaltation of moral putrefaction. The spiritual cancer has spread fast and not even the rural psyche has been spared.

Since 3 April 2009, evil has permeated like an obstinate infestation of ticks every nook and cranny, every dark crevice across this once fair land. Most people I meet seem to be in despair. The pernicious poison the Wicked Queen of Putrajaya has injected like a black widow spider into the collective psyche has precisely that effect – it demoralizes, enfeebles, and paralyzes.

What is the antidote?

Courage, perseverance and clarity of purpose. The black widow’s venom works fast and will weaken even a healthy body - but it cannot kill and wears off within hours. So, people, despair not. Now is the time to renew your resolve and upgrade your operational software – reassess your life priorities and ennoble yourself rather than succumb to the cowardice of pragmatism. Embody your own ideals and hold your head up high as you make your way through the stench of entrenched and institutionalized corruption. Quit being petty and unnecessarily quarrelsome, especially with your allies and comrades-in-arms. The Mother of All Battles draws near – not only for us in Malaysia but across the political spectrum of planet Earth. The old cycle is over and a new one is ready to emerge, never doubt this.

Roger Putra was the embodiment of joy for me. You have murdered only the embodiment – but not the joy itself. Roger’s spirit will be appeased when those who embody deceit, greed and hypocrisy are finally banished from the realm, hanging their heads in shame and endless regret. That day is not very far off. Be it so.

[First posted 25 December 2010]

Le roi est mort, vive le roi... woof! (repost)

Mr Wong died shortly after noon on 25 August 2010.

We suspect he was at least 13 years old (91 in human years), though that's pure conjecture. Mr Wong's origins remain a mystery even if I'm convinced he was indeed the grandson of the venerable Madam Wu (maiden name Curly-Wurly or Curlington-Wurlington on account of her spitz pedigree), one of the original Magick River dogs.

He was also known as Mr Wong Beng Oi or Golden Boy. His official designation at Magick River was Head of Homeland Security. He was undoubtedly the Dog of Dogs, veritably an ascended canine.

Madam Wu was already at an advanced age when she moved to Ampang Jaya long enough to get impregnated by Mary Maguire's mutt, Deputy Dawg (originally of the Yap clan, judging by the nervous tone of his bark). When Mary relocated to Kuala Kubu Bharu in 1997, Madam Wu returned to her former life as a jungle dog, while her daughter Lulu Yap née Lulu Wu stayed on with Mary in Kuala Kubu Bharu and later Sungai Choh. Lulu was seduced by Milligan (a rakish stray adopted by Mary) and had her first litter when she was still in her teens. Lulu's pups were all given away as soon as they were weaned so I never got to know them well.

Sometime in 1999 I found a compact yellow dog lying weak with hunger under a rambutan tree. He had an ugly sore on his back, the remains of a rope around his neck, and his fur had been ravaged by mange. But his eyes sparkled with soulful intelligence and I was compelled to nurture him back to health. My black bitch Anubis took an immediate shine to the short-legged chap I decided to call Wong. Within a week Wong was looking fine and cheerful again. It dawned on me that he could be one of Lulu's pups, born in that very house more than a year earlier. Perhaps he had been unkindly treated and opted to break loose. His instincts had taken him straight back to his birthplace...

Wong and Anubis truly loved one another. She was fond of grooming him and when she got in heat, was exceedingly patient with him, crouching down to facilitate penetration (Anubis was much taller than her royal consort Mr Wong).

Wong was extremely gentle with humans and showed a great fondness for felines. His first cat buddy was Mira, who loved rubbing herself against her canine protector and purring loudly. In fact, Mr Wong was greatly loved by everybody who had any contact with him. Even the Orang Asli were fond of him, because he never once barked at them, chased their kids or harassed motorcyclists. They kept asking me for Wong's offspring but, truth be told, Orang Asli dogs generally don't live very long.

Barely a month old, Pocahontas discovered that Uncle Wong was a warm and wonderfully bullyable friend. She was undeterred by all the tall tales I told her about Mr Wong's murky past as Chief Inspector Wong of the Special Branch (dishonorably discharged from the Force because of his unorthodox interrogation methods)...

Mr Wong enjoys the cool of the evening with Marie Cocteau - who started a fan club for the Dog of Dogs and appointed herself Purresident. Poor Marie Cocteau vanished within a few days of Baggins and Milly's arrival in Pertak. Baggins and Milly are Mary's cat-chasing mutts who grew up in Puchong (a rough neighborhood overspilling with dog-hating datuks). Baggins got into my bad books almost immediately by biting Mr Wong on the leg in a kurang ajar display of alpha male superiority. This incident broke Mr Wong's indomitable spirit and caused him to feel uneasy in his own territory.

But over the last few years Mr Wong had been showing signs of breathlessness and several times became listless and depressed. After a booster jab of multivitamins and some antibiotics, he would rally and regain his bounce. The thought that Mr Wong was, after all, a mortal being and may one day have to leave us saddened me greatly. So when a pretty female pup with Doberman Pinscher markings spontaneously appeared on the scene one day, I decided to let her stay and named her Lulu (in honor of Wong's mum). Perhaps Wong will take her as his child bride, I figured, and from their union an heir to the canine kingdom would be conceived.

As it turned out, Lulu's first litter consisted of two roly-poly pups I named Rupert and Amrita. Neither resembled Mr Wong in any way. Both had inherited their mother's chicken claw - extra toes on their hind legs that look a bit like rooster spurs.

Rupertino, a Valentino amongst dogs, was an exceedingly handsome fellow. Tragically, he was murdered together with mother Lulu on 25 May 2009 by a gang of demonically possessed Orang Asli (no thanks to the cheap brain-pickling spirits they enjoy guzzling). Another great Malaysian murder mystery that remains unsolved...

About six months before she was killed, Lulu gave birth to a single pup. A fat and feisty furball I decided to name Roger Reginald Putra because he arrived aound the time Raja Petra Kamarudin (Blogger King and webmaster of Malaysia Today) was miraculously released from unlawful detention under the evil ISA. It was a day I shall never forget, when it felt as if the winds of political change would blow away the hoodlums in high office like so much dandruff (although it would take a great deal longer than we thought...)

This little tyke was unmistakably descended from Mr Wong Beng Oi - the extreme cuteness of his being and shortness of his legs were a dead giveaway. Roger inherited his mother's characteristic rooster spur.

Roger Putra enjoyed a supremely happy puppyhood, took endless naps, and was adored by everybody.

On account of his thick coat Roger always seeks out the shadiest spots on hot days. Indeed, as a pup he would disappear from sight for hours - only to be discovered fast asleep behind the dragon jar in the bathroom, the coolest spot in the house.

Roger and his father, Mr Wong, were great buddies and only once had a falling out. The bone of contention was, what else? - a smelly bone Roger had been gnawing but when he abandoned it, his father took over and Roger didn't like that. Thought he was strong enough to stand up to the old man... he never again picked a fight with Wong Beng Oi alias B.O. Wong.

Roger, Wong and Mindy Coots aka Mrs Wong chill out on the veranda with my pet djembe.

Apart from food, sleep is a major preoccupation with Roger Reginald Putra.

I suspect there is some Wookie in Roger's lineage as he often makes Wookie sounds. Remember Chewbacca in Star Wars?

In December 2009 (three days before I was rushed to the Sungai Buloh Hospital by ambulance), Roger Putra failed to come home after chasing monkeys into the forest. I went to the river several times a day, calling for him - but heard no signs of a dog in distress. Then, on 21 December, as I was heading towards the car to be driven to the KKB hospital for a blood test, I saw Roger limping home. The adventurous tyke had been caught in an Orang Asli snare and somehow managed to free himself, though the wire had cut almost right through his right leg. Mary took him to the vet and with some antibiotics, antiseptic cream and a massive dose of TLC, he managed to heal completely.

Roger with Ayita Randhawa (whose mother is from Pertak Village).

Mr Wong used to compete with Roger for my affection. But now that Wong's gone, his beautiful, brave and beloved son will surely miss the wise and noble company of his splendid father, even though he shall relish being the new Dog of Dogs and King of All He Surveys...

Roger Reginald Putra in typical Lion King pose.


[First posted 27 August 2010]

Happy Birthday, Roger Putra!

For Wong so loved his Master
That he gave his only begotten Son, Roger,
That whosoever adoreth Him should never want
For affection, but experience everlasting joy!

Roger Reginald Putra, only begotten Son of Mr Wong, was born today (or around this time, I didn't note the exact moment, alas, not realizing how significant this particular birth would prove). In any case, I know it was the same day - or the day after - Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK) was released from Kamunting by a truly courageous and honorable High Court judge. That's why he was named Roger Putra, as a tribute to one of the few princes on earth worthy of our love and respect. 7 November 2008, I recall most vividly, was a particularly joyful day for all truth-speaking, justice-loving Malaysians.

[Sadly, re-reading this less than 8 years later, my opinion of RPK has totally changed. His egotism and craving for creature comforts must have gotten the better of his conscience, for he has now become a hardcore Najibite-in-exile and an apologist for Ketuanan Melayu, apart from being the owner of a new BMW.]

Not only was RPK freed from unlawful detention under the evil ISA - but on the same day, Anwar Ibrahim also received a favorable judgment from Sessions Court judge S.M. Komathy Suppiah, allowing his sodomy case to be heard in her court where he might have been accorded a fair trial. However, the crooked Attorney-General appealed her decision and got it overturned by the Appeals Court. The case is now in complete shambles, bringing irredeemable shame to the Malaysian judiciary.

Roger Putra when he was a few weeks old, being mollycoddled by Anoora. Uma Pillai (from Australia) gets the credit for snapping this excellent baby portrait.

Roger, several months old, with a swollen right eye after getting stung by a wasp.

Roger in a pensive moment, looking very much like his illustrious father, the late Mr Wong Beng Oi.

At a very early age Roger began his love affair with the River and became a self-cleaning canine. That's why he's usually quite fragrant. This photo was snapped by my daughter Belle on one of her rare visits.

Roger grooming himself after a playful romp with his friend Prudence on the lawn.



Thank you, Roger Putra, for being such a reliable source of joy in our lives. Few dogs are fortunate enough to be born in our heavenly hologram, where they can run free and be constantly showered with love and good food.

Those of you who regularly read my blog might have noticed that in recent months I haven't had the inclination to say much about local or even global politics. The truth is, everything appears to be in a terminal deadlock. The old political order refuses to give way to the new - and even the new often seems to be repeating the mistakes of the old.

It's becoming clear that the economic and political games humans have been playing out in these holographic fields for thousands of years are now totally passé. We have no choice but to look within ourselves and recognize that these problems are externalizations of erroneous beliefs passed down the generations through the cultural matrix. Our financial institutions are far too recalcitrant to be redeemed and our political systems too corrupt and intertwined with the corporate mafia to be effective instruments of the people's will. And even the people - or at least a great proportion of them - are still trapped in analog mode, reacting with fear to every artificial crisis, instead of responding with love, compassion and understanding.

More and more I'm convinced that we can only liberate ourselves as individuals - one at a time - by our own efforts. How? By consciously upgrading our operating systems and software. Uninstalling irrelevant, divisive and stultifying beliefs and replacing them with open-ended, inclusive, and holistic sensory and neurological perceptions. In other words, it's time to outgrow beliefs that limit and confine us - and define us by nationality, race and religious affiliation.

Imagine: if at least 10% of the population spontaneously chose to disregard race or religion as markers of true identity, the idea of fighting over turf for illusory causes would swiftly become obsolete. Race-based political parties would overnight become meaningless and ineffectual. Humans would quickly become self-governing, eliminating the need for external government - and political parties.

[First posted 7 November 2009]