You must have ‘Tapai’ by Isham Rais for Merdeka.

Not long ago, Tapai arrived in my post box, from my favourite publisher, Lori Lee of ZI Publications. I decided to have Hishamuddin Rais’ Tapai for MERDEKA.

I was excited when I received the book. Tapai is special to me because its author Isham is one of the coolest guys on earth – (h)ippy, (h)ilarious, (h)ighly intelligent. A guy who loves cats, who manages to look hip although vanity may be the last of his qualities.

One never gets bored sitting with Isham, sipping teh tarik (or any other drink) coz you’ll get great conversation going and interesting insights into any topic without even having to worry about how time flies or where you are.

Reading Tapai is like being with Isham. He writes as he speaks. That wit, humour, cheekiness, and mysteriousness covers the 40 chapters in the book, word to word.

You’ll leave a page knowing something – a place, a dish, or an idea – differently, something you never expected or never thought could be the way he said it was. In short, you’ll get a very different perspective, you’ll go away feeling ‘educated’.

The same it is when reading Tapai. I never knew that so many different types of Malay food ever existed. It makes me want to try all of them if only to make myself love the Malaysia I have sometimes come to loathe.

Loathe because of all the crappy things Malaysian politicians say, and thinking about them makes me lose my appetite.

But one look at the cover design of Tapai, I started to feel hungry. When I started reading, my thoughts begin to travel. There were so many places to go, so many smells and visual delights of different food, spices and herbs, that soon I was no longer just hungry, but ravenous.

Is Tapai a travel book, a food book or a book on sex? After reading all 266 pages, I decided that Tapai is one and all of the above.

Sex being a state of mind, as Isham puts it: Sex is like food; one must stumble upon it (page 27).

It’s not so much that Isham is a friend but the book is really worth your money. For a mere collection of 40 stories, you get (if your imagine is wild like Isham) to go on adventures in places one could NOT find so easily in any Malaysian map.

These are the non-touristy places typical tourists are always looking for but no one may show them where or how to get there like Kuala Nerang (Alor Star), Cafe on the Embankment (along a Tsunami disaster area in Kuala Muda), or Kuala Brang (Terengganu).

You also get to feel what’s it like to taste exotic, delectable food with really exotic exciting names like ‘itek panggang a la Rue du Sultan’.

I like the fact that Isham covers, explores and reveals very hidden and obscure places which serve good food and drinks in his Tapai, to honour chefs and cooks marginalised by the mainstream media.

It is clear that Isham is a seasoned traveler and a very good cook, he breathes in and savours, the people, culture and history of the places he visits, like he does the food and possibly the women(?).

Hahaha, I would not put that pass Isham, my friend!

When turning the pages, I did feel a sense of nostalgia in Isham, too, and how he must feel to see so much of our history and culture and togetherness slipping away.

I felt it most in the chapter :The journey home (page 114), when Isham returns home for the Hari Raya by bus, crowded with Bangladeshis, Burmese and Nepalis.

Isham likes visiting fish markets and that explains why, if only in a humourous sense that he does have a nose for ‘something fishy’ if you were to get a chat going with him.

I like his tagline or rather he could make this his tagline when he says in his Dedication: P.S. Some people eat only when they see the notice: Ditanggung Halal. But as foodies, our motto should be: “Ditanggung Sendiri”.

This underlines, if nothing else, Isham’s courageous and independent spirit.

Nevertheless, Tapai could have been a completely complete book if at the end of the chapter we are told where and how to look (or an address) for the places and food he’s written about.

But this would not be Isham. He wants you to be imaginative, creative, adventurous and passionate enough about something to go and look for it yourself.

Because, for someone like Isham, the destination isn’t the only thing that matters, the journey would be more important. A little like Cavafy’s Ithaca.

It’s not how the restaurant looks like, or what brand of crockery it uses, or what color and texture are its curtains, not even the condition of the road that leads to it.

The people you meet, the things you see, and the experiences you encounter when you travel are the extra ingredients and are what makes your food most palatable.

Try it, get the book and read it (a national treasure!) and all Isham will say is: I told you so 

No country is truly MERDEKA! without free media

Centre for Independent Journalism Merdeka press release:

As we celebrate anew the liberation of Malaya from colonialisation, the Centre for Independent Journalism is compelled to remind all that the mass media, a pivotal democratic institution, is still shackled at great cost to the development of the nation as a mature and modern society.

There are many factors impinging on media freedom, but arguably the biggest obstacle is the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA) 1984.

The draconian provisions of the law have been most effective in ensuring that the press bows to the demands of the state until the idea of media freedom has become anathema to some media practitioners themselves.

It is a sad irony that the institution whose function is to give voice to the voiceless is itself rendered voiceless when it comes to the cause that enables this very function.

Rather, some allow and encourage strident voices that seek to further restrict freedom of expression. There is an unabated, dangerous trend of intolerance of opinion that is now leaning to violence as a means to silence others, especially on issues related to ethnicity and religion. This is partly caused by the media’s failure to provide a forum for rational and reasoned public debate and discussion, and partly because the media is being used instead to champion narrow, racist agendas.

Hence, the price of a shackled media is not only growing irrelevance as audiences seek alternative sources of information and expression that are unimpeded by ownership and control issues, but worse – social unrest, one of the concerns that the PPPA is supposed to prevent.

CIJ urges all media outlets to seize the opportunity provided by Malaya’s Independence Day to reflect the lack of their own independence and how this has engendered a general lack of respect for the profession. For its own survival, the media must reclaim its freedom.

Earlier this year, The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) called for a review of the PPPA in conjunction World Press Freedom Day. Yet a decade ago, 951 print journalists signed a petition calling for the repeal of the same law.

It’s long past due for both media and the people to sound the clarion call for “Media Merdeka!”

After 53 years of independence in the peninsula and 47 in Sabah and Sarawak, isn’t it time for the media to be independent, too?

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The Centre for Independent Journalism, Malaysia (CIJ) is a non-profit organisation that aspires for a society that is democratic, just and free, where all peoples will enjoy free media and the freedom to express, seek and impart information.

Ahmad Ismail…comeback!

ARGH! I am disappointed today. I wished AHMAD ISMAIL makes a comeback. It would have been fun.

Instead (and I blame Gerakan and MCA for this); Ahmad has taken the exit route. But only for a year I hope.

He still denies he has not been pressured to quit contesting in the coming Bukit Bendera AGM (on AUg 8), although he admitted meeting PM Najib ‘eye to eye’ for 5 or 6 times.

If that is not being pressured, what is! They are not having a bromance that ‘eye to eye’ means something positive.

Anyway, he is being sacrificed – for a year – is that also an indication of how long we need to wait for the next GE?

READ about the hero Ahmad Ismail here and here.

‘Forced’ to be a Muslim.

This is a sad case of S Banggarma (left, file image from malaysiakini), who is fighting to reinstate and maintain her life as a Malaysian Indian of Hindu religion.

No matter what the Constitution says about freedom of religion, Banggarma felt she had been forced to be a Muslim, when in her heart, mind and soul and thought, she is a Hindu.

She question the sincerity of Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia (which even his deputy has admitted is a failure).

“Is this 1Malaysia, that I have no right to fight for myself? Why must I be forced to accept Islam? I have my own life,” she said.

How true, Banggarma. It’s time the lovebirds Najib and Rosmah return from their holidays and answer these thorny questions.

Please read my article here: Hindu woman fails to nullify her conversion to Islam.

Real troublemakers @ the Aug 1 anti-ISA vigil?

Great video by Malaysiakini Citizen Journalist Jimmy Leow Beng Hock. Met and spoke to him that night before all of this happenned.

The police can use this to find the ‘real troublemakers’ at the anti-ISA vigil on Aug 1 at the Speakers Square in Penang..

Look at the noisy bunch. I saw them push Julius Choo which started the actual commotion.

Many were identified to be linked to Umno, calling themselves pro-ISA supporters, the silent majority, etc.

They had even shouted the 1Malaysia slogan but theirs was not a multi-racial crowd. They tried to drag a punjabi guy into their group – the guy’s a Gerakan member, but he refused.

Najib and Rosmah should be awesomely proud of these guys. Where are they anyway, ordering mayhem then run away for a holiday?

Is this Najib’s way of telling what life would be under Muhyiddin Yassin as PM of Malaysia? So better be nice to him?

To me, this strategy brought about closer solidarity between activists and probably sealed other people’s resolve to see total political change in the country.

The arrest was a miscalculation.Because it didnt frighten people no more. I believe some were even more aware of the ISA now than before. Thanks to the Police I guess.

Free publicity for the ISA vigil, or else, would the papers, blogs, internet have so much to say about it?

I do not quite agree with Penang CM Lim Guan Eng who said something like if the police wanted to make an arrest, they should also arrest the pro-ISA group.

Arrest must be condemned at all levels. And it would have been great to see two groups protesting or rallying about the ISA.

WIsh they had broke into a debate about why or why should the ISA be allowed or abolished. That would have been intelligent and a real democracy.

Not what I witnessed that night.