The Day that Japan Shook.....

the scenes in Rastam's office...

good to see you smile, Rastam...

Rastam's office colleagues after the evacuation...

Pakdokter received an SMS from Rastam, pakdokter's son who is working in Tokyo, at 215pm on Friday afternoon saying that there was a 'huge earthquake and office evacuated...' A similar SMS was sent by him to pakdokter's partner who then kept updating pakdokter from home on the unfolding events via reports from the BBC, CNN and Al-Jazeera. Somehow pakdokter was able to remain calm and was able to continue working and paying attention to the few clients pakdokter had to see that afternoon. Receiving that SMS from Rastam and knowing that he was safe did help and pakdokter was reassured with the belief that Japanese buildings are mostly built to withstand earthquakes like this.

The enormity of this calamity only dawned on pakdokter after pakdokter returned home at 530 pm when the news on TV had reported massive damage from the sweep of the tsunami across north-eastern Japan. Luckily crowded bigger cities like Tokyo were spared, otherwise the death toll would have been unimaginable!

Attempts to contact Rastam failed, understandably their communication systems were down as reported over the TV. Rastam only managed to secure a line and spoke to us over his hand-phone at 8pm to say that he would not be able to return home due to the shut-down of all train services. It was too far for him to walk home. He would be spending the night at an office colleague's flat which happened to be near the office.

He was able later to connect to his internet and had posted some of his own pictures of the event which pakdokter has uploaded here for the record.

Thank you, MPH....

In pakdokter's second post on this blog in this series on Mahathir's Memoirs, pakdokter had highlighted the 'binding defect' in pakdokter's copy where pages 57 to 88 were missing. Well, pakdokter had gone back to the store where pakdokter had bought the copy and the manager exchanged the copy with a new one. Pakdokter also learnt from him that so far only one other purchaser had come back to exchange his defective copy.

So, pakdokter guessed that the defect was not that common assuming that 10,000 copies had already been snapped up within the first 2 or 3 days. And reading back pakdokter's comments about the defect, perhaps pakdokter had been too harsh on MPH to the extent of suggesting that an equivalent Japanese Manager would probably want to commit the 'harakiri' for such a mistake.......

Anyway, Thank You, MPH......

Pakdokter has already read up to Chapter 20 of the book which has about 60 chapters or so. And it had been such an interesting read indeed. If not for the 'unusual' heavy load of work at pakdokter's clinic the past 2 days , pakdokter would probably have finished the book by now.....

The first 20 chapters were mostly Mahathir's version of the political history of his life which also provided a perspective of Malaysian political history as seen from the side of Mahathir. Mahathir was frank about his disagreements with Tunku but emphasised that he remained respectful of the first premier and acknowledged Tunku's greatest contribution of achieving independence for Malaya and of successfully putting up a multi-party coalition that brought the different races into a workable Alliance.

His biggest disappointment of the Tunku was his failure to uplift the economic status of the Malays which culminated in the May 13 riots of 1969. In many of these chapters, Mahathir argued ferociously on Malay issues - so much so, pakdokter thinks, that a prejudiced reader would easily and quickly condemn him with the label of a Malay 'rascist'.

So far, in the mainstream media and in facebook discussions, pakdokter has not seen much comments on matters written in these earlier chapters. Most discussions were centred on Anwar Ibrahim's expulsion and, amongst lawyers groups, on Salleh Abbas's sacking. Pakdokter's guessed that these guys went straight to chapters that they were interested in only. And from some of the comments, pakdokter reckons that they have not even read the book!.....

Mahathir, too, suffered Depression...

In Chapter 12 of Mahathir's Memoirs, he described what his life was like running a private medical clinic, working long hours every day of the week, hardly seeing any daylight all the time. This took a toll on him to a point of developing a 'burnt-out' - a condition which he himself described as one of Depression.

He took a week's break to go on a trip to Hong Kong and later to Japan, after which he came back rejuvenated and invigorated with a new spirit of 'nationalism' fired from what he witnessed achieved by the post-war Japanese government.

PakMahathir was lucky that the Depression he suffered recovered just by taking a break from work and going on a short holiday. Not many of pakdokter's patients can recover by such a simple approach.

History Lessons from Mahathir's Memoirs...

Pakdokter's copy of Mahathir's Memoirs was defective - the pages from Chapters 5 to 6 were missing thus depriving pakdokter on Mahathir's narration of his infatuation and later disillusionment with the British? ( this is pakdokter's guess based on the few pages available from chapter 5). The title of Chapter 6 suggested a story on his budding enterpreneurial experiments during the war times.

Chapters 7 and 8 should be an elective history textbook for our schools. The two short and easily read chapters covered comprehensively the political history of our country. Pakdokter must admit that pakdokter learnt so much from these 2 short chapters. Pakdokter's earlier readings of the few Malaysian novels written by Rani Manicka ( The Japanese Lover), Tan Twan Eng's "The Gift of Rain" and Tash Aw's " the Harmony Silk Factory" and " the Map of the Invisible World", all helped picqued pakdokter's interest in Malayan political history. All these books had stories about lives of Chinese families during the Japanese Occupation. PakMahathir's Memoirs helped put the finishing touches to some of the missing notes in pakdokter's mind.

In fact, in Chapter 3 which Mahathir tiltled " I Am a Malay" - one also get a good discourse on history of much earlier years of the Malay Archipelago.

Looking back, pakdokter's history lessons in STAR was about the great civilisations of the Middle East and India ( Hanging Garden of Babylon, the Mohendojaro in the Indus Valley etc etc....) Unless pakdokter's memory has failed, pakdokter could not remember any Malayan political history being taught then.

This is bad....MPH....!

Pakdokter has been reading Mahathir's Memoirs on the train and at every little time which permits pakdokter to do so. What a frustrating experience it was when pakdokter came to page 56, and then to find that the next page turned out to be page 121. Pages 56 to 88 were missing!

MPH, the publisher, has to take the blame for this. Such a mishap would not have been allowed to happen in Japan. The MD would have to commit the 'harakiri' !

A Doctor in the House: The Memoirs of Mahathir..

What co-incidence!

Just a week or two ago pakdokter read Vaclav Havel's Memoirs and pakdokter's post on it in this this blog ended with a wish that Dr M would finish his memoir soon. As if hearing pakdokter's call, the 'Memoir' was launched yesterday and pakdokter picked up a copy last night.

Datuk Ahmad Mustapha Hassan

the nephew who wanted Mahathir to buy

the Sukhoi 35 for the Malaysian Air Force....

he wrote a book ' the Unmaking of Malaysia'

with uncomplimentary critique of his uncle's

style of governance.....

Pakdokter had only read about 20 pages so far and what a read it has turned out to be. In discussing his difficulties with some relatives of his who expected him to approve some of their business proposals, he had become enemies to some of them. One he made a special mention of was that of one Mr Ahmad Mustapha, journalist turned businessman, who wanted him to support his plan to bring in the Sukhoi 35 Russian war jets! Mahathir told him the decision to buy which war planes would depend on how good the planes are. On checking with some Russian businessmen, Mahathir found out that the Sukhoi 35 is not even in existense yet (even up until today!). What was available was the Sukhoi 30 which is being used by the Indian Air Force. He even asked Mr Vladimir Putin at a later time who told him that the Sukhoi 35 is still a project at work.

According to Mahathir, this nephew/relative of his by the name of Mr Ahmad Mustapha had thought that Mahathir had personally frustrated him and until today he does not talk to his uncle anymore!

If pakdokter is right, this Datuk Ahmad Mustapha Hassan, had not too long ago, written and published a book, very critical of Mahathir. He was once the Chairman of Bernama - our very own National News Agency - and pakdokter was quite surprised at the tone of his 'venom' against the 'boss'.

Well, well, now the cards are falling into the right places.....

Sometimes, relatives and family members "pun to bolih 'caya....."

Pakdokter cannot wait to finish this 800 or so pages book......

The Tom Morris Cup - 2nd Round : A Good Fight to the End...

Wednesday, 2nd March 2011

The 2nd Round of the Tom Morris Cup must be completed by this coming weekend, but pakdokter will be away in Jakarta from Friday. We tried to play the game last weekend but Shazal was in Pattaya with his company's Board of Directors for their meeting and only came back Monday evening. So, after rescheduling our appoinments for the week, all four of us managed to get the Wednesday afternoon free and was hoping that we would not be rained out!

Pakdokter and Zahardin had beaten the strong pair of Aziz Peck and Chua in the first round. Tg Muinuddin Putra and Shazal, both strong players had thrashed the Merican brothers ( Hasan and Shahrin) after coming back strongly in the 2nd Nine.

Tg Muin had been a consistently good player last year, winning at least 2 monthly medals and did a 'hole-in-one' twice within the same month. With Shazal also in good form, honestly, pakdokter did not give ourselves much chance in this game.

Being a strong hitter, Shazal almost put it on in two at the 1st hole. However his second shot went over by amost 10 feet. Pakdokter chipped in nicely for 3-on and 2-putted for 5. Mu ( Tg Muin) chipped in his fourth close to the pin to allow Shazal to try and go for a par to win which he missed.

Pakdokter got a par on the index hole No.2 which put us 1-up but gave away the par-5 3rd to remain square. Both Zahardin and pakdokter sent our balls into water at the next par-3 and went 1-down, only to square it back at the next when pakdokter again got a par at this index hole.

We lost the next par-5 hole to go 1-down again, but Zahardin finally came into the game and took the next hole with a par. We were still square with 2 holes to go. Pakdokter took the next hole with a par only to lose the last hole to Mu's par to move on to the 2nd Nine all square.

Shazal's long drive on the 10th helped him get a par to go 1-up. Zahardin helped to square them at the 11th and took the 12th to square the match again. Pakdokter's bogey at the13th squared Shazal's par at this index-4 hole but Mu took the next 2 holes with pars to go 2-up with 3 to go. Zahardin squared them in the 16th to go dommie-2 but we lost the 17th when Shazal's great shot from the tee went just about 10 feet away from the hole. He took a par when all the rest struggled to get out of bunkers and their pair won the match 3-1.

Mu and Shazal were deserving winners. Congrats....

Pakdokter will have to work on fitness and stamina as after the 1st Nine, fatigue affected pakdokter's focus and strength. Pakdokter's score was 46/55.