This ain't a love song

Namaste to all and Merry Christmas!!

It is that time of the year again where we celebrate the wonder and joy of Christmas, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ. This year, the gift I got for myself was a new tooth cap. As you may know, last week was a disaster to my front tooth but now, I got a new one, and you know what?? It looks better than before. Great.

It was my first time to celebrate Christmas out of Malaysia and the feeling was somewhat strange and yet, wonderful. All of us, about 15 of us attended a Christmas mass (service) at St. Patrick Church.

Growing up in attending as protestant Christian myself, it was my first time to attend a Christmas mass in Catholic Church. The service was held at midnight and there were about 1,000- 2,000 attendees. The church was quite big, with open space, covered by big trees, beautifully decorated with neon lights, colored papers and Christmas trees. The building of are mostly quite old (but well-preserved), with statues of Mother Mary, Jesus on the cross and some artistic painting (I was confused for a moment thinking I was in the Vatican, hehe).

There was a stage where the bishop conducted the service and the Holy Communion, together with his konco-konco, with I think is a local pastors (fathers). This bishop didn’t look or sound Indian at all. With the big mahogany chair, the stage looks to me like a pope and his cardinals addressing his followers in the Vatican City.

It is still winter season in India and it was really cold at night especially in Pune, the paradise city of India, where everyone in India dreams to come and reside, because it is not only economically developed, it also less crowded, good climate and just simply happening. The degree was about 10 degree that night. It was the coldest Christmas night I ever experienced. You can see those attendees were in blazer or winter coat, cap and glove.

And trust me, lots of chicks who look like actress from Bollywood were also there. Well…now I know, where is all the 'happening' chicks is hiding!

And in the street, you can see lots of Santa Clause, promoting some events or giving out small gift, in petrol station or just being there to greet people.

You can also see people warming themselves with the wood fire or self light fire.

We went back home at about 2am and hung around with hot tea (a must before we go to bed, also my new addiction) until 3am before I closed my eyes for sweet dreams. (Or nightmare)

Saturday morning, I woke up afresh. David, Anna, Marielle, Maike and I went to MG road meat market to shop for preparation for Christmas dinner where we would exchange presents and have a real Christmas dinner.

For the Caucasian, Europeans and the whites, they were quite surprise and shocked with the big, messy, wet markets. For me, I was not as much surprise as them, as the wet market also almost similar to ours back home. But of course, theirs is smell more terrible, dirtier, messier etc. They also slaughter the goats, the chickens and other livestock “live” in front of us 'spectators'.

So lots blood flowing down the drain and “sound of animal screaming in fear and pain”.

In MG road, we also shopped for Christmas presents. All of us need to buy one present for a person which his or her name we drew from the bag earlier. I brought “Memoir of Geisha” for Veronica and another three books for myself; Mitch Albom’s “Tuesday with Morris”, Paula Coelho’s “The Alchemist” and “The devil and the prym”.

It looks like original but it was imitation one. In total for the 4 books I spent about RM 20. I haven’t read Paula Coelho before but through the synopsis, and high recommendation from a Mr. Alan Toh, Omar, Veronica and some local Indians, I decided to buy it. The problem is, I am not sure how am I suppose to transport back all this junk when I go back to Malaysia.

And speaking of books, I am now reading Dan brown’s “Angel & Demons” and I am half way through. It is a superb good read. It is about the clash and debate about the importance of science and religion, particularly the church. While the characters are fictional, all facts and places is factual especially an insight into the operation and hierarchy of the Vatican City. Yik Hun, forget about Clancy and all your P&G motivational books, I think you need to read this one.

Veronica, from Budapest, the girl who I would like to think in a funny way resemble that of The Cranberris’s vocalist or Sinead O’ Connor cooks for us a very nice, tasty Hungarian Christmas dinner.

There were about 20 people. It was held in our A20 apartment and it was a long decorated dinner. After the dinner, and a taste of Republic of Czech’s rum (apparently ban in the EU countries) and Greece’s liquor, we proceeded to a moment where everyone was anticipating, the present exchange.

Veronica was very happy to receive my gift as she always want to read it. My mysterious giver was Tom UK, the Paul Bettany lookalike. He gave me a smoking stuff, most probably one of the greatest Christmas present I had. It was a smoking pipe in disguise of pen-torchlight and screw-bolt stuff. Together with smoking pipe, an ashtray made by muddy-sand, with big marijuana plant on it and hole on the astray are specially made for joint, not cigarette. Last thing was a weed/grass filter. Without doubt, the present to me can be considered one of its kinds.

After the Christmas dinner, we went to the most happening club, EL. Lots of people like it but frankly, I didn’t quite enjoy that place. The landscape is cool and relaxing but I hated the music they played (mostly techno and no proper timing and arrangement), the overloud speaker and the crowded crowd. John, Michael the CDD and I went back earlier, followed by David, Marielle and Anna. Together we clean the messy house and 30 minutes after that; we enjoyed a bowl of hot tea, with cigarette.

Sunday morning, I woke up around 11 something. It was a good feeling especially when I realized I wasn’t suffers from any dope of hangover. About 1pm, Anna and I went to Barista, a great coffee café, on par with that of starbuck café with wide garden and trees, swing and chairs where the guest can lay down or sleep as they wish.

Barista is located opposite near the peaceful meditation center of Osho commune international. By the way, Barista is also a place where I spent most of my Sunday afternoon, drinking coffee, smoking and reading my books. So, Anna and I spent all of our afternoon at Barista, drinking Ice latte and creamy cappuccino. We talk quite lots, some on music, John Lennon, Clapton and his “Layla”, to some social unrest issues, family and friends and also reading books.

Barista also provide a guitar ala Santana for house guest to play while drinking coffee. With my very limited “than chiak” guitar strumming skill, I played my all time great intro of “lake of fire”, “about a girl”, “the unforgiven” and “zombie” and some early chapel songs.

Please don’t think I am the university Chinese dude with guitar playing “when you say nothing at all” to their “ah lean & ah hwa” because Anna knew I didn’t how to play a guitar in the first place and my expertise were for other instrument.

While in Barista, spending beautiful times together, we had been approached by this “overfriendly” Indian guy, in his 40s, married with wife and kids. In a short span of time, he took our photos, took down our contacts and emails and keep reminding of not to forget about him. He also invited us to his house for dinner. At the beginning of conversation, we were delighted at the invitation but at the end, we were having a second thought. Oh, by the way, his name is “Suresh”.

Since we didn’t have breakfast and lunch, so were quite hungry when the sun goes down at 5.30pm. We walked for about 25 minutes to “Get together Pizza Hot” and had great dinner. We were having cheese salami sausage pizza and basic pizza, with banana lassi. Speaking of Anna, honestly, she’s quite cute and pretty and fun to be with. The way she dance can made you go-go like ago-go…

Like I said, she’s a rock chick and quite knowledgeable person, not only musically but worldly. She looks like Halena-Bonham Carter in the movie “Live from Baghdad” together with Michael Keaton but smaller size la…

I told her about the song of “Anna” from Dream Theatre and the Spanish movie of “Anna & Otto” (Florence, do you remember this movie??)

Next week, thanks to DHL, I will receive some of my favorite CD from home and one of them are Dream Theatre.

She also happen to have lots of great rock classic songs including that of Lynryd Skynrd’s “simple man” (one of her all time favorite), Kansas’s “Dust in the wind”, Cat Steven’s “Morning has broken” and etc. Man…those bands I discover in my teen which I almost forgot about them, musically, but she kind of reintroduced them to me.

One of my favorite songs which I kept playing is “superstitious” by Stevie wonder. (Always remind me of the time at Hard Rock café where Billy Sheehan of Mr. Big jamming with A.Samad.) Kek, how we wish we can do it again, huhJ

The songs that stuck in our heads are Eric Clapton’s “Layla”. So, there it goes, whole Sunday spent with Anna. Right now, you must be thinking I must be a chi ko pek or something similar right?? Wilson will be thinking…what la this fucker, Turkish want, Italian want now Greek also want…

As the subject of the blog already stated clearly, this ain’t a love song. This is just an ordinary song.

At night, we went to C1, another trainee’s condo, located next lane to watched “Euro trip”, a movie I watched for 3 times already. Tell you, this movie although is about Europe, but none of the Europeans knows about it. But of course everyone likes it because the places the people the events are well known to them. After the movie, we had a spontaneous “Hat Party” where John (from NZ) was the DJ of the house.

He was a good DJ, with all his gadget and equipment and stuff, playing mix of rock, trance, house and R&B. One of the early songs played was “Euro trip” theme; “Scotty doesn’t know”. Why hat party? Because everyone had to wear something or their head, be it reggae cap, baseball cap, cowboy hat or whatever la…We kept dancing and rocking for about 90 minutes.

After the hat party, we went to Deepak’s party (which actually not a party but just makan-ing). Quite a good hang out place but a rather sad party. No girls no good music, nothing. Maklum la…most of the Indian girl still very conservative.

We spent about 30 minutes and then we went home, which is just one floor down. Anna & I spent time in the ever chilling balcony, singing Eric Clapton's "Layla"

What'll you do when you get lonely
And nobody's waiting by your side?
You've been running and hiding much too long.
You know it's just your foolish pride.
Layla, you've got me on my knees.
Layla, I'm begging, darling please.
Layla, darling won't you ease my worried mind.
I tried to give you consolation
When your old man had let you down.
Like a fool, I fell in love with you,
Turned my whole world upside down....

before the must “tea time”.

OK, I am sorry if I bore you with music stuff and book stuff. But thanks really, for reading my crap.

Love & regards,
Peter

Sex Drugs & Rock n' Roll

The time is 8.20 pm and it´s sunday night and as always, writing this piece of crap for the blog is not easy. As for now, it is double the trouble to write because I am still suffering from hangover, with no appetite for any kind of food.

We met up with some cool dudes from Sudan. His name is DJ Shariff. He is a cool guy, a freelance DJ. He looks like the black policeman in the french movie, “taxi”. Through him, we met up with other DJs like DJ Tony T from Taiwan, DJ Kim from Korea and DJ Texas, originally from Sudan, growing up in Texas and study in Dubai but now, Dj-ing in Pune.

I think most scandanivian girls will give in their virginity to them especially DJ Shariff. Correction, I think most girls will, not only scandanivian.

DJ Shariff hooked Omar up with a local pusher, selling all kind of drugs in a open space. So, Omar bought like 20 grams of weed and 10 grams of hash for only RM 15.

Thursday night, we got invited to “Nirvana” ( but nothing “Nirvana” about it), a local pub located somehwhere near where we live, where DJ Shariff, Kim and Tony T is spinning. The pub was really great and the music they played was awesome, a mixture of old school rap, hip-hop, R&B, house and Bob Marley´s raggae. Mario, Maike, Omar, Magda, Alionna, Thomas A20 and Shaila were there. It was really great especially when they play the old school like MC hammer´s “ U can´s touch this”. And of course, entrance fees and beers was taken care off by those Djs. The dancing and everything kind of remind me of partying at Barfly. The only different is the place was without Wilson´s coolest moves. I tried to copy Wilson moves, Bryan´s dance step, a little bit of Noh stlye and of course, mine as well. I guess it wasn´t bad after all since DJ Shariff personally said I was a good hiphop-er as well as successfully hook up with girlsJ (since the success of hooking up with girls definitely not because of face attraction so I presume it was my party attitudes)

But I told him NO!! Don’t mistaken me, I don´t like HipHop, I am a true rocker!!!!

In Nirvana, people tend to overdress, you know…like dressing up to kill. The afro was wearing like the black rapper, with gold chain and bling bling stuff

We also had a inhouse performance by a group of Afro-african who copied exactly like those dudes in “you got served”. But I think it was a shitty performance.

So we parties away until 3.30 am and I went to bed at 4.30 am. Mario, Maike, Omar and I shared a rickshaw back home and the ride home was extremely cold and shivering. The degree was about 10 degree.

As expected, Friday morning was hell. I was so fucking sleepy that I dozed off many times in my engineering courses. It was last day of the training and I didn´t really give a fuck about the training, which I never understood it anyway. I went on sleeping comfortably, with many different position. None of the jargon used in the training make sense to me, let alone the point and the overall courses. You know…stuff like trap, condensate, steam, Co2 etc. I guess the only jargon I understood was AC/DC

I have finish Dan Brown´s Da Vinci code and now about to finish Archer´s “Matter of honour”. Trust me, the Da Vinci code was fucking great, a great read, with endless suspence and adrenalin pumping, blood rushing. I can imagine Robert Redford playing Robert Langdon (but apparently they had selected Tom Hank instead), Rachel weitz playing Sophie Neveu, Jean Leno playing Bezu Feche, Mark Ruffalo playing agent Collet, Tommy Lee Jones playing Sir leigh teibing and Donald Sutherland playing Grandpa Seniurre.

As for Matter of honour, Colin Farrell and Paul Bettany playing the leads, the character of Adam and Lawrence respectively. I brought a book by Mitch Albom, the author of “Tuesday with Morris” which seems interested to read. Anyway, the book is “The 5 people you meet in heaven”. I remember Mei Ching was reading “Tuesday in Morris” back in sophomore year. So if you happen to read this crap, maybe you can email me your recommendation.

I think this crap is going nowhere. But I will try to focus. OK, fast forward to Saturday. We have three trainees from Mumbai namely a dutch guy, a british guy and Benny, from Indonesia. Benny is a funny guy and for the first time is Pune, finally someone to speak and understood my language. We were enjoying speaking in bahasa Melayu/Nusantara. We were singing and talking about Iklim, Search, Dewa, Sheila on 7, Kris Dayanti and etc.

And we also have a new arrived trainee from Greece. Her name is Anna and she´s an ex LCP and…, what a gorgeous chick she is. She´s your type of rock chick, someone who listen to Pink Floyd. I don´t know why but she really reminds me of Gokce the Turkish girl, the feature, hair, skin colour but of course, she didn´t look like her. Anna play the guitar in the band and now we are talking about doing some jamming. Soon, I will sing and intro a song from Dream Theatre to her, “Anna”. (the song title) I am quite impress with her musical test. How often can you meet a cun chick, who know so much about Eric Clapton. But of course, I am better la…, She may know the lyrics of “Layla”, “Pretending”, “My father´s eyes” or “Tears in heaven” but I know the true meaning why the song was composed. Sorry la….a bit of showing off but like the dutch like to put it, “what the fuck…I don´t care, I am a dutch…” I believe knowledge should be shared, so I shared it all to her.

Unlike the “Kiasu” university chinese dudes, who keep notes all to themselves like the CIA keeping national secrets from the KGB. The attitudes that I despise completely. That’s why, I will never get “ngam” with those fucking losers. And most of the time, hanging out with those layback Malay dudes. Back to Anna, Kek, I think you should meet with Anna if you have the chance. She´s so cool and of course musically knowledgeable. I told her about “Anna” from Dream theatre already. I think she going to like it. (My brother had couriered my Dream Theatre CD to me via DHL)

For the moment, she´s sleeping next space to me now that Thomas my roomate is going back to Germany until January. So we chatted the night away

The highlight of the weekend is of course, the christmas party cum farewell party to Inge and Christianne, organized by group of Daimler Chyler trainees, in their huge and beautiful condominuim. It was a party of “Sex Drugs & Rock n´ Roll”.

Christianne and Inge is going back to the Netherland and of course I will miss them, as a friend, the time alone spent with them in their room, smoking out, under sleepy and dimmy neon, with musics of Radiohead and Alanis.

Once “Paradise city”, “U could be mine”, “Lithium” and the likes was played on the air, I knew the night had begin and hence, excessive drinking and smoking. In the party, most of the time was spent with Maike, Inge and Christianne, as well as talking with Omar, german guys, DJs, Benny and of course, Anna from Greece.

I was suppose to go to a Pink Floyd concert tribute in the city with Anna, but too bad that it crash with the party. It was fucking sad but I guess after all, you can never get the best of two world. But in Pune, there´s always lots of progressive rock concerts, gigs and live bands, from Jazz, blues, rocks all the way back to the 70s. So no regret. And needless to say, I was high and drunk.

Now come the hardest part, the dejavu of my dream, the things that I knew it gonna happen again no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. Towards the end of the party, I was talking to Thomas C1 while drinking beer from the bottle. And while drinking, Thomas suddenly raise his arm and accidently hit my beer bottle and crack!!, half of my front tooth was flying in the air. Tong Chien and Amelia, I am sure you will laugh at how I look now as I am sure you do remember when the same accident happen to me last year.

I already fix an appointment with a dentist and I think it gonna cost lots of money to fix it. “Fuck!!!, dah la muka macam toya makmin, gigi pulak patah tengah, tambah lagi ke-toyahmakmin-an di muka, ma chau ci bai eh…so, I am now an officially a “Ugly kid Joe”””
Maaflah, kalau lu orang tak faham bahasa melayu orang Penang atau orang Utara…

As for the night after the party, I am not gonna write it here la…I will live it to your wild imigination. Bur of course I will write in my own “black diary” Suddenly I feel like I am writing like Dan Brown already, so much of guesses and suspence.

The morning after, I was of course, completely dehydrated and hangover. I was also fucking sad with my new look. I couldn´t fathom the look of me in the mirror. I used to dream that I crack my front tooth and it was scary in my dream but when I open my eyes, I was always relieved knowing that it was just a dream. But this time, it was real. I guess only time will heal.

I am sure you know the feeling of being hangover, no mood and appetite and stuff. But I was being taught a lesson by this Dutch guy. He said “ If you wanna be a tough guy at night, make sure you are also tough in the morning after”. So his point was, don´t be such a sissy, face your hangover like a man.

Anyway, I slept until 1.30pm and later, went on the beautiful, serene garden of the Osho commune international, the world´s most famous place for meditation. The garden is so peaceful, with flowing river, fountain, lots of flowers and green and the sound of nature. It remind me of Pink Floyd´s animal album. While on the way there, we met up with this street magician and he entertained us with some of his hand tricks. One of the amazing trick was, he asked all of us to pick our favourite smell of flower. So, some pick Jasmine and some pick paris. And then he asked us to rub the back of our hand and after a while, we can smell our favourite flower on our hand. And the mystery part was he never touched any of our hand. What a trick!!

Sunday afternoon, we hooked up with DJ Shariff and his Sudanese community to play soccer and it was my first football practise in India, ever since I reached here two month ago. The pitch was bad. Actually it wasn´t a pitch at all, it was just an empty land, with lots of small rocks, sands and dry glass. We played small post. I as always, being a fat lazy pig I am, playing the position of forward, only forward. Just like my weekly football training with the boys back home, I didn´t contribute much in the game, because I just stand above the line and waiting for the ball to come. But it doens´t matter, I score almost all the goalsJ despite the facts that I was quite redundant and didn’t run much. I am sure Bonnie and OTC can tell you the situation.

I think I am done for now. Tomorrow will be another Monday blues and Tuesday grey, Wednesday yellow, Thursday red, Friday pink and Saturday hip hip hoorey!!!

I am looking forward to my new year GOA island trip. And in january I might be travelling to Jaipur, Rajakhtan, visiting my fav. Girl, Gokce the turkish girl….

Honestly, I am fucking broke, so broke that every penny spent count. “Dah la takda duit, gigi pulak patah, ini betul betul kali amput, kamziet pukimak!! Punya accident!!”

Love & regards,

Peter.

To Dimebag Darrell--Rest in peace

Namaste my blog-army (copying KISS of greeting their fans)

For the first time I am writing from my home, sweet home. And for the first time I didn´t write this in my office. I don´t know why but somehow I have a feeling that no ones is reading my crap except for a few. But read or no read, I don´t really care. I mean why I should I care whether people read or not, at the end of the day, I am the one that going to look back on those days. But for those who really read, whether to kill time or really interested in knowing what´s up with me or for whatever, just keep in mind that I appreciate it and will remember for a long time to come.

Before I go on, I would like to tribute this writing or updates as a condelence to Mr Dimebag Darrell, ex- guitarist and ex co-founder of one of the greatest thrash-metal band on earth, PANTERA!!

The late rockstar pass away few days ago, just 10 minutes into his gig, with his new formed band: DAMAGEPLAN. He was shot to death by an unknown shooter who went up to the stage and started his shooting spree and kill four other people.

Maybe some of you will ask, who is him or who´s Pantera?

Pantera means lots to me as far as rock musics in concern although I didn´t really dig into their music, the way I dig Guns n´Roses or Poison.

1993 was the year when my childhood friend (Zuwairi) introduced rock music to me and the first band that got into my head was Pantera, followed by Sonic Youth and Acid Rain and Cromok. Those were the cassette day. This was even before I knew about Hendrix, Nirvana, GnR, The Doors or The Beatles.

Since then, I got hook onto the evolution of Rock Music, all the way back to the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and millenium. From The Beatles in the 60s, to The Eagles in the 70s, GnR in the 80s, Nirvana in the 90s and The Darkness in the 00. So on and so forth. From reading biography, to so much of influences. And later my musical expertise and knowledge expanded to Bob Marley, Jazz and Early blues of Johnson, BB King, John Mayer and Clapton.

My point is, my deep interest for Rock music right now might not be in me if my friend didn´t introduced PANTERA to me. My favourite album was “Vulgar on Display” and my favourite songs was “cowboy from hell” and “Hollow”.

With his demise, there is more reason for me to keep hanging PANTERA poster (The southern trend killer) on my room´s wall. I am sorry for this unwanted incident that had claimed one of the world´s great guitarist, on par with that of Satriani, Steve Val and Paul gilbert. I don´t know how many people will need to die for US of A to change their gun control policy.

So what´s up with me. Right now is 10:15 pm and Inge, christianne´s friend, just went off. She came to informed me to go to her place this Wednesday to smoke out and have a drink and get-together. They are leaving in 10 days time. I am alone in the living room with cigarette and hot tea, accompany by the jazz of Norah Jones, Omar is working out while David and Marielle is in the kitchen, having dinner.

Digging back to last weekend, it was one of the greatest. Friday night was great because there were string of event and parties to attend. Simply because it was a FRIDAY NIGHT.

First, Omar, Thomas and I were invited by my company´s chairman, Dr Neusyed Forbes to his awesome balcony, some 5 minutes walking distance from my house. It is a fortnight event where he will invite some friends, directors and partners to hang around his condo, discussing about social unrest and issues, from social economics to politics and everything else except work related stuff. It is kind of social gathering and his way of getting close with his employees. ( I think)

His condo was great. It is a 6 floor condo, one floor one unit, so you can imagine, how big it was. The interior was amazing, complete with a complete library, audio visual room and great artistic painting. I saw his collection of Sinatra, Beatles, Beethowen and the likes, DVD of Frasier and other great movies and great books like biography of Stalin & Hitler, Adam Smith´s The wealth of Nation and many more.

Anyway, the discussion was about “China as the next economy powerhouse and how should India learn from them”. My chairman is a DR at Stamford University, California and his knowledge is undoubtable even though it wasn´t about engineering. He is also a head of CII (Confederation of India Industry).

It was a great pleasure to share and exchange knowledge with these people while being serve varieties of 5 star foods and 5 star collection of alcoholic drink namely Bacardi, whiskey, Rum etc.

I was lucky as I managed to get into the groove of discussion. Shit, as expected, Omar interupted me with roll of hash and suddenly, living room are now with David and Marielle.

As I was saying, I was lucky that I can get along with the discussion because I did a project paper on “China´s FDI (Foreign Direct Investment” in my sophomore year”.

See, my life here is not about stone and drunk, it is also about acquiring knowledge and seek a way to understand the place and people around you. I will be going for a kids performance for charity next two week or so and also might be participating in National adventure race in February, together with my house mates.

After a few shots of Bacardi limon and full stomach of great foods, we left the house and went back home. We were suppose to go to Iranian party but we kept procastcinating. Omar and I hooked up with Inge and Christianne to Shisha café. We thought we would go to Iranian party after Shisha but we went back the Christianne and Inge´s room instead. Hash, radiohead and alanis Morisette coloured our night and we stayed until 3am.

I reached home around 3.30 am and slept for about 2 hours and later to be waken up by Marielle.

Early Saturday morning, Marielle, myself, Maike, Michael the coombian drug dealer (CDD) and the new Germany trainee, Mario went to Matheran Hill station, about 3 hours away from where I lived. One of the greatest place, also recommended by the Lonely planet.

We went there with a local train. The train ride remind me of Mumbai but this one was better. Reached the bottom of the hill and we had about 2 hours before departed with the toy train to the top of the hill. The toy train ride took us about 2 hours and the journey was fantastic. We sang all the way and mimicking all the animal´s sound like little kids going up to Penang Hill.

The top was so high up and it was so scary yet so interesting. Imagine riding the train along and around the hill, without edges.

The special thing about this hill station is like a huge village, with string of mid class hotels, shops and café. All machine vehicle is banned and the only mode of transportation is horses and rickshaw and wagon. So, there isn´t any pollution. There is 12 point to stop at, with different point different view. The similarities of all 12 point is, overlooking the huge and serene view from 800 m, above sea level. The first day, we walked non stop. We reached the sunset point where lots of people were waiting for the sunset. The sun set down the V shape, in between two mountain. There is also lots of Monkey. Mario and I saw a monkey fucking another monkey and we started singing “pretty fly for a white guy” by Offspring.

It was 6.30 and we realized it was completely dark and we bump into group of local traveller. So together we found our way out through the darkness of the quiet jungle. There is this fascist and drunk Indian kept talking about crap like India greater than Paskistan and stuff like that.

Interuption. David is defrozing the refrigerator and there it goes, snowball war. Norah Jones time is up and now on the air is Eric Clapton´s The Clapton chronicles.

We hung out at night in our room with beers and musics, nothing special. After that, we went to our hotel´s restaurent for a late dinner.

In the morning. We travelled to the rest of the point with horses. Trust me, the horse here is not like those horse in Ayer Itam, sick and waiting for heaven´s gate to be open. The are the horses at the peak of their life, instead of stable, they work here in the hill station and for part time, some of the horses are doing real horse racing.

So there it goes, jungle tracking the top hill side with horse. It was my first time riding the horse. Riding the horse my first time really hurt my two ball. It wasn´t easy but somehow I managed to cope with it.

This part have to be written down, if not I will not forgive myself. We reached one of the point and we saw this view, all the way down, with huge lake and big river, peaceful villages. Michael the CDD and I decided to dump the horse and the rest of the journey by walking down the hill and climbing up again. Every step down the hill and up the hill was a one last breath. Just hoping on the edge of the rocks and narrow angles without any equipment. I falled and slide, some minor injuries but it was fun. The village from top was like the size of a cow, so you can imagine…(I will invite you to my photo gallery once I am done)

I think I am writing too long. So I am gonna cut it short. We left the hill station and took the train back home. We reached Pune 10 something in the evening.

John Archer, the new trainee from New Zealand has arrived. Cool guy, I think.

Monday blues as usual. Thomas, Omar and I started our Steam engineering course today and will be going on until Friday.

So that´s all, the night is about to begin and I am gonna stop right here. Sweet dream…

Merry Christmas Malaysia, Denmark, Vietnam, Germany and the world!!!

Love & regards,
Peter.

P/s: Remember Laura?? She visited us and asked about me when I was at Hill station. She will be going back to Italy and be back again January. I miss her and for a moment, I would like to trade off the hillstation trip just to see her. But what to do…it is all fated. It was a surprise visit from her and I wasn´t there to grap the suprises.

Namaste Motherfucker 2

Namaste Motherfucker!!

It is a hot day today but yesterday and few days before were freakingly cold. For the one past week and this week, life in Pune has been really great, with endless celebrations and parties and our new outlook house.

First, Jos the Nickelback. He is the interior manager. Omar is the architect. David is the chef and gardener and me, in charge of cleaning and post-decoration. We spent our weekend redecorated the house, from the living room, to the light, to the kitchen, balcony etc.

The changes were a 100% change and according to the visitor’s poll, they now feel like living in the coziest house ever. A20 will never be the same again.

Remember the two dutch girl, Inge and Christeen? I didn’t know them then, but I know them now. Well...they were at our new look apartment for the past few days since we had string of celebration/parties in A20.

Christeen is cool and with red hair. But for Inge, the blonde, she always a bit fuck-up (blur) in the head, at least most of the time whenever I see her, either stone or drunk or sometime both. But despite her crazy attitude, she sometime can be blurry cute and innocent. The night when we had a pre Christmas party (Austrian style), all of us were on top of party mood. Balcony time was great. Jos is the funniest guy around. The best time is when he got drunk or stone or both, and start to squat like an Indian in the street and shout Namaste motherfucker or playing “speedy Gonzalez” on his old saxophone.

Day before the party, we went to centre Pune, a Pavajee temple, a temple 100 steps up from the ground. The tiredness is just like climbing up the penang dam. It was fruitful as we manage to oversee almost whole Pune. The wind was strong and eagles was flying flat high in the sky. Up the temple, there is a rooftop where we need to pay 1 rupees to enter, but at our own risk, since the alley are without any wall. (so, if you misstep, you fall flat like a dead pigeon).

We hung around and chat at that corner of the top. Then we bump into a young parent with daughter, who looks like Dakota Fanning. They are from Barcelona. Then I started to sing Queen’s “Barcelona” and followed by the rest of them.

For this visit, it was just 8 of us. Dennis the Irish boyband look alike, Omar the fucking rambo, Thomas Germany, Mariella the new dutch girl slightly look like Mel C, Jos the Nickelback, me, Meike from Germany. We were there until the sunset and we manage the catch a clear view of sunset.

Living here sometime flash me back to the golden days of my youth where everything was crazy and ignorant. For instance, on the way back to our apartment, we were having a rickshaw “fight”. Omar and Dennis was on the bike and Jos and I were on the rick. We were throwing water bottles to each other across the busy traffic and to the extent of came down from the rick while the rick is still stopping and starts to whack each other’s head. It was completely crazy.

You can say “ tu kau” or “la-la” . In most of the party, Jos, wimp, Omar and I were always end up wacking and breaking stuff. I think everyone were crazy to certain extent but breaking stuff like those grunge days, it was me alone. David has filmed most of the violence part and when I go back, I can show you in DVD of live in A20. Speaking of grunge, my Butterfinger’s CD is really famous here. Everyone likes it and were suprise that it was a Malaysian band.

At that night we had a drinking party. Omar was the man who set the rules of smoking weed and also was the man breaking it. I wander why man make rules when they know rules are meant to be broken and they gonna break it anyway?

Why bother to make rules? Just live with no rules and you enjoy life rather than you make one and break it and then you feel motherfucking guilty. That’s why I like to say to this kind of person: “Life’s a bitch and so am I, the world owe me to fuck you!!”

I called Gokce the Turkish girl in Jaipur, Rajakhstan. It didn’t make sense that to call Rajakhstan, the north India is much expensive then I call back to Malaysia. What can I say apart from being happy for her, for she is living her life there.

I missed my CD already. Thanks to wimp, the Dutch guy, who burn 16 Cds for me to release my boredom. So now I got Sheryl crow, Eagles, Fun loving criminal, Some Dutch band, Blof and Andre Hazes, and so on...

I also asked my brother to courier some cooking spices to me and some of my favorite CDs namely Motley crue, Evan Mark, Jazz and blues collection, Mr Big etc.

India is great and I am broke. I really wish I can go travel at the end of my traineeship. Right now I have so many plan for travelling but I don’t have any idea on whether would I have enough money or not. I am planning to get a 3-month visa extension. I am also planning to visit Gokce in Rajakstan, Gesine the Gytneth Patrow in Delhi and in April, I might wanna join David to Nepal, the place of world’s coolest mountain is located.

This is all still tentative. I hope I have enough saving at the end of the traineeship. If not, maybe I will borrow from friends or from my parents and pay back later when I got a job in Malaysia or else where. I mean now that I am here, I don’t want to miss the opportunity of travelling and keep on discovering. I don’t want to do it twice. So, anyone wanna borrow me?? :) Chi wei?? My richest friend, a son of a successful entrepreneur. Send my regards to auntie and uncle Lee,

OK?? See...I am starting to polishing his ass already now that I may need his favor...what a jack in the ass I am...I am just human..hahahaaaa….

The travelling trip to GOA islands is fixed and we gonna spent our New Year there. It is gonna be a blast!

This weekend, I will travel to Mahentra hill, near Mumbai. A place with great scenary, no pollution and stuff.

Back to Ingre and Christeen, the gorgeous babes from Holland. They are pretty cool. And we shared lots of similar interest too...Yesterday we were having a confession session of being a club member of GLAP.

GLAP is Gay & Lesbian Association of Pune and were having a so called general meeting and it also been filmed. I was the president and Ingre was my vice and Christeen was my girlfriend cum secretary. Omar was one of the speakers. Together with other, we shared of our same sex experience. Some was real and some was fake, just to entertain the night. There was a story about falling in love with teacher and seduced by the teacher while teaching homework, kissing in the bedroom etc. Ingre told her story, about she falled in love with this fucking gorgeous chick in the class and later, was just part of her history. The fucking gorgeous girl turns out to be Christeen. And now they are best friend.

Tonight will Jos's last night as he will be going back to Holland for good on Wednesday. With his departure, which I am sure all of us will definitely miss, the old batch are now completely gone and the new batch rules!!!

So this update is a special tribute to my second most sensitive friend, who cry when he see onion, who squat and shout namaste motherfucker when he drunk or when he not drunk, JOS!!!!

rgds,
Peter

Tribute to a friend

9.45 am / 1/12/2004

I want to begin my day in office not by going detail into my work but to spend maybe 20 minutes or so to write some sort of tribute in this blog, dedicated to my closest friend from Poland, the most “sensitive” man on earth, who said goodbye to us yesterday evening. His name is Michal. How can I not write about him?

There is so much things to write about him but my time here has its limitation. The weather is getting colder and colder every evening and morning. The house of A20 is also experiencing a change in its environment as one by one of old batch is leaving.

First leaving us was Kaske, the guy from Japan, and then Hendreanekka, and then Stefani (moved to her boyfriend’s house) and now the most important guy, everybody’s best friend, the most “sensitive man” on earth, the most likeable person, the girls’ darling and the boy’s hero....He is Michal is he is from Poland.

The guy I met the first night I was here and almost got me into a fight with the rick driver the morning after. He has the most inspiring life story to be told. I just felt bad for him ( I am sure everybody also felt the same) that the lowest point of life’s vicious cycle hit him too soon, at the wrong time and at wrong place of life, the time and place where he should be happy for himself, for his newfound place and freedom, for his reunited with his fiancee (now ex fiancee).

This is a man that burned all his hard earn money and sacrificed his job just to experiencing “life changing experience” traineeship. Not knowing what would happen to him, he came here as soft as kitten, expecting everything will be just great but end up as tough as the tiger instead.

One by one of bad things happen to him. First, his fiancee which he was eager to be reunited, broke up the engagement (of 5 yrs relationship). Reason was not widely known but from what I can tell, it wasn’t any existence of third party, it was just the new found freedom and unreadiness in commitment of her then fiancee. Just when he thought he will meet his love of his life, after a long distance travelling across the sky and across the continent, with utmost anticipation and expectation, all hell broke loose when she delivered what must be the hardest and bitter pill to swallow, in his life; breaking off the engagement despited the beautiful ring, the invited guest and the booked restaurent back in Poland.

What follow by this unwanted incident was equally bad. The job that the company offered him turn out to be as bad as the broken engagement. The lesson to learn is don’t trust everything on the paper, and don’t trust the Indian. (of course not all Indian ). The company I work for is always trustable, so far so good, “no kelinga teh”

Anyway, the company hit its bad financial crisis and was not able to sustain his traineeship after a few weeks. So he loafed around redundantly throught the days, spending his hard earned money on basic daily life. If this is not the worst, AIESEC Pune add salt to his injury. Not wanting to be responsible and not wanting to seek another replacement, this poor guy was a victim of bad luck. After a continuous harsh words and lots of bugging, they somehow managed to get him a job but not for long because after 2 month of working, the company declared solventcy or bankruptcy. And again, he was back to normal.

Although AIESEC Pune paid him the compensation monthly, but the compensation always came later than expected and sometimes fewer than it is needed. This caused him to be so fucking broke, so broke that he has to skip his lunch or dinner, bread and tea for dinner or sometime no dinner at all. So broke that he had to borrowed money from friends and mates, merely to survive another day.

I know he was stress and he was confused and he was sad. Who wouldn’t if one are into the same situation; left everything dearly and lovely behind, in the new land, no job no money, and to top it all, losing his love of his life. As tough as he can be, but he still shed his tears everynight, only to be dried by the morning sunlight.

But despites the chain of unhappiness, he never failed to show us his friendship, his kindness, his humour, his companionship. Despites all of unwanted events that has taken place, he still live his life through the days, until the last day of his traineeship, jobless and redundant. Partly because he wanna prove to the world and most importantly, himself, that he will survived through the hard times and he did, therefore for people who know him and few people who know him even better, we will be forever be motivated by his life experiences. A man of courage never die, a man who truly know what it means by “life goes on”.

But it wasn’t easy to be a person like him to know what he didn’t know then but clearly understood it now. It tooks lots of pain and anger, tears and sadness as well sleepless night.

You wander how a man like this can survive through such difficult period of time where the world seems to be agains everything he does. He is to be the best example of what it means by “catch 22” or Murphy’s Law.

He survive through hard times with people around him. The love of friendship and companionship. The endless support for his life to continue no matter what and of course, the jokes of bad boys, one of the factor that dry his tears away and healing his unhappiness.

In his final speech in farewell party, he confessed that the only point to lead his life through despite all the fucking unluckiest chain of event that befallen upon him, unwanted and uninvited, he felt graceful and thankful that he somehow survived till the end, all because all of the people around him. (As a farewell gift, we sent him to GOA islands for 6 days)


Though he had a new plan in Poland and new job too, but he is too afraid to go back just because he will not have all the people he had here. But rest assured, as I think life would treat him good, and maybe better, now that the life of vicious cycle had hit the bottom. So the next point will be on the way up, to the peak point of life.

So yesterday evening was a mix feeling of both sadness and happiness. Sadness is to see him leaving and happiness is to see him finally, leaving the misery and sadness behind the four wheels.

As I said, all the A20 mates, new and old was there except for Jack Nicholson, most probabbly still trying to shut down his laptop. (He was late)

We were at the lobby. David the new Czech guy was filming and we shook and hugged, for what must be the last goodbye. Maybe we will meet again in the near future, maybe not. God’s will.

Even the “baba” (friend) security who has work there as long as anybody can remember, who never speak English, but always smiley to all of us shed a tear for Michal, saying his first English sentence (with the help of body movement) “ I cry, he’s good man”....

He watched him arrived suprised and dumbfounded, watched his happy and moment through the days, came back from party, watched him back and forth to the grocery store and internet cafe and now he’s watching him leaving...

And for one last time, we shouted the infamous greeting, the greeting created by he himself, the greeting that will forever be in our head; “NAMASTE MOTHERFUCKER!!” (Good day Motherfucker!!) and all of us laughed and walkaway....in different direction.

I am back to my daily life. I did the six pack training with Rambo again. I think I somewhat motivated by the saying “Take care of your health when you are young, so your health can take care of you when you are old” (by Rambo, the pain in the ass). He is still as crazy as usual. Shooting the poor pigeons.

Now at A20, old batch is gone, slowly, one by one. Now left the last one, Jos Stemmen, Holland, the one that look like Nickelback, and also Michal’s best buddy. The night before Michal’s leaving, we organize another small party, took place in our beloved balcony. I was completely drunk and high and so was everybody. It was fucking great!! (to quote Kaske the Japanese, his favorite expression apart from “jerk off”!!)

And now I am feeling guilty for I expected this tribute to be done in 20 minutes but took me almost an hour already. Shit, I always procascinating. And it is bad!! Because procastination is like masturbation, you end up fucking yourself in both cases:)

Thats all,

Love and regards,
Peter