Valley of Ambiguity

Many years ago when I was still in high school, I was very clear about my future planning, what I want to do later after finishing high school, then after graduating from college I hope to work at a place close to my hometown, then buy a car, later a house and only after that I will get married.

Those were my thoughts at that time. I was so naive to think that life is that simple like driving on a highway, everything will happen according to the plan, but I was wrong.

Sometimes when we drive on a highway, something  unexpected happen that leave us no choice but to take another route and to make a small amendment in our plan. And when we want to make that small amendment, once in a while we had to make small sacrifice.

For the past three years there are several important events that had occurred in my life. The truth may be hard to handle, even harder to accept. But Allah always has better plans for us. If it's meant to be, it will be.

But I never blame anyone, what else The Creator Himself for those unexpected things that had happened in my life. I take it as a challenge and as a motivation for me to be more prepared in the future.

Yes, this life is full of ambiguity. We don’t know what will happen in the future. People change. People live. People die. Things exist. Things disappear. Everything in this world is in motion. If we sit and do nothing we will be left behind. If we sit and do nothing we will lost in the valley of ambiguity.

A.Khairul         

You've changed me

I have a confession to make. I’m a hot tempered person. Oh yes I’m not joking about this. I’m a hot tempered person. I will raise my voice, shout and to a certain point I will throw stuff when things are getting on my nerves. I used to do all that when I’m angry at person or things, until that day….

I was alone at home with my five years old brother. Something happened that morning and I wasn't in a good mood, so I just stayed in my room and my brother was doing something. It was raining cats and dogs outside. Then the phone rang, it was my mom. She told me to make sure my brother took a shower before she reached home. He was watching cartoon on tv and I had no choice but to disturb him. He refused to go to the bathroom, stiffen his body and doesn't want to move a bit. I was a bit infuriated at that time with his attitude, so I pulled out the tv plug and took him to the shower.

After shower, I wanted to put on the clothes to him but still he stiffened his body and didn’t allow me to put on the shirt to him. Suddenly I exploded with anger, “KENAPA NI DANIAL!? KENAPA SUSAH SANGAT NAK PAKAI BAJU NI!? MANDI SUSAH, INI SUSAH~” I took a folding chair and hit it on the floor then I leave the room. After that there was a loud thunder sound and the main switchboard got tripped. I turned on the main switch and went to the room to check on my little brother, he was sitting in one corner of the room face down. I called my brother “Danial~” he looked at me with a sad face for a moment and then turned his face down again.

That is when I realized that I've turned into someone that I don’t want to be, someone who couldn't control his anger. I felt very guilty to my brother. He’s a down syndrome, he might not know anything or the reason why I became so angry, but I’m pretty sure from the way he looked at me that he was so scared of me. I don’t want to be like that. I walked to him, I sat next to him and I hugged my little brother, I hugged him tightly. “Sorry Danial~”

Since that day, bit by bit I try to learn to control myself when I’m angry. I don’t want to be a scary person, especially to my family. I’m supposed to look after him and protect my little brother. I’m all he has if my parents are not around anymore one day. Don’t worry Danial I will always look after you as long as I can till my last breath, you know why? Because you've changed me.

A.Khairul

Tanda Putera: Perlukah dipolitikkan?

Pada 31 Ogos baru-baru ini, penulis berkesempatan untuk menonton sebuah filem tempatan yang telah mencetus kontroversi baru-baru ini iaitu Tanda Putera arahan Shuhaimi Baba. Sebenarnya, penulis tertarik untuk pergi ke panggung menonton filem ini setelah terbaca beberapa artikel dan rencana yang menyatakan filem ini tidak sesuai untuk ditayangkan di Malaysia, dan penayangannya sudah beberapa kali ditangguhkan akibat daripada isu kontroversi tersebut. Sebelum anda membaca dengan lebih lanjut, suka untuk penulis ingatkan segala yang diperkatan di sini adalah pandangan peribadi penulis sendiri dan mungkin akan ada sedikit kebocoran tentang plot filem tersebut.

Movie Pick of The Week (20) #KIL

Raya tahun ini saya beraya di Kuala Lumpur bersama-sama dengan keluarga sebelah abah. Selepas penat memandu selama beberapa jam, saya baring dihadapan TV. Kemudian pakcik saya pun tanya “Khairul dah tengok cerita KIL?” saya yang kepenatan hanya menjawab “belum, takpela boleh juga nak tengok.”

Pada babak pembukaan sahaja, filem KIL ini sudah menarik minat saya dan membuatkan untuk duduk di atas sofa. Saya terus menonton filem itu daripada pukul 12 tengah malam sehingga hampir ke pukul 2 pagi. Jalan ceritanya sangat menarik, walaupun pelakon-pelakon utamanya masih baru tetapi lakonan mereka sangat mantap. Yang paling saya suka adalah dialog dalam filem tersebut yang sangat bersahaja dan ia mengingatkan saya pada filem-filem arahan arwah Yasmin Ahmad. Pada saya Nik Amir Mustapha telah melakukan satu kerja yang sangat baik untuk kali pertama. Saya akan terus memberi sokongan dan menanti filem arahannya yang akan datang. Pastikan ada menonton filem lakonan Redza Minhat dan Cristina Suzanne jika berkesempatan, dapatkan DVD yang original memang berbaloi.

A.Khairul

"Buying" Time

They say money can buy only physical things but it cannot buy things that we cannot see. Things like loyalty, trust, happiness, freedom, and love. What about time, can we buy time? I’m not talking about buying time to prolong our lives like the one in the movie In Time. What I mean by buying time here is we don’t have to wait for a long time doing certain things, so that we can have more time attending to other important things, or so we think that they are important.

Not convinced yet? I can give few examples. There is new movie showing in the cinema and you plan to watch it with your best friends. Your friends ask you to buy the tickets first. If you are to go there and queue to get the tickets it will takes you 15-20 minutes top, but if you buy the ticket online you can save the waiting time and it only costs you RM1 extra.

You work in Johor and have a meeting with potential clients in KL. You can drive for 4hours from JB to KL and hope that the traffic is not congested, or you can take a 45minutes flight from Senai to Subang and have more time to prepare yourself before meeting the clients. Of course the flight will cost you more money but it saves more of your time.

I’ll give another proof. Traditionally the wife will do most of the things like cooking, laundry, cleaning and also prepare the kids for school. In the beginning they still can manage with time, but as time passes by they will start complaining to the husband, “I can’t do everything at once la dear, can you find a maid to help me at home?” I’m not saying that this wife is lazy, she has a point there. Have to wake up in the middle of night because the baby is crying, not enough sleep, then have to prepare breakfast before you go to work, again the baby cry have to change the diaper, elder son still sleeping and he is already late for school so mother has to run upstairs and wake him up. It’s crazy!!! If you can pay RM8000 (recent) for a housemaid, then your wife can ask the maid to help with the laundry and cleaning so she will have more time to look after the kids and you.

If that’s the case, then those people with big fat wallets are at advantage don’t you think? One thing we have to keep in mind is The Almighty God is just. Everything comes with a price. You can have all the time you want, but if you don’t know how to manage it there is no different. You spend more time with your family, but do you think you have a quality time with them or everybody just doing their own work? That’s us, we tend to neglect things when we have them and only regret things once they are gone.

“Demi Masa! Sesungguhnya manusia itu dalam kerugian. Kecuali orang-orang yang beriman dan beramal soleh, dan mereka pula berpesan-pesan dengan kebenaran serta berpesan-pesan dengan sabar. (Quran: 103:1-3)”

A.Khairul

Movie Pick of The Week (19)

The other day I watched Now You See Me with Yati and Pian at TGV Tebrau, so I just want to share my personal review about the movie. I don’t know how to say this, but if you have seen The Prestige before this, the story line is pretty much the same. It’s about a group of magicians, their state of the art magic trick and also some personal conflicts. Biasa la, even animal also got problem what? Just a lame joke. The thing that I like about this kind of movie is, it allows the audience to play guess-who-is-the-real-culprit game as we sit and watch the whole movie. It’s interesting!!! Plus there are Morgan Freeman, Isla Fisher, ‘the hulk’, ‘mark zuckerberg’, ‘uncle Alfred’ and another 2 dudes who make the movie more alive and awesome!!!

“Anything that starts with Morgan Freeman’s voice is worth all our intention”

A.Khairul

Wira dan Putri (16)

Wira:

Setelah hampir beberapa tahun bekerja di Paris, Wira kini telah kembali ke tanah air. Dalam tempoh 3 tahun di sana, banyak perkara yang telah dia lalui dan pelajari disamping dengan pelbagai pengalaman yang sukar untuk dilupakan. Sepanjang berada disana, Wira gigih mencari dan berkongsi idea dengan rakan-rakan perniagaannya di sana. Kembalinya ke tanah air kali ini dengan penuh semangat dan azam baru untuk terus lebih berjaya bersama-sama dengan syarikatnya.

Adi menuggu ketibaan Wira di Lapangan Terbang Antarabangsa Kuala Lumpur. Teman waktu susah dan senang Wira semenjak dari zaman sekolah hinggalah sekarang. Tidak pernah sekali pun Adi menolak sekiranya Wira memerlukan bantuan daripadanya. Adi juga sangat memahami Wira. Wira bukanlah seorang yang suka meminta pertolongan daripada orang lain, melainkan jika dia dalam keadaan yang sangat terdesak.

Pernah suatu ketika, mereka keluar bersama-sama bermain bowling. Apabila hendak pulang, Adi akan bertanya kepada Wira jika dia hendak Adi menghantarnya ke stesen bas atau teksi yang terdekat. Seperti biasa Wira akan menjawab “tak apa, aku naik bas dekat je~”. Tetapi pada malam itu, Adi yang memandu kereta mengekori Wira secara rahsia. Pada mulanya, dia berasa lucu melihat kelakuan Wira yang berjalan sejauh 10km ke pasaraya Giant. Wira membeli sesuatu sebelum pulang ke rumah dengan menaiki bas. Selepas dari itu, Adi akan bertegas untuk mengahantar Wira setiap kali mereka pergi bermain bowling bersama.