Middlesex

If there's anything nature had taught us, it would be all about balance. Prey and predator, night and day, gas and solids. Balance, seems easier to achieve when the presence of things are concrete, when two complete opposites exists in harmony. When balance is achieved, perfection is borned.

Yet the one being that is far from balanced are us humans. Humans who judge and analyse what balance is, is the most unbalanced beings that must have walked on this planet.

Yes there are men and women. Yet through time, we have hardly strike a deal of achieving balance. Women would never fully understand men and vice versa. Is it because we have drawn the line so clear that it is impossible to step into each another's realm?

I came across a novel called Middlesex a month ago. Granted i have not completed the book, since work has gotten the best of me, yet i can remember clearly what i've read to date. It is a story about intersex people. People who are seen as unnatural, a freak of nature, chromosomes gone wrong, or a product of curse and sins of their forefathers. Yet what i gathered from this beautiful story, is a breed of people so rare and so misjudged. I am convinced that we, men and women of single sex, are the ones who are freaks, unnatural in contrary with nature and completely of balance.

People who are borned intersex, or politically incorrectly termed as hermaphrodites, are people who are borned with two sexual organs. It is not that they are neither men nor women, it is more of a gift of being able to choose to be either or even both. Intersex people are not drag queens or transsexuals, they are naturally a balance of both.

If perfection is all about striking a balance, then intersex people are the perfection of the human race. For someone to be able to understand how it feels like to be both sex at one time, it is an advantage rather than a curse. Yet people like "US" scorn and belittle them, just because they are rare, just because they are not a majority. We have been governed by gender roles for so long that our little brains find it hard to wrap around the fact that culturally, a boy can become a girl if he wanted to.

Take homosexuals as an example, the world's greatest and most artistic people are hardly straight. Gays are creative, perfectionists, intelligent and one of a kind. That is simply because they reached a point where they have found a way to incorporate sentiments of another gender which do not belong to their bodies. If in a religious perspective we call it nirvana, being born as an intersex is the nirvana of humankind.

The reason i am writing this is not in response of encouraging people to retort from the sex they were borned as. However, it is because it sickens me when people imply that being born intersex is unnatural. How ignorant are we. A wonderful director which i adored recently passed away and all these ignorant fools could do was to dig up her past of possibly being born as an intersex with intentions to defame her.

If she was really borned intersex as what they had said, then it is a revelation to why she was so brilliant. It was a revelation to how she managed to be one of a kind in all its splendour. It was a revelation to how no one could replace her even if they wanted or tried to because they are just genetically disposed as unbalanced and imperfect..

It was a revelation then that they would never be the success that she was...

Lost

I resent the loss of a time i never had..

I grieve for a loss of a loved one i never knew..

I am numbed by a pain i never felt..

I miss a place i've never been to..

I miss the "me" i've never becomed..

Does that even make sense to you?

The Malaysian Legend Yasmin Ahmad

When I was in school, I had a phase where I was flocked with Malay friends. Naturally, I listened to malay music as well as adored local malay artists. But that was as far as my interests ventured. Partly due to the fact that the one and only Malaysian produced malay movie titled Sembilu I watched then was hardly decent, even for the 12 year old me. I remembered laughing at the bad production, horrendous drama acting and the simple minded storyline which left a dent in my impression of Malaysian production.

It wasn’t until I left to college and heard my non-Malay friends raving about a Malaysian produced movie which was hardly anything but decent, instead brilliant. I took the plunge after more than 10 years, and watched Sepet. I laughed, I cried, I lived in the moment. It was as brilliant as everything they said it would be. From that day on, Yasmin Ahmad was a national hero to me. Someone has finally brought Malaysia down from the wall of shame in the world of screening productions. Since then, I have not missed a single one of her movies, except for the brilliant “muallaf” which was not allowed to be screened or sold here in the homeground, but has won numerous awards internationally.

Besides movie productions, Yasmin Ahmad produced many of the heart tugging advertisements which have been aired over the years. If you have watched an impactful one, chances are this amazing lady was behind the scenes. Remember all those Petronas festival ads, yup that’s her.

Sadly, Yasmin left us yesterday due to complications caused by the stroke she had two days ago. Malaysia does not know what loss they are experiencing yet. I was heart wrenched by the news and feverishly prayed for this wonderful woman as much as I could. But as how Yasmin Ahmad would see it, she would probably say that God loves her more to take her to His side so soon.

We have lost an amazing icon. The one and only woman who perfectly executed every single work she has produced. The woman who truly understood what underprivileged or minorities truly feel being part of Malaysia. Whose neighboring countries seeked her expertise feverishly while we worry about how to censor or discredit her every new work here in her very own homeground. I have never seen such subtlety being portrayed about the issues that races experience here in Malaysia than of what Yasmin has filmed. Yasmin’s work was tasteful, world class, unique, bold and simply true to the heart. She was a woman of vision. And my only regret is that I have never had a chance to meet this icon personally to just tell her how much her work has changed my life and the lives of many others.

It is an international loss that a woman with such talent has left us today. She will be missed and she will be always the one and only Yasmin Ahmad.

May her soul rest in peace.

Pray for Yasmin Ahmad

Yasmin Ahmad our beloved and one and only "relevant" director and brain for many heart tugging commercials and movies had a stroke yesterday. She is said to be out of danger now but recovering after undergoing brain surgery...

Pray for this special wonderful woman who has touched the hearts and lives of manyh through her work...

Why do Men Cheat?

You know that familiar question we all ask our men? " baby do u still find me pretty?" or "am i still hot to you?" or "if a hot girl came on to you, would you be tempted?" The answer is always no. In whatever relationship, in whosoever's relationship, the answer is always "NO".

Learning from previous experiences, the answer "no" doesn't mean jack shit. It's just a response, a nay-say, as word to shut down the uncertainties we women have tumbling all over our brains. The fear that what just happened to the next woman might happen to us.

The No.1 reason why men cheat: Men crave sexual “variety,” according to David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas and author of The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating (BasicBooks). That ladies, equivalents to the simple reason; boredom. Sad isn't it?

Why is it always women who worry about their men cheating, and hardly ever the other way around. Maybe because of stereotypes. Men generally cheat more than women. In a survey done, it was shown that, "Approximately 40% of men seek sexual satisfaction outside their relationships, estimates Kat Hertlein, Ph.D., professor of human development at the University of Nevada - Las Vegas and a marriage and family therapist.

That number hasn’t changed much since 1950, when the famous Kinsey sex study found that 50% of U.S. men cheat at some point in their marriages."

So men cheat out of boredom, and women cheat out of vengeance. Both are equally promiscuous, but which is the lesser evil? Does it really matter, because it seems as though it is almost impossible to have a life-standing relationship these days. A friend of mine told me once. A man will cheat, not now maybe, but he will cheat, in some form or another, that day will come. These thoughts have disturbed me for years. And growing older, watching couples i know of fall apart and marriages that are based and maintained by lies and deceptions, it makes me wonder, if marriage vows should be altered to include the phrase " i will not have sexual relationships with another being till death do us part."

Just yesterday, My housemate bumped into a man we both know. A husband of a very beautiful woman, a father of two gorgeous little girls. Just a couple of months ago, we both were amazed by the transformation his wife had gone through. She must have easily shed 10 pounds and looked ravishing, more than ever. And yesterday, My housemate bumped into him with another younger girl in his arms. Variety you say? As i look at all the "datins" and "mrs" in the gym working their asses off to maintain their body, it makes me wonder what is the drive behind this conviction and perseverance. Mine, for now is purely for my own feel good feeling. Will i fall into that category one day? Botox and gym and slimming salons all for the sake of a man who you can't let go because you love him so dearly and you're fighting so hard to provide "variety" for his sexual appetite?

God knows..