Category: Thoughts

What A Lulu

The roads were peppered with mysterious stationery cars that stalled in the middle of the road, it seemed.

Jugjet found his Lulu moment when he realised he was tailgating illegally parked or driverless cars. All of a sudden, I saw a LuLu.

Like a Lulu, I felt like a ‘Jakun’ seeing the bright lights of Las Vegas for the first time. Lulu is also a local slang word for noobiness or a numbskulled person but usually used affectionately.

LuLu, the neon celebrated building here, as I found out later, is an international retail chain with presence in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, India and Indonesia. The lights of Vegas were soon outdone by an Yindian car we saw moments later. Coming up next.

Panasonic Lumix GM-1, ISO 3200, f4, 1/50 sec.

#thaipusam #chariot #procession #lulu #neonlights #lulu #hypermart #streetphotography #night

A Smashing Time

A Smashing Time.

The ritual of smashing and breaking coconuts on the procession route seems very aggressive and wasteful. Ironically, it symbolises the surrender of one’s ego at the feet of the presiding deity Lord Muruga.

it leaves a trail of debris which were promptly cleaned up by an accompanying Alam Flora crew.

Panasonic Lumix GM-1, ISO 3200, f4, 1/50 sec.

#thaipusam #chariot #procession #coconuts #ritual #streetphotography

Trees Are Poems The Earth Writes Upon The Sky

A re-visit to Pasir Penambang. the small seafood and fishing town off Kuala Selangor, brought a smile to my face. Happy to see the old tree in the middle of the road still standing and alive. In a society with scant regard for conservation and preservation of nature and old things, it was surprising to see the tree still in the middle of the road spared – four years on.

I last photographed it in 2013 and titled it King Of The Road – Small Town. Big Tree. Instead of using sepia, I used Nik Collection’s Color Efex Pro 4 Bi-Colour Filter for the current image It is similar to bi-color Cokin filters of old days.

Although published in my old blog and on Instagram, I made the mistake of not tagging it adequately. Finding the previous image was tough and it took a while.

Upper: Olympus OM-D, ISO 200, f11, 1/640 sec. (2013)
Lower: Panasonic Lumix GM-1, ISO 200, f10, 1/320 sec (2017)

#pasirpenamambang #kualaselangor #smalltown #tree #nature #landscape

Bukit Hipster

Bukit Broga is as challenging as climbing a woman’s breast in comparison to other hills. It was made barren by hipsters making obligatory weekend pilgrimages.

Malay hipsters climb up to do yoga poses for selfies (and to add a cliched poem or quote as captions for Instagram) and Chinese hipsters go to the peak to do a “Christ the Redeemer” pose ala the famous statue in Rio, Brazil. WTF?!, I know.

So can someone explain how that poor guy get lost in gentle Broga Hill recently and was found only 7 days later? Baffling, right?
No automatic alt text available.

#hill #hike #broga #hipsters

Die Mofo!

There is always one sick mofo who will wait until 3am or abouts. When everything quiets down and everyone is asleep in bed. He will sneak out and set off a fire cracker or exploding fireworks that sounds like an atomic bomb or louder.

It rattles windows, shake the ground, trigger car and bank alarms, make babies wake up crying, kill heart patients. All under the guise of Chinese New Year custom, tradition or culture.

Fuck you! It is not a culture, custom, tradition nor auspicious timing or feng shui, mofos. It is pure evil and a sadistic premeditated action.

Frightened birds will take off blindly from trees in the dark, mother cats will run away in fear from alleys. Abandoned kittens will die of hunger and baby birds will starve to death on trees because of you.

Evil mofo; ask yourself this? How can it be fulfilling or rewarding when everyone in the neighborhood curses you? The accumulated karmic payback will hit you harder than the bomb you set off intentionally at 3 am.

Hope someone can translate this to Chinese and the message gets across.