Amidst the calming sanity of the
countryside the children’s school holidays hit me like the Dengue fever. I was knocked feverishly off my feet, soon to
be swept off towards Kuala Lumpur, once again to be warded, and herded amongst
the vehicular lemmings, desperately seeking their cliff tops to spill over.
My feelings regarding the city (perpetually
ambiguous) hung around me like a suspiciously cheap Chow Kit perfume. Where were all the water buffalo, where were
my mining pools, where the hills and my grand open spaces and where was I.
I reconciled myself slowly to the very
different delights of city life, gradually settling, knowing the transition to
be temporary. And then, once again, the
city began to attack.
I was lunching in Bangsar. A very fine Indian meal was slipping gently
through my gullet and down into parts of my anatomy best left unmentioned,
eased by a nicely sweet lassi drink. I
was savouring the complexities of a tasty spiced chicken, and, of course,
talking at the same time.
Spiced chicken, as well as having slightly
singed spices also has strands of coconut, desiccated by the cooking
process. I have a sinus condition which
makes swallowing dry things quite difficult, so I usually mind what I eat, and
how I eat unless, that is, I am talking at the time.
An infinitely small particle of dried
coconut lodged itself into my throat, and started to irritate. I tried to resist coughing, turning red in
the process. I swallowed, hoping to
clear the object - no luck. I
coughed. I coughed again. I coughed and grabbed the sweet lassi,
finishing it in one go; then some water, and desperately gesticulated for more
lassi which, fortunately, arrived soon.
I downed the lassi in one, like some
seasoned beer drinker with his mates down the pub, having an evening off from
the wife. I had finally stopped
coughing. Severely red faced and
embarrassed I sheepishly peered around, expecting to see countless faces intent
on my predicament. All were busy with lives
of their own, completely unconcerned with a suffocating white man - much relieved
I asked for the bill.
Later in the week, having fully recovered
from one embarrassment, I was chaperoning three young girls to a mall cinema. We had attained the second level of the mall,
but still had three more levels full of holidaying children and parents to go before
we reached the cinema complex. To save
time, and avoid as much hassle as possible, I decided we should take the
tourist lift.
One lift came, opened, closed it doors, and,
full of squashed faces continued on its journey. We waited a reasonable while, and then a
second lift came and stopped. I quickly ushered
my three wards into the lift, finding just enough space to do so, and all
seemed fine. On pressing the floor
number button the lift doors refused to close - the lift refused to budge.
There was something distinctly Peter
Sellers about that moment, the moment that I noticed the red flashing sign, which
had not been there before. In a nice
warning sort of red the sign flashed, drawing attention to itself and to the
legend - “overload”.
No sooner had I seen the sign, looked guiltily
at the girls, than a loud voice felt obliged to read the notice aloud, in
English, for all to hear - OVERLOAD. Thank
you I thought, I got the message first time around, and, embarrassed and
mumbling, herded the girls from the lift and made our way to the escalator,
ready to traverse the next three flights.
