In my garden there is this vine-like shrub which I planted more than five years ago. It was given to me by my cousin who told me that the plant's flowers are very sweet-smelling. She mentioned the name of the plant but it was too odd-sounding for it to be registered in my memory at that time.
Throughout the years, the shrub grew healthily with the vines spreading long and wide, to the extent that trimming need to be done. But it never bloomed... until a few weeks ago, that is. The plant has produced bunches of small white flowers that emit a fragrant smell. If I were to hazard a guess, I put the cause of the blooming to the very hot and dry weather spell that JohorBahru experienced at the beginning of the year.
The Malay name for this flower is bungasikudangan, at least that's what it is called in Johor. I have just learnt that is called by other names in other parts of Malaysia : bungakesidang, bungakeraknasi and bungatikamseladang, among others. For the fancy and peculiar names it has in Malay, the English name is a plain-sounding `bread flower'. Scientifically it is known as vallarisglabra.
A single flower is only about 15mm wide and is made up of five petals. For such a small flower, the scent it releases is quite intense.... very close to that of pandan leaves. As such, it makes a perfect complement in bungarampai, the shredded pandan potpourri normally found at Malay weddings.
I picked some of the flowers early this morning and placed them in a small ceramic basket (actually a bekasbungatelur) to create a mini bouquet. It is placed next to my work desk at home and I'm enjoying the aroma as I type this post.
In a recent post, Kak Teh of the hugely popular Choc-a-Bloc Blog, wrote about a performance by the pop band Alleycats in London which she had managed to capture on video.
Like many others, I grew up listening and singing to the many hits from Alleycats. If I am forced to sing karaoke (as would normally happen at family wedding receptions), I would choose to sing 'Sekuntum Mawar Merah Sebuah Puisi'. In my comment at Kak Teh's blog, I mentioned that this song has a special meaning to me because of something that happened years ago while I was a student in the UK. I thought that I could share the story here.
It was 1983. I shared a flat with two other Malay friends at a place called Holberry Close in Sheffield. Two other Malay students rented the flat below us. One of them was seeing this English girl who was studying medicine at the University of Sheffield. The girl's name is Kathy, but she wanted us to call her by her nickname of Coot. She hails from the town of Birkenhead on the Merseyside. Being a Liverpool FC fan, I immediately knew where that was.
One evening, my friend brought Coot over to our house for dinner... sort of wanting to introduce the Minah Salleh to our Malay cuisine, I guess. The meal was enjoyable and Coot did not seem too much troubled by the spicy taste.
After dinner, we sat around chatting about anything and everything. My friend then picked up his guitar and began to strum and sing some Malay songs. When he started to sing Sekuntum Mawar Merah, I told him to hold on a bit. For Coot's benefit, I would translate the lyrics of the song into English line by line as he sang the song.
And so began an impromptu session of song translation, delivered in the manner of a guy reading poetry to woo the heart of an English maiden.
I was doing the translation on-the-fly as it were, without prior preparation. While the exact words used were probably not the accurate translations, I believe they were close enough. I did not falter in my delivery and the overall romantic context was maintained. S Amin Shahab, the original writer of the lyrics would not have been too displeased with my effort.
At the end of our joint singing/translating performance, I could see the blushes on Coot's cheeks.
I'm including below a youtube video of the song as sung by Alleycats together with the original Malay lyrics. Sorry, I can't exactly recall the unrehearsed English translation that I did that night. Looking back, I realised that it was quite a tough thing to do... especially the line, `Berlagu dalam irama nan syahdu.'
Penyanyi : Alleycats Pengarang Lagu : M. Nasir Penulis Lirik : S. Amin Shahab
Sekuntum mawar merah sebuah puisi Untuk gadis pilihan oh.. di bulan Februari Mulanya cinta bersemi dan kehadiran Ribuan mimpi-mimpi oh.. di bulan Februari
Kemesraanmu dan cintaku Berlagu dalam irama nan syahdu Tapi mengapa hanya sementara Cinta yang menyala padam tiba-tiba
(1)
Terkenang kembali lagu cinta lama Kisah mawar merah berduri Menusuk di hati...
Haruskah ku ulangi
Apakah dosaku dan apakah salahku Sering gagal dalam bercinta Mengapa cinta hanya sementara Api yang menyala padam tiba-tiba
( ulang dari 1 )
Sekuntum mawar merah sebuah puisi Di bulan Februari
I am also including a photo taken during our small Aidilfitri makan-makan in 1983 which Coot also attended. Yours truly is the thin guy on the rightmost of the pic.
And finally... to answer Kak Teh's query in response to my comment in her blog : The relationship did not end the way of the fairy tales :-)
I was shopping with the wife at Smart Market in Pandan yesterday. We came across a drink stall that sells blogs. They have coffee blog, smoothie blog, fresh fruit blog and even an oreo blog.
Out of curiosity, I bought a bandung blog. It turned out to be just a simple ice-blended sirap bandung. The poster pic showed the drink topped with some fruits but the drink that I purchased did not contain any. And the RM1.80 price applied to the tea drinks, not the blog. I was fooled.
Why would a drink vendor want to call their products `blog' anyway? Dah tak ada nama lain ke?
Now, you can write a blog and drink one too, literally.
Okay... let's get this over with so that I can prepare myself for the return salvo from the marketing and sales people, heheheh.
Here's the 3rd and final part of the story about salespeople and engineers.
SALES STAFF AND ENGINEERS
The third…
Once upon a time, three sales people were walking through the woods and suddenly they were standing in front of a huge, wide river. But they desperately had to get to the other side. But how, with such a raging torrent? The first sales guy knelt down and prayed to the Lord : “Lord, please give me the strength to cross this river!”
*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*
The Lord gave him long arms and strong legs. Now he could swim across the river. It took him about two hours and he almost drowned several times.
BUT : he was successful!
The second sales guy, who observed this, prayed to the Lord and said : “Lord, please give me the strength AND the necessary tools to cross this river!”
*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*
The Lord gave him a tub and he managed to cross the river despite the fact that the tub almost capsized a few times.
The third salesman who observed all this, kneeled down and prayed : “Lord, please give me the strength, the means AND the intelligence to cross this river!”
*ppppppffffffuuuuuuffffff*
The Lord converted the salesman into an engineer. He took a quick glance on the map, walked a few metres upstream and crossed the bridge.
Send this to an intelligent engineer so that he/she has something to smile about; And to the sales people if you think they can stomach the truth!
Here's the second instalment of the salespeople and engineers story.
SALES STAFF AND ENGINEERS
The second...
A group of engineers and a group of sales people take a train to a conference. Each salesperson holds a ticket. But the entire group of engineers had bought only a single ticket. The sales people are just shaking their heads and are secretly pleased that the arrogant engineers will finally get what they deserve.
Suddenly one of the engineers calls out, “The conductor is coming!”. At once, all the engineers jump up and squeeze into one of the toilets. The conductor checks the tickets of the sales people. When he notices that the toilet is occupied, he knocks on the door and says, “Ticket, please!”. One of the engineers slides the ticket under the door and the conductor continues merrily on his round.
For the return trip, the sales people decide to use the same trick. They buy only one ticket for the entire group but they are baffled when they realize that the engineers didn’t buy any tickets at all.
After a while, one of the engineers announces again, “The conductor is coming!” Immediately all the sales people race into a toilet and lock themselves in.All the engineers leisurely walk to the other toilet. Before the last engineer enters the toilet, he knocks on the toilet occupied by the sales people and says, “Ticket please!”
And the moral of the story?
Sales people like to use the method of the engineers, but they don’t really understand them.
In my garden there is this vine-like shrub which I planted more than five years ago. It was given to me by my cousin who told me that the plant's flowers are very sweet-smelling. She mentioned the name of the plant but it was too odd-sounding for it to be registered in my memory at that time.
I picked some of the flowers early this morning and placed them in a small ceramic basket (actually a bekas bunga telur) to create a mini bouquet. It is placed next to my work desk at home and I'm enjoying the aroma as I type this post.
