My name is Gana

  At last I have retired. Don’t get me wrong. It is not from employment, for I have retired a number of times from formal employment. My first retirement was in 1993 followed by another in 2000, yet another in 2005. I am still gainfully employed and by the look of things it may continue so long as I am able to crawl to the Office which incidentally is a 6 by 10 feet of a room in my home, equipped with a PC and WIFI facilities.   Yes, I am one of the lucky few who could work from home even before the arrival of Covid 19 and the unpredictable SOP’s. But the retirement I am talking about is retirement from being a handyman around the house which is the lot of husbands I know. Whatever the repairs at home be it plumbing, gardening, masonry, or electrical work I was the first port of call for my wife. The repairman is only called if I botched up the work. Usually the bills are higher than what they would have charged if the work was handled by them from the start. The reason is...

Coping with Retirement Many of us who have passed our retirement age, will be wondering what went wrong. Your monthly pay packet has ceased. If you are a pensioner provided a pension by your employer, the government or Socso for being an invalid, life may not be that difficult depending on how you have planned for the day when you have left the workplace. At least you have a monthly income that may not be enough for your needs, but some money that will prevent you from starving. The vast majority of us who have no pensions but only the EPF savings find that the retirement fund is not sufficient to last even five years. One group of my friends who retired still continue to service housing loans. These are guys who bought houses late in their careers. While on full salary the monthly instalments were manageable; however, it is a nightmare to handle the monthly instalment with the little savings we have in our EPF or savings. Even Government pensioners who draw half their monthly salari...

    Geet’s   ! When you are a grandfather, living all alone you yearn for company. It could be a friend, the wife or your grandchildren. One day I was all alone as my wife had taken abode at our alternate home some distance away from the Capital city  where we usually reside.  Rang up a friend, my usual lunch buddy - he was at lunch with someone. I resigned to eating alone with Grab food. As I was washing my plate I saw the plate  my grand-daughter Geet's uses when she comes over. Unfortunately the pandemic was playing havoc and I had not  seen her for months. I decided to send her a poem I had crafted while washing her plate. The following poem  immediately brought a response and she came to have lunch with me the next day.  The following is the poem and Geets response. I am Geets   I stand forlorn worn out Have not seen a morsel of rice the last 6 months over Have lost my metallic shine not out of hunger but thru disuse Paati uses me o...

Dragon flies are a vanishing breed, and I am happy our garden has attracted them. They remind me of my younger days when innocently we used to indulge in cruel games. One game we used to indulge in is to catch the dragon flies tie strings on their tails and attempt to fly them like kites. It was indeed cruel but we were young and not in a position to know that our cruel acts could cause the extinction of one of   God’s beautiful creations. I believe my generation has been responsible for wiping out many species of animals and birds. One I can remember is the flying fox, a species of bats that live on fruits. They have wings that can span 4 feet. They are a delicacy and I have not seen it around for more than fifty years. Another is the Ikan sepat a fresh-water fish about 6” long.  They abound in padi fields, but we had them too  in a stream in my Kampong. They are indeed tasty but bony and the last I saw them was in Pudu Market when we were in Jalan Belfield Kuala Lumpur....