Still; Know who you are.( J.K.)

I was never a good student but i had a few great teachers who had helped to shape my thinking mind and often enough I absorbed their ways and methods without realizing it. I was a rebel in school and was also accused of being a dreamer; my mind was seldom where it was suppose to be. Chalks, erasers even thick books were thrown at me while in class in order to attract my attention; my gaze was often out of the windows when classes were in progress. Except for my math and science classes I did excellent in the others which managed to keep me afloat in school till i was in form five.
My experience with math classes since i was in the primary school which was at the Francis Light primary School in Georgetown, Penang was a horror story. There was a time when I was punished for every multiplication table i failed which included standing up, then failing the next i was made to lower my shorts which bare my bottom as in those days kids never had underwear on, then failing the next I was made to stand on the chair; then failing the next i was marched to the principal's office to be caned on my behind. Till this day I have hated my math teachers and maths became a form of mental torture. For years I carried the shame and hatred in me against those who inflicted the pain and shame that I had to bear.
The horror continued to haunt me into my secondary school education where my eldest brother was one of the teaching staff. It was during these years that i decided to stand up and say no; enough was enough. I told my secondary school math teacher one Mr. Andrew Heng that he was wasting my time and I his and asked to be excused from math classes. he agreed and allowed me to leave for the library during his classes. On the same day he asked me to take a walk with him to the beach near our school and gave me some sound advice about myself. One of the things he told me was that i had to slow down and not think too much like an adult.
When the LCE (Lower cert. of Education) came I walked out of the examination hall a soon as I completed writing my name on the test paper; I did the same when the SC (School Cert.) came two years later.I knew i was going against the grain jeopardizing my future even as I stood up from the table but i also felt a sense of freedom from something that i abhor; i hated being forced no matter by who and for this I had taken quite a few slaps on my face by a few well meant educators; on looking back i can still feel the stinks.

"Krishnamurti talks of two instruments available to the human being - the instrument of knowledge which enables him to gain mastery over technical skills, and intelligence which is born of observation and self-knowing.

Real education means that a human mind, your mind, not only is capable of being excellent in mathematics, geography and history, but also can never, under any circumstances, be drawn into the stream of society. Because that stream which we call living, is very corrupt, is immoral, is violent, is greedy. That stream is our culture."

I gave up the prospect of making it through life based on my educational criteria as soon as i left the secondary school with a Grade three Certificated which did not carry much weight as far as any further education was concern. I found myself working for a Helicopter company ( Bristow Helicopters based in Kuala Terengganu) as a radio operator.This was primarily because my English was good; it was then that my education in life began. I worked for the company for over two years and later went on to join the Oil Drilling Rig, The Discoverer 2 which was doing an exploration off the coast of Terengganu. I worked on board as a Rough Neck working right on the drilling platform; it was not a job for the faint hearted as one has to work on twelve hours shifts in the hot blazing sun out in the middle of the ocean. While on this job i got to meet Rough tough Americans from Texas mostly and i learned to stand up for myself despite their sizes and crude manners towards the locals.Being the only man who could understand English I watched with anger as they cursed and swore every filthy expression that came to their mouth towards the Malays who were mostly sons of fishermen with little education. I kept my silence until one day when i was confronted to do something against my will by the deck boss. It came down to we had a face off with an ax handle laying in between us on the floor. We both looked at it and then at each other; he was twice my size and I knew that had i made any move it would be my last possibly, but i stood my ground and told him simply that it was not that i refuse to climb to the top on the Derrick and start painting but its just that i would like to finish doing what i was doing first. It shocked him I could sense, that I could converse in English to him in a calm clear manner, he turned and walked away without a word; then I noticed that this was being watched by the whole crew on the platform as everyone stopped working expecting a fight.
From then on I was looked upon with a little more respect from both the Expats and the locals on the platform. The swearing and cursing became less whenever i was around, especially when I told the Americans that to call a Malay a 'Mother fucker' was like asking for a death wish.One of the Americans, a native American by decent became friendly with my and told me that i should quit the job as it was not paying what i deserved and that i should find my way to America some day; which I did. later in my life and spent 21 years of my life getting to know Americans in the US.

The picture above is of two of my teachers and mentors while i was struggling with my teen years. The gentleman standing was the late Artist Mr. Redza Piyadasa or Pia as he was known among frineds and the gentleman sitting beside me was Mr. Ong Them Loon my industrial arts and design teacher who left the teaching profession to join a timber company later in Kuala Lmpur; I barely remember visiting him once at his factory before i left for the US. Pia went on to become one of Malaysia's well known and respected or rejected contemporary Artist depending on who you talk to. Pia was a character all in his own right ; born of Sri Lankan or Ceylonese decent he carried his own chip on his shoulder just like the rest of us who felt the pressures of being a minority of the third kind in this country. Pia practically lived on black coffee and cigarettes; it was his trade mark that we at the School who knew him. He was a voracious reader and his mind was always on warp speed like you can feel his thoughts generating all the time like a machine.
Mr. ong helped or did most of the construction of these ply wood boxes and together i helped to sand them down and prepared them for the perfect finish that Pia painted on the later. The piece along with a few others ended up at the National Art Gallery in KL as Pia's first solo exhibition there. (?)  My last encounter with Pia was at his house in Subang Jaya (?).I had returned to the country while living in Japan sometime between 1995-98. He had asked me what i thought of his latest works which were Photo Etchings of older black and white pictures of local folks with colors added. I gave my honest opinion as he asked me to; I told him I liked his original works of the past better as those i saw were already done by art students in Japan. The next thing I knew I was being booted out of his house! It was out of sheer respect that i did not drop him with a punch at the gate to his home. For a man who had the tenacity to criticize others, Piyadasa could not swallow his own pill. I is no doubt he was a good artist in more ways than one respect and deserve the position he had attained in the contemporary art scene here in Malaysia but to those who were close to him Pia was also an enigma.

"The function of education, then, is to help you from childhood not to imitate anybody, but to be yourself all the time. And this is a most difficult thing to do: whether you are ugly or beautiful, whether you are envious or jealous, always to be what you are, but understand it. To be yourself is very difficult, because you think that what you are is ignoble, and that if you could only change what you are into something noble it would be marvellous; but that never happens. Whereas, if you look at what you actually are and understand it, then in that very understanding there is a transformation. So freedom lies, not in trying to become something different, nor in doing whatever you happen to feel like doing, nor in following the authority of tradition, of your parents, of your guru, but in understanding what you are from moment to moment.
You see, you are not educated for this; your education encourages you to become something or other - but that is not the understanding of yourself. Your `self' is a very complex thing; it is not merely the entity that goes to school, that quarrels, that plays games, that is afraid, but it is also something hidden, not obvious. It is made up, not only of all the thoughts that you think, but also of all the things that have been put into your mind by other people, by books, by the newspapers, by your leaders; and it is possible to understand all that only when you don't want to be somebody, when you don't imitate, when you don't follow - which means, really, when you are in revolt against the whole tradition of trying to become something. That is the only true revolution, leading to extraordinary freedom. To cultivate this freedom is the real function of education.

An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying. Which means what? That there is intelligence only when there is no fear, when you are willing to rebel, to go against the whole social structure in order to find out what God is, or to discover the truth of anything."

One of the positive act during my teen years was to join the 'Silat Seni Gayong' or the Malay Art of Self Defence and later became an instructor. My teacher was a very highly educated gentleman and was at the time the Head of the Religious department for the State of Terengganu. Under his tutelage and guidance I was fortunate enough to learn more about being a Muslim as well as being a man standing up for my rights.

 "So intelligence comes into being with the understanding of yourself; and you can understand yourself only in relation to the world of people, things and ideas. Intelligence is not something that you can acquire, like learning; it arises with great revolt, that is, when there is no fear - which means, really, when there is a sense of love. For when there is no fear, there is love."
                                                                        Excerpts from J. Krishnamurti