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More on Angkara Cinta

Yes, I think I am becoming obsessed with this Malay Drama show. I always look forward to watching the show every day. The irony of Angkara Cinta is despite the title of the show, it is not a love story at all. At least not to me. Sure, the are several love stories in the show such as Luqman and Adira, Haqeem and Adira, Haqeem and Jijie, and Luqman and Adira again, but these love stories are just in the background and do not form the major part of the storyline. The reason I say this is because if you take away these love stories, Angkara Cinta would still stand on its own. We would still be able to see the struggle of Luqman and Haqeem, as well as, Indah and Mariani in dealing with the situations that they are in. And to me, that's what makes Angkara Cinta great and stand out relative to other Malay Drama on the television nowadays. The show also highlighted several mental health issues that are not talked about in Malaysia generally, and the Malay community specially. Malays, for ...

Rise and Fall of a Government

Many detractors of Tun Dr Mahathir blamed him for causing the fall of the Pakatan Harapan (PH) government in February 2020. They blamed him for quitting his position for no apparent reasons whatsoever. To be honest, none of us (save for a select few) really know what had happened behind the curtains and behind Tun's thick skull. As long as we are not Tun himself or those select few, we are all merely speculating at best. To me, I just want to focus on what Tun had said publicly because those are on record and no one can really dispute them. Tun had repeatedly said that he had resigned because he no longer had the support of the parliament as Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia (Bersatu). Two things here, mathematically, what Tun said about the his support from the parliament is true. Secondly, this was what Tun had said, what really went behind the scene was really up to anyone's guess. For one moment, let us just take Tun's words at their face value. The moment Tun felt that he...

The Role of the Head of State

We have heard the #kitamintalima campaign and more recently, a group of people from the Wangsa Maju constituency is appealing to the King for the current State of Emergency to be ended earlier than the 1 August 2021 set by the current emergency proclamation. While I appreciate the intention of these people as there are those who believe and think that the current government is incompetent in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, I cannot fully agree with the campaign being directed to the King. As a constitutional monarch, the King can only act upon the advise of the Prime Minister and there are very rare occasions where the King has the absolute power or discretion in carrying out his duties. One of the discretion that he has is in determining the who should be the Prime Minister. In this respect, he had used his discretion in February 2020. Some might argue that the King should have summoned for a parliament sitting so that the MPs can openly vote for the new Prime Minister. While that may...

Angkara Cinta to have 115 Episodes

 Angkara Cinta television drama was initially planned for 70 episodes before the drama series was extended to 90 episodes. Yesterday, it was announced that the show will go on to 115 episodes. This means, the final episode of Angkara Cinta would be aired on 12 April 2021, just a day before the start of Ramadhan. I now wonder whether there will be an Aidil Fitri edition of Angkara Cinta a month after that last episode. In any case, I still enjoy watching the drama series and fortunately for me, I have not found the storyline as draggy. I guess, if you have watched soap operas or telenovelas before this, it is harder for you to find the storyline as a bit too slow and too long. I do however feel that the story on Luqman's jealousy problem is a bit "been there, done that". I seriously hope that they will not dwell too much on that storyline. My criticism now is the fact that they have not resolve the Mokhzan's storyline yet, which is disappointing. I supposed, the purpos...

Working From Home

It has been almost a year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic and the end is far away. The pandemic had changed many ways how we live our lives, where working and schooling from home have now become the new normal. I have been working from home since March 2020 and the transition was not too difficult as I had initially anticipated. However, things changed when I decided to join a new organisation in December 2020. I will tell you that joining a new organisation under a 100% working-from-home setting is not easy. I guess it is human nature to have face-to-face connections with another human being. Joining a new organisation with new colleagues behind the computer screen is definitely not the same with the usual physical reporting to duty. And settling down is not easy too because there are a lot of stuff that need to be arranged for example, the staff access card, office laptop, setting up the virtual private network, etc. It is day 40 at the new workplace and I don't think I have...

Angkara Cinta

I don't typically watch a Malay television series on my own. If I do, it is because my wife or colleagues influenced me to watch them. I don't pay attention too much on Malay television series because I usually pay more attention to the US or the UK television series. More so now, with Netflix, Malay television series just simply fall off my radar. However, it is a bit different with Angkara Cinta. For your information, the series was originally slated for 70 episodes and they just screened Episode 60 last Friday. And now, the production had decided to extend the series to 90 episodes. I guess the series is a hit now? Angkara Cinta is a story about two boys (later men) who have the same name, Luqmanul Haqeem Bin Razlan, but lived in two different worlds. As you can probably imagine, one of them was born with a silver spoon and one of them was not. In a very predictable plot, they met and their lives intertwined in ways that none of them could have imagined. Why do I continue to...

2011 That is Almost Over

In just one more day, 2011 will draw its final curtain. And looking back over the last twelve months made me realized how far have I come this year. 2011 has always been a very personal year to me, especially since I have started to plan for my engagement ceremony since July 2010 (Yes, that's how long I've been planning my wedding). I guess the highlight of the year began with significant change in my work. It was in March 2011 where I was finally given the opportunity to cover the Airline sector after lobbying for it since I joined the department in February 2009. I'm not saying the Consumer sector was not fun, but the Airline sector has always been a dear to me since I joined the company. But I guess, the Airline sector proved to be a lot tougher to cover than I expected. I had anticipated cyclical earnings and high risk from jet fuel price volatility but, MAS gave a whole different challenge to my skills as an analyst. The next highlight for the year was my engagement ce...