When The Door Bell Rings

... I cannot help but think of so many things that can come with it. A friend could be calling on us unexpectedly or it could be the repair man for the air-condition unit that has been giving us constant troubles lately. Air-conditions are not made to last as it used to be in those days, like the rented one we used to have in our bedroom. I cannot recall the name of the aircon company that used to operate these rental units for homes. Oh yes, now I remember. It is called Carrier Air Condition and it makes household name with its special song "Carrier Can" which is regularly heard over the radio then. At a very reasonable monthly rent an aircon unit is provided for any house and the unit is regularly maintained at no cost to the renter. Hence we have one for our house then and as far as I can recall, the air-con unit remains working without any faults for many years without a need to call for a replacement. That is then very convenient indeed for us. We own our own aircon unit only when the company ceases operation. The ones that we have had all these past years never lasts more than five years and indeed this latest one that is now giving us all the troubles and costly too, has been with us for less than three years ! When we ask the repair man why this thing has to happen to our unit, he gives us a simple answer that it is just our bad luck. These days he says, there is no assurance that even a well-established and branded units are troubled free. These are now made to look very attractive but in reality they are not made to last. Quite understandably so with the existence of so many air-con repair providers these days - a reflection of what to expect with present day aircon machines.

Most frustrating is the fact that last night all of a sudden the aircon stops by itself. Attempts to get it started become futile and both of us have to move to another room to sleep for the night. The faults, the repairman says is faulty something or other in the main outdoor machine and the computer chip in the main unit which fails to trigger the message to send electrical impulse to start the outside machine. Whatever he utters seems gutturals to me since he speaks very poor English and Malay for that matter. So we ask him just how much it will cost us to have these repaired or replaced and he comes back with a shocking statement of over five hundred ringgit ! Only hardly a month ago we have spent four hundred ringgit to replace the water pump on the unit. With this latest charge and the ones we have had prior to this, the repairs will easily now total almost the cost of a one-horse power brand-new unit ! Of course for our room we require a two horse power unit to complement the big space that we have and even then at times Ainul complaints that it is not cold enough. Siti Jalnah, our very close friend up north used to comment that Ainul should live in the Arctic!

Thus when the door bell rings, it cannot be any of our children coming back to join us for our lunch. No, most certainly it cannot be because this is not Saturday or Sunday when they are off from work. They normally come over to join us for lunch or dinner and occasionally for breakfast but this happens almost always on weekends or during major public holidays that coincide with religious festivities or State or Federal holidays. These days, all our children are pretty tied up with their own families and somehow we begin to accept the fact that they are not about to visit us as often as they used to and most noticeably is the rarity of the occasions of their sleeping over for the night like they used to do before. Hence, when the door bell rings, we would very much welcome the thought that it could be any one of them making a surprised call ! Ainul quite often these days blame me for the reason why our children do not sleep over because we ourselves seldom visit them and less so sleeping over at their place. To come to think of it, it is quite true that as far as I can recall, we have slept only twice at Farahat's house and none at Farah's apartment and at Izzat's house, but of course this excludes the times that we do stay at both Farah's and Farazil's during those trips that we make it overseas at their homes there.

Most recently we have a very nice time at Farazil's place in Kota Kinabalu - a trip that now urges us to make a repeat if the fares are right for the time that we reckon we want to be there. These days, the cheapest flight seem to be with Air Asia with charges Zero fare one way, if you can manage to grab it early enough although the return fare can be slightly more but in total can still be pretty cheap in comparison to normal fares on other airlines. With Air Asia, there is a catch to the offer. Whatever is quoted excludes other charges such as the airport tax and the fuel charges, the latter of which could be quite substantial. However, the overall total for a ticket , if chosen properly, can still be quite attractive for the average income earner. That is the reason why Air Asia is very popular these days. On board the flight however, we are deprived of the normal frills of coffee/tea/ juices and light meals although these are available upon request but on cash payment. Those who are regular on these flights are already well adapted to the idea of no food and drinks on board. It matters little on those short flights of less than three hours such as the ones we have experienced to Sabah and Jakarta. How one wishes to travel is very subjective. The food served on Malaysian Airlines for instance has never impressed us. They lack taste and freshness. May be it is better not to have them if it can be helped. In those days, these food seem to taste a lot better. May be these days the airline caterers chef lack imagination and take less pain to ensure that these are tasteful.

Only a moment ago a friend of mine mail me pictures of the cruise ship of the Royal Caribbean aptly called Freedom of the Seas. Weighing some 162,000 Gross Tons, it shows what it has to offer on board. The Royal Promenade and The Arcadia Theatre are just fantastic. Almost everything looks gigantic and most elegantly deacored and furnished on board. It even has water skiing at the Flow Rider area and a boxing ring in the gym area. Of course there is no saying the variety of food that it has to suit everyone's palate. Noticeably the suites are spacious and very much like those in five or six star hotels. The entertainments available beats anyone's expectations as is the tradition with all these cruise ships. The little that we have had in past three cruises are enough to savour our yearning to be on this mighty cruise ship. May be we will make it one of these days. A dream is a wish your heart makes, as the saying goes and almost always if you really wish on your dream it can really come true ! I cannot belittle the many times in the past when I wish on something, it always come true ! Allah is Great indeed to grant this humble creature of His those wishful thoughts and dreams to come to reality. Ainul and I have always wanted to travel the world to see places and be on cruise ships besides of course having a nice home to live in and He has granted all these to us ! Our advice to our young readers is to travel as much as you can when you are young and healthy . There is no denying that to do that you will have to have enough money. Who has money to travel unless you are really dirt rich but money you can borrow to travel. What money you earn will sooner or later be spent on things that are most times unnecessary . We used to renovate our house annually those years past until one bright day we say to ourselves " What the Heck, let's use it for travels instead " and after that we never look back !

There are occasions in the past when the door bell rings, it is for that special messenger's mail or parcel deliveries. The good mails and parcels we welcome heartily but when these mails are from the lawyers or income tax servers, they cause alarm to us. When I was actively engaged in business in those early years, we are always served with lawyers letters demanding payments for the contractors or suppliers for whose payments we have lagged behind or cannot afford to pay in full. There are times when the door rings and a group of people with written demands from the Court wishing to enter our house to serve and execute the orders of the Court to foreclose on our house for nonpayment to contractors and such like people or companies. These are most alarming and disturbing to our otherwise peaceful living and they are all through no faults of ours personally but the companies that I happen to be associated with, to which I have signed my personal guarantees for their Bank loans. It has been most fortunate that I somehow manage to avoid the calamity that could have ensued from such Court Orders. The one particular incidence that merits telling to is the event that leads to my indirect contribution to build a church.

It all started over my long time wish to operate and own a cinema. Our development company has as one of its land banks a half completed cinema project which has been abandoned by the previous owners from whom we acquire it. Seeing the opportunity to fulfill my life dream, I do all the contacts with Bank Pembangunan to secure sufficient loan to complete the project and hence the cinema itself. At that time we can easily boast having the best seats, projectors and sound systems and the biggest cinema hall in the country - easily matching up with the likes of Shaw and Cathay cinema operators of the day. Unique to ours is that we have a special viewing area for VIP's ! However, since our cinema is situated in a predominantly Chinese area, our Board members unanimously agree to screen Chinese movies only with the exceptional English or American movies as the need arises. Opening nights are so exciting for us when for nights on end we have full house and the trends continue for almost three months solid. We are laughing our way to the Bank daily. Suddenly almost without any warning, we are hit with half full hall which eventually leads to trickle audience. The Shaw and Cathay cinemas all over the country including their head offices outlets in Singapore seize to exist. People suddenly stops going to the movies. There is now the video craze when people rent or buy videos to watch at home and quite logically so when these are cheap compared to the movies. It is not long after that after just nine months of operation, we have to call it a day too. Almost instantly we fail to meet Bank's monthly installments on the loan. We cannot even service the monthly interest in full.

As if the calamity to our cinema is not enough, all over the country, housing development suffers a slump due to world economic recession. Our housing development companies too are not spared on this but fortunately we halt in time on new housing development and instead use the time to consolidate and plan for worse time ahead. However, it is not so with our cinema project. The Bank starts to close in on us very fast indeed and before we know it, our cinema company is about to be declared bankrupt and the cinema to be auctioned off by the Bank. I cannot do anything to help my ailing company other than to pray for Divine intervention. That is when the door bell rings or rather there is a knock on my office door. A short stubby looking bespectacled Chinese walks in and I bid him to sit down across my desk. In my mind, this is not the time for another one to come calling for a payment from us. What comes next is indeed Divine help and intervention. Straight to the point he asks me if I am willing to sell to his church group our cinema at a price we are willing to offer. Somehow I am quite frank with him and tells him that our cinema is about to be auctioned and the going price is four million ringgit. He right away says that his group will not bargain and will accept that price or slightly more too if we so wish. The only thing he says, he will need a week to raise the initial ten percent down payment as a token of confirmed purchase and the balance to be settled within three weeks. In short he needs a month to complete the purchase. I then tell him that we will sell the cinema at four million twenty thousand ringgit , the extra twenty to cover for the Banks interest. He agrees and we then informs the Bank of the meeting and requests for a month postponement on the auction. The Bank agrees. It takes exactly a week for the ten percent down payment to come to us and three weeks later, we are fully paid. The Holy Gospel Church remains till this day. That is how I indirectly help to set up a church ! Allah Knows Best !

written by Tunku Farid