ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT

I would like to think that crisis is the mother of inventions. How often have we encountered this situation in our everyday life, when for instance when there is hardly any special food to get hold off we simply resort to frying the eggs to satisfy our hunger and that is if it happens in our own house, but what if you happen to be lost in the jungle or lost in the dessert ? Recently by chance I happen to watch a Discovery episode about survival in the outback in Berkeley Australia. There is this guy who wishes to experience and undergo that possible hardship of being lost in that particular region where no human settlement is in sight unless he uses basic common sense to find a river that could possibly lead him to one. So there he is lost initially in the arid jungle of the desert perimeter. He is beset by hunger at first after he has consumed all his available food and worst of all he has exhausted his water ration and there is no water in sight anywhere. Realizing that he might die of thirst rather than hunger, he resorts to saving his urine in his water bottle each time he urinates and of course drinks it to survive and overcome his thirst. He describes the taste of the urine as very salty and turgid smell but offers to reason out that urine consists of 80% water and the rest other elements such as sugar and salt and impurities that cannot harm the body if consumed. Well, that is his self reassurance for himself having to drink his own urine.

Whilst on the subject of urine, I recall what a Chinese friend told me that at times when you feel that no amount of medicine or antibiotics seem to work to overcome ailments such as fever, cold or cough, the best medicine is definitely to drink your own urine. The urine will act as a electrolyte for the whole body and assist to stabilize its instability caused by the fever, cold and the cough. He talks by experience and tells me that even if one is not sick, it is good to drink your own urine once a month so that the body’s elements are regularized and maintained. Of course I have as yet to try this and despite all the coughs and cold that have attacked me since I last met my Chinese friend, I cannot summon up the courage to resort to his method of self preservation !

Coming back to the Discovery adventurer, the guy seems to be able to overcome his failing energy and fatigue after he drinks that urine. That could proof the truth of my Chinese friend’s advice after all. Anyway, later on as the guy progresses through the arid jungle he comes across a spider’s nest in the rock outcrops. He is fortunate enough to know that that particular spider has little venom that can hurt man, and naturally enough, just like what we see in " Fear Factor" he gets hold of the spider and eats it whole, whilst describing his needs for the protein that the creature provides. Next comes the sudden threatening storm and rain and he needs to find a way to shelter for the night and avoid countering wild animals that can hurt him whilst asleep. He uses common sense to gather twines and leaves and tree branches that he binds together to create a simple make-shift shelter from the torrential rain. Earlier he comes across cotton seeds and keep some cotton for later use to build up a fire. Gathering some fine twigs and dry sticks, and of course wedging the cotton in between these, with the help of his cigarette lighter, he manages to kindle a fire to keep himself warm in the cold night.

Since he is still hungry for a real meal of sorts, he starts to look around for snakes since the area is well known for this. Again, this guy knows just which snake is poisonous and others not so. Naturally, when he spots a snake, he instantly knows that this one should make a good meal for the day . Grabbing the snake by the tail he next gets hold of its head and flings it over his shoulders to carry it all the way till he reaches a shelter amongst the rocks outcrop and there he is seen to kill the snake by bashing it on the rocks ! Of course eating it next is easier over a fire. He says the bar-b-que snake simply tastes delicious !

Crisis is the mother on inventions as compared to the saying "need is the mother of invention". With the latter, one has all the time to find a solution to a need such as the invention of the light bulb by Thomas Edison, as we are that it took him almost a thousand experiments before he finally succeeded. That is not a crisis. If you are in a plane crash and needs to open the emergency door that happens to jam up, what will you do then ? If you are in a lift and suddenly it stops midway due to no apparent common fault of no power or electricity, what will you do ? If you are out on a motor boat in the open sea and the outboard motor suddenly stops due to mechanical failure to which you have no experience to repair it, what will you do ? If you are in a locked car and you cannot open the doors due to some contraptions failure, what will you do ? If you are driving through a cross traffic section and your car suddenly stalls for no reason when only the other day you had it serviced, what will you do ? If as you momentarily stop for the next change of light at a traffic junction and an intruder gets into your front or back seat with a knife or a gun jabbed at your back, what will you do ? If your child gets his head stuck at the gate’s iron railings and howls in pain, what will you do ? If anyone happens to faint in front of you, what will you do ?

All these happenings can take place at any one time in our life. I term these as crisis. Are we prepared for them ? Quite frankly, for most of these I cannot imagine what I will do, but I believe if we keep cool, meaning we calm ourselves rather than panic, a solution will surface. One incidence which both Ainul and I experienced some three years ago was when we were confronted by three robbers who waited for us in our own house. They were not burglars since they never broke in to enter our house. They got "invited" by an open gate which presumably must have been left wide open by Farahat when he left the house after fetching Maisarah and Muhammad. He must have assumed that Irman, our male house helper, would close the gate. That never happened because the guy was too busy with his gardening to even realize that Farahat had left the house. This is evidenced by what took place next.

Both of us were at the local shops to do quick shopping. When we returned home, we saw the gate wide open and assumed that Farahat must have come and left with his kids, which was rightly so, of course, and so we entered the house without thinking anything untoward that could happen with the opened gate. Just to ensure ourselves that our grandchildren had left us, I shouted for their names and not receiving any response, I headed for the stairs to go upstairs whilst I told Ainul to go to the kitchen to get hold of any hot dogs available and bring those upstairs for us to eat together. On my reaching the upper floor, I immediately noticed that Farazil’s room was in a mess with all the clothes on the floor and the normally locked cupboard, the doors were wide open. I said to myself, these kids are indeed naughty, when an instance later it came to my mind , " Don’t tell me, we have been burgled ?". Sure enough at that very instance, I felt a knife pressed at the side of my right neck and one at my back and before I fully realized what was happening a Chinese guy with a chopping knife confronted me from the front and shouted silence to me. The only presence of mind that I had then was to utter the name of Allah ! I then saw the three guys all Chinese and in their middle ages. One of them had a hat and he was thin, another was quite fat i.e. the guy with the chopping knife, and the third guy of medium built. Except for the guy with the chopping knife who looked somewhat mean, the other two seemed ordinary looking. I told them to be calm and take anything they want freely whilst at the same time I told the chopping guy he should not harm my wife who was in the kitchen. On hearing my remarks, the guy ran downstairs and the next instance I heard a scream from Ainul. My initial reaction then was to say to the other two if they hurt my wife in anyway , they would later suffer themselves.

The next thing that took place I saw Ainul coming up the staircase with the Chopping knife guy who was himself holding a plate full of hot dogs. Ainul told me she was all right and saw that I was too. He , the man who first poked the knife on my neck told me to keep quiet and to get ourselves into the bathroom nearby. He saw Ainul’s Ebel watch and took that and when I offered similar watch which I wore, he declined. I offered him my purse to which he quickly flipped open and took all the seventy ringgit cash therein. I told him to take the crdit cards too but he declined and next I told them they could take the car too if they wish. By this time, the other two guys were nowhere to be seen. I could only imagine that they might be ransacking the rooms. The guy next to us got hold of Ainul’s "telekong" and started to tear it apart into strips. He told us to shut up and started to commence to tie us up. On seeing his intentions, I immediately told him I was a very sickly person with heart ailment and if he intended to tie the cloth over my mouth I would suffocate and die. He told me to shut up and wanted to tie up my feet, to which I told him, that too would hurt me greatly. The guy seemed to comply and instead started to tie up Ainul’s hands and feet instead, but somehow it was all done in a rush and the knots were not at all tight. Whilst he was at it, I told him that I was surprised that a man like him who did not look like a robber should indulge in one. Why not find himself a job ? He replied curtly, " Who Are you ? You think you can give me a job? Do you think there is a job around ? " I told him, there could be one if he only searched for it. He seemed annoyed and told me to shut up. He told us to remain in the bathroom. Since the bathroom could not be locked from outside, he merely closed the door and before he left us he asked if the gate is locked and I told him that it was wide open. The next thing we heard were the sounds of footsteps moving down the staircase.

About five minutes later when everything seemed to be silence, I slowly opened the bathroom door whilst Ainul freed herself of the bed sheet strips and we went downstairs whilst at the same time shouting for Irman. We found the guy calmly working in the garden and oblivious to the goings on upstairs ! When confronted he told us he did see three Chinese guys leaving the house but assumed that they could be Farahat’s friends . When told of what had happened to us, he wanted to rush out to chase after them but we told him to forget the whole thing since the robbers had left a good seven minutes earlier.

That was a crisis indeed. What was our 'mother of invention’ then ? We remained calm !

And what is the crisis that leads me to write all his ? Well simply put, I am short of time to write an article in time for the week’s issue, and so I get on my PC to create and complete this one !

Bye for now.


written by Tunku Farid