The Fall of Malacca

Chapter 1

THE FALL OF MALACCA

1

Kuala Lumpur International Airport, KLIA, on a cloudless afternoon is man-made emptiness sitting in an endless expanse of tropical greenery. In the center of this hollow of light and emptiness, two long runways, flat on their backs, bask in the heat of the noonday sun. The ominous words of an old friend, a pilot, full of jokes and much wit comes to mind: “A runway is essentially a road that comes to a dead-end in both directions”. On the tarmac-ed aprons of the stretched wings of the terminal building are countless planes from the proverbial four corners of the world, now resting from the rigours of journeys made in all kinds of weather - wind, rain, heat, sleet and snow. Though idle now they still seem to strut their stuff, like cockerels. They hold their tail rudders high, emblazoned with the flag, logo and colours of the companies and countries they represent. These planes with their all-smiling crews, airport terminals and runways are the nuts and bolts of the global airlines business. The passenger is now called the global traveller and for good reason: he enters through one end of a plane in some corner of the globe from a place called “Departures” and passes out of a plane in another distant place called “Arrivals”. In the process he is moved vast distances across seas, over mountains and between continents. Only then does he become a part of the vital statistics of this global business - fleet size, unit costs, passenger load factor, the price of aviation fuel and inflight service standards. Where he gets off for good without incident, he terminates his journey in what else but a Terminal. For the not so well-seasoned passenger like me, waiting to board a flight, the constant whining of jet engines for hours on end and the roar of planes taking off with all due haste like they are in a rush to leave town is the source of much anxiety, quietly endured. Would “Terminus” not be a better description than “Terminal” to allay the imagined yet real fears of the morbid air traveller?

I try and deal with these anxieties by letting my thoughts drift to anything at all of little consequence. These are now dealt with in detail. In devilishly great detail! I had checked in my luggage much earlier and now I imagine it travelling ahead of me, running along blithely on a conveyor belt somewhere in the well-concealed subterranean innards of the Terminal. At the end of the conveyor belt it is transferred to a cargo truck and hauled to the underbelly of the plane. Sitting on the flatbed of the truck, in the searing heat of the afternoon, my small blue-coloured “Polo” bag looks towards the heavens for a helping hand. Miraculously, a hand reaches out from above it, from the underbelly of the plane. The ‘little fellow’ is eased into position and it is sitting cheek by jowl with hundreds of other luggage bags in patient and uncommunicative silence. Now in mental overdrive, I begin to imagine all of the luggage tribes and races amassed in the cargo hold - swanky, stylish ones looking in snobbish horror at the rough-looking fellows around them, big and bulky fellows standing over smaller ones like bullies, odd-shaped souls feeling they do not fit in somehow, a few dressed in outrageous colours ranging from pink to purple to bright yellow with ribbons tied to their handles, like they are travelling to a gay parade, and a handful of hardy ones who have somehow convinced the cargo handlers to let them sit on top of the pile! But whatever, they have all found a place from which they will not budge or yield an inch! And that is a good thing for snuggling between my clothes and toiletries, is a set of A4 papers, neatly sectioned chapter by chapter - the first draft of a book I am determined to finalise. That was to be followed by a bout of editing and self-criticism. Tentatively, I planned to call it the “The History of the Fall of Malacca”. It was a work conceived two years ago, in some secrecy, purely for motivational reasons and it had remained untitled till a few days ago. But I had become convinced the past two months, in a vague yet persistent way that my writing had suffered grievously from juggling my time between running a business and writing. The stop-start nature of the effort made it difficult to be consistent as to style, creativity and inventiveness. With a bit of time away from the business, I was confident I could turn things around in the manner of a football manager who with some deft substitutions towards the end of the game produces the winner. I desperately needed a holiday like a football team needed a Mourinho. I kept vacillating between working and taking a break for weeks and weeks. Then out of the blue came one of the best reasons to travel afar and take a short break - a call from a much loved only daughter, now studying in a Uni in Australia. Divine intercession, Providence, Coincidence, Happenstance or Enemy Action......who could tell! All it took to tip the scales in her favour and mine as well was this plea disguised as a lament: “Oh Paps, I am having difficulties with Evidence”. We ‘skyped’ and firmed up the dates. Then came the hurried preparations on both the home and business fronts. The travel plan was simple: first to Melbourne by Emirates and then to Hobart by Virgin. And I would be staying with her and double up as her cook, mentor, comforter and personal assistant. The entire process of booking and paying for the tickets was done using the means of the Fifth Information Age - the silent, digital Internet. And then by an odd coincidence, just days before departure there was a news item on the BBC about the Tasmanian devil. Now, sitting patiently in the holding pen of air travel, the lounge, I begin to chew on this news story of the Tasmanian devil to dispel my anxieties, which like the Devil, have yet to make their appearance in some concrete form. But I am certain it is lurking in some unsuspecting corner of my mind. ‘Chewing on the problems of the world’ is one of the tools in my toolkit to cope with the stresses and strains of life and business. I take consolation that I am no different from the nervous half of humanity: mulling on the difficulties and setbacks of others, the ‘so poor things’ of the world, makes my own anxieties seem less burdensome, less crippling! Here we go again! The Tasmanian devil, once numerous on the island was being ravaged by facial cancer. It was indeed a sad sight to see an ugly animal, roguishly charming in its own way, be made even more hideous by disease. There was the risk of the whole population being wiped out altogether. And these devils, master scavengers, play an important role in maintaining the dynamic balance in the grand scheme of Nature. Only in Noah’s Ark was the balance of Nature static. How else can we explain the stern injunction to go forth, multiply and be prolific after the  great flood had subsided?  But that is another story. To return to the devil......The early settlers from Europe, hearing the relentless and peculiar grunting of these nocturnal animals imagined the Devil was close at hand; hence the name. It did not help that evolution had made this devil midnight black, furry, whiskered and equipped it with a pair of prominent fang-like canines. Its jaws have more bite force than even the much-maligned hyena which goes about this task amidst much grinning that often descends to laughter. The Tasmanian devil on the other hand is a much more serious fella. The scavenging trade in this isolated island is no laughing matter. It is a tough and risky business to be in. The supply of carrion is highly variable and hard to predict. Nature has yet to work out the fine balance between the needs of a hungry carrion-eating animal and a would-be prey that must die and rot for a cause without putting up a fight. Grunting, panting and snorting relentlessly, the Tasmanian devil bites through the dead animal’s bone like the proverbial hot knife through butter to get to the marrow that is not only nutritious but the source of stem cells, the currently much touted cell equivalent to the elixir of life and rejuvenation. The evil counterpart to God as imagined by the early settlers to Tasmania was now roaming the land on four legs and well-stocked up on stem cells! But these poor devils like the Devil of religious notoriety are not easily subjugated by the facial cancer ravaging the species. In an isolated corner of the island a whole population of devils go about the business of life, without literally ‘losing face’ to cancer. They appear to have some sort of genetic immunity against cell-multiplication gone wild. Concerned individuals and various environmental groups were raising money and awareness to keep this population isolated from the main body by relocating groups of them in fenced locations; gigantic animal transit lounges if you will. The prospect of the devil becoming extinct was real. There he was on TV, the spokesperson for the group explaining the rationale for isolation by building fences and barriers. With sweet irony they called themselves “The Devil’s Advocacy Group”! I share this delectable choice of name via SMS with an old friend from my schooldays and a resident of Norway the last twenty five years. Almost killing my story he points out that the Tasmanian devil is extinct. I correct him. He disagrees, still adamant. Then a few days later he responds with the following SMS: “I stand corrected. Tasmanian tiger has shuffled off the mortal coil. Devil stands firm against heavy odds”.