‘Twas brillig and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe’, wrote the possibly drug-addled and certainly genius Lewis Carroll in his most phantasmagorical (and nonsensical) of poems Jabberwocky. In such similarly smooth undulatory fashion did Jit Murad squirm his slippery way into the hearts and minds of a besotted audience. Full of Jit was, without a whisker of a doubt, the incorrigible comedian’s longest -- and, by far, most riotous -- one-man show to date. Callooh! Callay!

Indeed, he is our very own beamish boy who slays all the monstrous naysayers of our beloved homeland with a cunningly brandished vorpal sword. Jit came, Jit saw, Jit conquered. With a flick of a wrist, the bat of a fluttering eyelid and a tremendous wedge of hilarious and gorgeously prurient anecdotes, we surrendered our humble fealty in one fell swoop. All hail the new king in town!

On the evening of my attendance, heads were thrown back in glee, feet were stamped in delight and mouths fell agape with shock -- speedily covered with typical mock-horror Malaysian modesty. It was great. Jit rocked, for what seemed an ebullient eternity -- but which was yet a blink in boring real time. We ate out of his hand: he did a be-songkok-ed politician who spouted the most wonderful malapropisms; he did perennial favourite Sungai Wang hairdresser / bum boy Renee Choy; he did himself; he did Malaysians of every stripe. Heck, Jit did the world.

And he managed (or at least tried) to offend Malaysians of every race, denomination, political affiliation and government department -- to our utmost merriment. And we were nothing if not rapt in our attention and undying adoration. Jit promised us from the get-go that he would leave us “tak kering gusi.” At the end of the show, we were blinking back tears of laughter, our cheeks hurting from chortling and nostrils sore from snorting.

And our gums? Don’t know about the actual degree of their moistness, but I do think a lot of us were drooling. - Sherry Siebel

Full of Jit, Jit Murad’s latest pun on his own name, will run at the Actors Studio @ BSC till April 15th, 2007.

Sherry Siebel is a freelance writer with moist gums.

Such things are rarely known for their brevity. The Young Malaysians Roundtable Discussion had both a title topic (‘National Unity and Development in Malaysia’) and a subtitle (‘Challenges & Prospects in Nation-Building’), ten panellists at three separate forums, and a consensus document two pages long. The conference began at 9am, with a speech from HRH Raja Dr Nazrin Shah, the crown prince of Perak, and ended with lawyers niggling, adjective and syntax, over linguistic strategy.

The day-long forum, held at the Malaysian Bar Council, was divided into three separate discussions: ethno-religious politics, education, and identity. Veteran journalist Jacqueline Ann Surin, on the panel for ‘Forging a Young Malaysian Identity towards National Unity’, offered what was probably her topic’s least whinge-intensive solution: community-level, non-discriminatory cultural practice. She played a short video recording of the Tugu Drum Circle (a percussion group open to all comers every Sunday evening at the National Monument), and then admonished everyone still present to start such activities in their own communities. By the time Jacqueline spoke, it was already early evening, and half the hall was empty.

An earlier speaker, Dr Azmi Sharom, for ‘Government’s Education Policies: Are they Successful Instruments of National Development?’, said that he could offer anecdotal observations for some of the issues he was supposed to discuss. “How successful have the government’s education policies and programmes been in promoting national unity and racial harmony?” Azmi, a lecturer with the Universiti Malaya law faculty, said. “Well, education policies promoting unity are defunct, because they work in a larger system that discourages this. My second son goes to a national school. There is a prayer on the wall of his school that says, ‘Thank God I was born a Muslim’.”

The problem had to be dealt with in primary and secondary school levels. “Universities are not remedial centres,” Azmi continued. “As long as we’re treating our students like children, that’s what we’re going to get.”

Surprisingly, the Roundtable had attracted a number of young people: a handful of pubescent boys listening raptly; several teenagers who proudly proclaimed, in private-school-inflected English, that they belonged to a High Achievers Club (one stood up and argued, wrong-footedly, against vernacular education). So there were a few of this despondent generation, after all, who actually cared about their own welfare.

It didn’t appear to matter, though. A young gentleman from Pusat KOMAS stood up during ‘Ethno-Religious Politics in Malaysia: Impact and Implications on Nation Building’, the day’s first panel discussion, and presented a hypothetical situation: a young, non-Malay child wanted to become Prime Minister when she grew up. The question: what would we say to her?

In reply, a much older gentleman stood up and said: “There are limitations for everyone. I am Malay. But I can’t become a Sultan.” He paused, deferred to Raja Nazrin Shah, indicated that they were both Malay College Kuala Kangsar old boys -- chums, effectively -- then continued: “Yes, Malaysia is a democracy -- but you must accept your limitations.” Yet another gentleman stood up, proclaimed that he, too, went to MCKK, and accused “all you youth” of being filled with talk instead of action.

Our elders sowed the crop of afflictions that now plague us. To be accused of apathy was a sad irony and minor annoyance. The fact that most in the conference that morning bandied in the state-sponsored Malay-Chinese-Indian configuration was alarming. But perhaps the largest failure in our Grand National Project that the Roundtable exposed may be expressed with this observation:

After the first panel was over, Raja Nazrin Shah had tea. Judging from the speech he delivered that morning, the crown prince was a good person, who treated the issue of nation-building and integration with urgent (yet optimistic) gravity. Unfortunately, his retinue, the whole front two rows of dignitaries, seemed much less interested. After their tea and kuih, His Royal Highness excused himself and left -- and his friends, the politicians and captains of industry who steer Malaysia today, left with him.

Maybe they had other meetings to attend, other affairs of state to deal with. Maybe there was too much talk to hold their attentions. It was nearing lunchtime, and there were more important things to do than to listen to their own children. - Z S

The Young Malaysians Roundtable Discussion was organised by a tripartite of serious-sounding institutions: the Bar Council, the Centre for Public Policy Studies, and the Asian Strategy & Leadership Institute.