In the name of God, the most Gracious and most Merciful

Picture from: http://dakchomey.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/6f8aea9ea87f4459ae619931.jpg

Tragedy touched us.

Us.
Us.
Us.

Finally in death, she achieved what she set out to do.
Never mind the critics and the censors of her films,
Never mind the people who jeered at her efforts to appreciate our diversity,
But mind the fact we may never have another Sepet, Funeral or Talentime.

Yasmin Ahmad was and is a Malaysian,
More Malaysian than so many of us,
because she harboured hope in the Promised Land and acted upon it.

Now in death,
the storyteller,
the filmmaker,
got her ovation.

The full-stop, the finality, the exclamation mark;
death has its way of making things heard.

Yasmin believed in Malaysia and
she left me the trickle of hope.

A little bit less bitter,
A little bit less suspicion,
A little bit less prejudice,
A little bit more open,
A little bit more respect,
And a little bit more love,
Makes our little imperfections beautiful.

I met a person who acknowledged me after just mere glances,
He was not of my skin but sought to see the similarities that bonded us instead of highlighting the differences; let it be even the position of bus seats or the time we would be in SP.

Yasmin believed in Malaysia and
she left me the trickle of hope,
this person restored it to full brim.

We see only what we want to see
We are only as happy as our minds make to be
We are only Malaysian if we choose to be.
And Yasmin lived to be.