I have long memories of rain. Soft tropical showers, majestic, thunderous storms, and itinerant drizzles, which would come and go for hours, days. The Malaysian monsoon is a vehement creature, powerful and glorious, yet tender enough to soothe one into the most delicious of sleeps. This is how I remember the rains. My childhood came with the rains.

And this, my father’s garden.

One

Standing in the Eyes of the World

Kuala Lumpur. KL. Kala Lumpa or Kala Lampur to the white man, the Mat Sallehs. City of sinners and sex. Sodom and Gomorrah. It was 1998, and the city was the “party central” of Asia. Of the world. Drugs had opened up the minds of this one-time placid society and bayed in a new revolution, in a time when people hungered for freedom from authoritarian politicians, from the police, from their mindless jobs, from themselves.

Ecstasy had hit the town, in a way that could only be described as monumental. There were feng tau clubs in Bukit Bintang, Cheras, and Jinjang that catered to the Chinese riffraff, the ah bengs and ah lians who felt ill at ease in the posh, uppity bars like Museum and the Backroom Club.

There were clubs for Indian gangsters in Sentul and Selayang; there were dodgy dangdut clubs on Jalan Ipoh and Brickfields, where the girls would dance with you, get high with you, and then go down on you; there were underground clubs that opened up after the other ones closed, then stayed open till people had come down from their highs.

Dealers were raking it in. MDMA was on everyone’s lips and tongues. There was pussy and dick everywhere. Pink. Brown. Yellow. Black.

Everybody was high.

DJs flew in from all over the world to play to hundreds—no, thousands of people who swallowed pink, blue, white pills. Everybody wanted E. Nobody drank alcohol, water was the salve for the days and nights on sweaty dance floors.

Ecstasy was prayer. Ecstasy was the new god.

The great Asian financial crisis was crawling out. Billions were lost, millions gained. The ringgit had been pegged at RM3.80 against the US dollar. It saved us. Our ASEAN neighbours didn’t fare so well.

The Petronas Twin Towers were finally complete. The towering phallic monstrosities had transformed the city. And there were stories that bled upon storeys for fodder. It was the topic of conversation at every dinner table, every mamak stall, every kopitiam between Bangsar and Cheras, how ugly it looked. How sterile, how un-KL, how Western.

Aiyoh, so sci-fi.

Like Gotham City.

So ugly lah.

Celaka betul.

Celaka. Cursed.

Cursed to never be built.