I pulled myself up. Shivered. Everything was still wet and my knee hurt like hell. I turned and retched; out came clear yellow bile. I wanted a cold beer.

Sumi nodded. She felt the same. We stumbled out, Sumi supporting my arm. All along the street, hundreds huddled up against each other. Hugs were shared, some brave smiles. I clicked again and again, my lens still intact, images of solidarity after tear gas. Weak shouts of Reformasi!

The rallying cry had to continue. I set the camera to autofocus and let it capture continuous frames of people stealthily disappearing into the folds of the city.

It was dusk. Then, sudden music. A relief, a comfort. The azan, blaring out of the minaret above us. The mosque still had its voice.

Allahu Akhbar, Allahu Akhbar…

We grabbed each other and walked slowly, shoes still squelching, as silently as we could into the damp twilight.

Two hours later, at exactly 9pm, masked policemen armed with sub-machine guns stormed into Anwar’s house in Damansara Heights, frightening his wealthy neighbours, startling well-dressed diners sipping Chianti in nearby restaurants, as they arrested him under the Internal Security Act in plain sight of his four terrified children and his wife.

Nine days later, he appeared in public again. He stood there, in front of the High Court, waving his hand while cameras of the press from all over the world captured him. That image.

Our Deputy Prime Minister, right there, brutalised, beaten. His black eye was printed on every major newspaper in the world. Kuala Lumpur, city of mud, city of sin, of tear gas and riot police, would erupt again and again.

And again.

* * *

Take a city, imagine it encased in a snow globe and shake it upside down.

Like KL. There would be no snow, of course.

But there would be monitor lizards, tigers, giraffes, refugees, domestic workers, Bangladeshis, girls in pigtails and navy blue school uniforms, nasi kandar with all the condiments, chopped green chillies, beef in dark soya sauce, crab curry, cabbage with turmeric, mustard seed and dried red chillies, guns, machetes and parangs, BMWs, Protons, Kancils, Ferraris, Porches, BMW bikes, strawberry-flavoured condoms, pink Ecstasy tabs, politicians, policemen, taxi drivers, footballers, red plastic furniture, dogs, cats, parakeets, rabbits, snakes, ducks, the occasional slow loris, and some of most morally reprehensible people on the planet.