Yasmin Ahmad
(1 July 1958 – 25 July 2009)

I was shocked by a scurrilous attack on the late Yasmin Ahmad by Kosmos, the tabloid published by the Utusan Melayu Group.

It was not only in bad taste but thoroughly wicked coming one day after her burial.

This is the lowest form of tabloid journalism yet. Both Kosmos and Utusan Melayu owe the family of the late Yasmin an apology.

I couldn’t think of anything else. This 1973 song by Elton John came to my mind:

Goodbye Norma Jean
Though I never knew you at all
You had the grace to hold yourself
While those around you crawled

They crawled out of the woodwork
And they whispered into your brain
They set you on the treadmill
And they made you change your name

chorus

And it seems to me you lived your life
Like a candle in the wind
Never knowing who to cling to
When the rain set in

And I would have liked to have known you
But I was just a kid
Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did.

I knew Yasmin, like the millions of Malaysians, through her stories and her films but
I would have liked to have known you.

So I posted my thoughts on her blog. Unfortunately, it would not appear as it would need to have the approval of the blog owner, who is now dead.

Yasmin started her blog The Storyteller under the url http://yasminthestoryteller.blogspot.com/

This is what she said about herself:

I am optimistic and sentimental to the point of being annoying, especially to people who think that being cynical and cold is cool. Everyday, I thank Allah for everyday things like the ability to breathe, the ability to love, the ability to laugh, and the ability to eat and drink.

Yasmin uploaded her first posting on Thursday, 26 August 2004:

Am I sentimental, or just mental?

Late last year, a British book reviewer asked Arundhati Roy, the award-winning author of “The God of Small Things”, why she had “slipped” into such extreme sentimentality in her then latest book. I found her reply to the question at once refreshing and reassuring.

“Why are you so afraid of your sentiments?” she said, or words to that effect.

For years I had been pooh-poohed by people in the advertising industry for the unabashedly sentimental stories I tell in my Petronas festive season commercials. Ms Roy’s words reassured me that I needn’t apologise for any of it.

Why? Well, try this test. Step One, look back on your life. Step Two, remove every bit of sentimentality from it. What have you left? Only the worst life imagineable, that’s what.

And so, with or without Ms Roy’s encouragement, Yasmin-the-Incorrigible marches on.

First it was those saccharin tear-jerking, button-pressing Petronas ads for Independence Day. Then it was “Rabun” — that diabetic tale about a wrinkly old couple soaping each other in the garden.

Someone’s mother-in-law actually told her to turn off the tele immediately while “Rabun” was showing, because she couldn’t stand the sight of old people being lovey-dovey. (She doesn’t seem to mind the scenes of Malay husbands shouting at, slapping around, and two-timing their wives in Malay TV dramas, though.)

And now “Sepet”. Cynics and lovers of restraint and subtle cinema, please seriously consider bringing barf bags into the theatre with you — we have a scene where young man asks young lady, “How long do you think it takes to fall in love?”, to which young lady replies, “A minute.”

Better still, don’t go! Give it a miss. Don’t waste your eight bucks, only to walk out spitting and cursing afterwards.

BUT.

If, like me, you feel there just aren’t enough hearts worn on sleeves these days… that crying at movies is something to be happy about simply because you still can… and that the demands of the day would be a lot more bearable if we held back from getting angry and being nasty, but jumped at every chance to be sweet and kind… then I’d like you to look out for my next sentimental Petronas commercial, and find time, if you can, to see my next film.

This post attracted immediately 39 comments and her blog grew tremendously popular. Four years later on 31 Dec 2008, started another blog Storyteller Part 2 using a new url http://yasminthefilmmaker.blogspot.com

Yasmin, like many Malaysians, was shocked by the suspicious death-in-custody of Teoh Beng Hock, 30, the political secretary to an Opposition lawmaker. He fell mysteriously from the 14th floor of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, where he had earlier assisted in an investigation into an alleged misappropriation of constituency fund by his boss on Thursday 16 July 2009.

On that very day Yasmin posted her blog:

Someone please wake me from this nightmare and tell me that this did not happen in my country and that Teoh Beng Hock is safe at home with his family.

Six days later Yasmin posted her last blog at just past midnight with a YouTube :

A song of longing I’m hoping to use for the ending in Wasurenagusa.

Ahmad was working on two international productions at the time of her death, including Wasurenagusa, a co-production with Japan’s Wa Entertainment which won the first prize, the Pusan award, at the 2008 Pusan Promotion Plan. It tells the story of a Malay girl on a visit to her ailing grandmother in Japan.

The YouTube song she posted was Puccini’s Turandot rendition by Maria Callas as the legendary Chinese princess whose icy heart is melted by the power of love.

The following day Yasmin suffered a stroke. After more than 48 hours after the surgery, Yasmin Ahmad succumbed to her injury passed away at 11.25pm on 25 July and was laid to rest the next day. She was 51 and is survived by her husband, Abdullah Tan Yew Leong.

Your candle burned out long before
Your legend ever did.

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