Encik, kenapa tak letak Anak Lelaki (Anak Perempuan - 2017)? - registering child birth/name

Update 2017:
Can you believe it? I have to go through the same argument with the officer once again, after 7 years. This time they want me to do Sworn Statement to drop A/P!

I stood firm. No way. Don't simply introduce procedure which is not in the registration guidelines.


Main article (2012):
Birth of a child, one of the happiest moment in a family. The event will be followed by 30th day prayers and naming ceremony. The proud parents will announce the name of their bundle of joy to their relatives and friends, amid a joyous celebration and congratulatory messages from everyone.

Then comes the compulsory obligation for registering the name and the birth of the child with National Registration Department (NRD / JPN) in accordance to Act 299 BIRTHS AND DEATHS REGISTRATION ACT 1957 (Akta Pendaftaran Kelahiran dan Kematian 1957). This act is to be read together with Kaedah-Kaedah Pendaftaran Kelahiran dan Kematian 1958 used by JPN, which prescribes the process of registering a child's birth and name in Malaysia.

Enough of intro, let's get to the point. In 2010, I welcomed the birth of my son. As required by the law, I went to a JPN office to register his name, Krish Laxman Kumar. Like any other responsible, IT-savvy, info-hungry, never-done-it-before and I-don't-want-to-mess-up-my-child's-name-forever parent, I went thru all those documents above before starting my old bike, riding to the JPN office.

I was given the JPN.LM01 form, which I filled and submitted at the counter. While waiting, like everyone else around there, I wanted to go out and smoke, then I realized I'm not a smoker, so I bought a pack of soya drink and waited for the number to flash on the bright red LED panel, with the voice of a sleepy lady - satu satu empat tiga, kaunter lapanzzzzzz. When my number was flashed, I rushed to the counter to complete and collect the coveted Warganegara birth certificate for my son, alas there's an issue says the counter staff. This is how it went on for the next half hour or so:

she : Encik, kenapa tak letak Anak Lelaki?

me : Cik, sila tengok bahagian A4, saya dah tanda Jantina sebagai Lelaki

she : bukan itu encik, bahagian A1, nama kena ada anak lelaki untuk anak encik

me : saya tak mahu letak anak lelaki sebagai sebahagian nama dia

she : encik kena letak juga

me : kenapa?

she : sebab dalam nama encik ada anak lelaki, jadi mesti masukkan juga

me : mengikut peraturan dalam kaedah pendaftaran ke?

she : ye encik betul!

me : ini salinan kaedah pedaftaran JPN, ini salinan akta pendaftaran kelahiran, cuba cik tunjuk dimana peraturan ini ada

she : errrr saya tak pasti, tapi kebiasannya nama kaum india mesti ada anak lelaki atau perempuan

me : saya tak ikut kebiasaan orang lain, nama anak saya ikut kehendak saya

she : tak boleh cik, mesti masukkan juga

me : saya akan ikut cik jika boleh tunjuk peraturan ini dalam borang, akta atau kaedah pendaftaran

she : macam ini encik kena bincang dengan pegawai saya

me : sila panggil pegawai 

after few minutes of intense discussion with her pegawai, both came out to see me

he : encik, nama anak encik mesti disertakan dengan anak lelaki

me : atas sebab?

he : seperti nama orang Islam ada Bin atau Binti, kebiasaannya nama orang Hindu perlu ada anak lelaki/perempuan

me : saya faham encik, tapi itu kebiasaan, bukan peraturan dan jika ia peraturan, mesti ada termaktub dalam mana-mana dokumen yang saya baca, tiada pun? lagipun kalau ikut logik encik, nama orang Cina kenapa tiada anak itu anak ini?

he : pasti encik tak mahu letak anak lelaki?

me : saya sangat pasti saya tak mahu nama sebenar anak saya menjadi Krish Laxman Kumar Anak Lelaki Sashi Kumar. Jadi teruskan proses pendaftaran.

he : encik kena sign atas borang ini, mengatakan encik tak mahu anak lelaki sebagai nama anak

me : saya tak perlu sign mana-mana mengikut proses pendaftaran JPN, jika mahu juga encik mesti bagi saya surat untuk saya patuh arahan encik, barulah rasmi.

he : takapalah, encik tunggu. nanti bila siap pendaftaran staff ini akan panggil encik

me : terima kasih

So my dear ladies and gentleman, tukang kayu dan tukang simen, you do have a choice not to include anak lelaki, anak perempuan, anak kepada, anak ikan or anak kucing etc. as part of your child's name. Furthermore, if we have included all this unconventional prefixes as their name, it will appear as A/L, A/P, A/K on all the official documents throughout their life!! In addition to that, it becomes another issue when you apply for an international passport, where the naming scheme has to follow the International Civil Aviation Organization's MRTD Standard Document 9303, where symbols such as / is not allowed. If you still include those prefix, our kid's names will look like this:

1. P<MYSSUGUMARAN<AL<SIVANATHAN< (for SUGUMARAN A/L SIVANATAN)
2. P<MYSREVATHY<SOMATHY<AP<SIVAKUMAR (for REVATHY SOMATHY A/P SIVAKUMAR)

AL and AP doesn't have any meaning in our names, so there's no need for our kids to carry those extra alphabets in their names. Hope this article is useful for all parents expecting for new addition to their families. God bless.

Local Tamil movies - why I don't feel like watching?

Note: The personal opinion here is on why I don't watch locally produced movies. It doesn't propagate the idea of why readers shouldn't watch them. Accept or reject the opinion at your own will. Comments are welcomed.

Jeng Jeng Jeng ... after collecting much information, going through some of the local production's synopsis and psoriasis, I'm finally ready to pour out my feelings in here. I'm sure many of us yearn for a good movie, for entertainment or information purpose. Movies are a big pass-time of our generation, millions of people survive on movie industry in India. India produces more movies than any other country in the world. In Malaysia there's no less than 5-7 locally produced movies or tele-movies released annually. For the record I don't watch almost all of them. Sometimes I do accidentally land in channel that's playing the movie, after enduring 10 minutes of their storyline, I usually shift to babyTV or food channel which I feel worth watching. 

So many may ask (angrily), why this kolaveri onto the local movies? Why you being a biledi indiyan no support local movie hah? Because people like youlah we cannot develop in many areas, such as building a international space station and shoot our movie out there!!! 

Let me just give the glimpse of what I see OK. Here we go ... (some synopsis may appear, where possible)

Majority of local production has only one and only theme : CRIME!
(ngongkakmokka vereh kathaiyeh illeyadah?)

Aanava Attam

Thandavaa

Jayakumar (Sreedharan), a professor whose dream is to build his own college. One day, he is faced with his daughter's kidnap who is meticulously planned by Siddarth (Vassan)

K-I-D-N-A-P (The-Crime-Begins)

Undercover Rascals

Zha The Movie

This movie emphasizes on how women are being abused sexually.

Vittaghan: The Hacker

Vikrant

KL to Ipoh

JAGAT

Yantra

Manjari

What do you see in all the movies above? Crime! Crime! Crime! If this is what they want to show in the movie, I better just read our newspapers front pages everyday, it shows our passion for crime in living color, every F-ing day! Already our community is topping the charts for the wrong reasons, why must we keep showing the dark sides of the community 'as the form of entertainment'? 

Some may counter this: crime story sells paa! If money is the only matter, better run some other business. Why must the community fed with mediocre storyline, highlighting only the negative elements? Aren't there any good stories such as hardworking people, rags to riches stories that can be made into movie as a source of inspiration? For the record, our very own Malaysia Indian producers, have made award winning movies in India such as Vaagai Soodava. We end up with more films like Ethirkaalam and Vilaiyaatu Pasange (The Tuff Nuts).

We move to next category : Horror!

(bang, peyiku konjam make-up koreingeh, parke cartoon mari iruku, bayameh varaleh)

Vaishnavi

I Know What You Did Last Deepavali

SAAVI

Panja Muni

Kattu Rani

THIRUMPI PARR

Here we see list of so-called horror movies that make you shit your pants while watching them, even their posters are scary, no? This list includes Uttrachai Kali, Agoram, Uruvam, Athunge, Uyir & Athma which won BEST DIGITAL MOVIE in Film Festival Malaysia. Honestly, I don't even watch English, Korean, Indon horror movies, because I can't relate the over exaggerated storyline to any real events.

At least, these movies makes you laugh (a little) with their slapstick 'comedy' and attempt to entertain. (enakku itheyum parka manasu varaleh bang)

4S Ops Kossa Dappa - The Final Dappa
Ops Kosa Dapaa 2
Ops Kosa Dapaa

 (hot chics and cool cars tho, no I'm not saying anything about the guys)

Gaana's comedies

Naana Neeya

Expectations for the above movies are rather predictable: comedy and some happy ending. At least watchable when aired free for Ponggal or Hari Gawai.

By now, some might have already made a conclusion that I'm a local movie hater. No sir, I'm not. I've watched the following movies, at least more than once when its aired. I do find some bold and brave producers and directors come up with good, above average and sometimes simply superb local movies. These are the movies, that won't gross much returns for the producers (except for Appalam I think). These producers and directors must be encouraged, their work must be well publicized and supported.

Chemman Chaalai

Chalanggai (Dancing Bells)

Appalam

Estet (not Tamil movie)

(majority local Indian artistes)

November 24

Many local film producers and director may not agree with me, they may even say 'if you don't watch, nevermind'. Some will also brush me (and other like minded critics) off as 'not matured enough' or 'you don't understand the pain and struggle' to produce and release a local movie. I ask, 'why go through pain and struggle to release a low quality productions and waste your effort?'.

Do you remember some group of 'smart people' organized 'hunger strike' (new trend for protests now, after protesting for 2 hours they kena hokkien mee and stout at nearby cheeneh kadeh) for compelling a private satellite TV to provide them with 24 hours channel to air locally produced contents?? If (God forbids) that happens, what can they show us? 24 hours of crime & horror movies listed above? Will it help our local talents to improve or just 'gundu chattiyil kuthirai ottureh kathai'? yosingeh, yosingeh ... thank you for reading.