The Angel In White

Her silk-like hair with a matching shine hung loosely at waist level and was left untied, rocking eccentrically with every labored step uphill. It was ruffled and perhaps in disarray, which only added to her appeal in the eyes of the beholder. Her crown was as lively as the person herself.



The Angel in White
She jogged around University Malaya every evening. It was rumored that her beauty was nothing less than captivating and enchanting. Any passer-by be it a fellow jogger, a nonchalant motorist driving by and students returning from their late afternoon classes will pause in their steps to steal a glance of this wonderful creation of God.

The five of us then medical students were traveling up the hill towards the Clinical Students’ Hostel one Wednesday evening.

An unfamiliar-looking lass jogging uphill came into our view - her back facing us as she devotedly went on her daily route. She stood at probably close to six feet, her perfects curves magnified so extravagantly by her above average height. Her silk-like hair with a matching shine hung loosely at waist level and was left untied, rocking eccentrically with every labored step uphill. It was ruffled and perhaps in disarray, which only added to her appeal in the eyes of the beholder. Her crown was as lively as the person herself.

She was clad in a sleeveless white tee that was perfectly bleached and without blemish. Her back was soaked thoroughly with sweat, an earnest testimony to the grueling regimen that she was putting herself through each day just to stay in stunning shape. Her sweat-drenched top revealed an underlying black sports bra.

Her long slender legs with fair-colored skin tirelessly made their way up the arduous 6th College hill. She donned grey short pants with a faded tinge that were nothing less than sensual - skin-tight and undoubtedly but comfortable and easy to the observer. They covered the essentials adequately but yet at the same time revealed enough to sustain one’s interest and curiosity. Between the ends of her top and shorts was a two-finger breadth area that exposed the bare skin of her waist.

We watched intensely as we closed up on this young lady who had all the assets to make a great model. We crossed our fingers and wished that she would turn around to allow us a brief glimpse of her frontal appearance. It will be nothing less than mesmerizing.

She didn’t.

So we did, as we passed her by finally.

And it was with such unspeakable regret that we did.

Her forehead was high, much too high for a lady. Her cheek bones were prominent and very unusual for the fairer sex. Coupled with a protruding mandible and the acute angle at which it did so, the lady angel in white was raising suspicions beyond our belief. Her gargantuan Adam’s apple and noticeably broad shoulders from the front view erased any doubts of the concealed truth that has evaded us thus far.

Well, those were one of those doggone moments during my student days in University Malaya.

We came to learn later that the jogger transsexual was popularly called Betty around the UM campus. She remained omnipresent around the university grounds She can be seen running ever so rigorously or merely engaging in a hearty laugh in a deep, testosterone-stoned voice among her fellow effeminate male friends.

We recovered eventually over the initial shock and startling discovery. Over time of course, our interest in Betty’s showy attires and exaggerated body language waned and refocused on more pressing issues in our medical studies.

Ladylike Men and Manly Ladies
I am not sure about other local universities, but good ol’ University Malaya has a strong and united community of transsexuals and effeminate males and gay students. In spite of all their forceful efforts of Islamization in our centers of higher learning, there is little the UMNO-appointed university administrators can do when it comes to men who have sex with other men.

I had a gay roommate back in first year of medical school. Let’s just name him Ali. To be precise, I had gay roommates because my official roommate was inseparable from his partner and insisted on having some company in bed.

It was an initial culture shock because like other blue-eyed freshie in the premier medical school of the nation, a homosexual fellow student wasn’t exactly what I had anticipated or wished for.

I slept with the lights on and usually well after my homosexual roommate(s) was fast asleep after their shared sweet moments in the warm embrace of each other. It was better to be careful and safe than sorry and sore. Perhaps I was paranoid and homophobic, or maybe I simply loved the rectum that God gave me.

It was a period of enlightenment nonetheless. I observed with amusement as two gay men quarreled like any heterosexual couple in spite of my presence. My roommate Ali was the ‘lady’ and cried easily after yet another row with his manipulative companion from the dental faculty. I was locked countless of times out of my own room when Ali in yet another tantrum-throwing episode, denied his first love entry into their chamber of romance. They yelled at each other and screamed, then made up and whispered loving words only to end up yelling and screaming again in a vicious cycle of a troubled love affair.

Ali was eccentric and emotional and nice. He wore his towel up to his armpits but was courteous and clean. He spoke and laughed like Paris Hilton but with none of the profanities of a stereotype Hollywood star. His English was perfect and punctuated with flawless grammar and vivid expressions. He was emotional and fragile and that was very much expected. Ali was not proud of his choices and sexuality. He was at a stage of soul searching I supposed. He berated himself for appearing pious every evening in the college surau and thereafter engage in an illicit liason with a fellow Muslim who too, had just returned from the prayer room.

Their roller coaster relationship affected my studies somewhat. Three’s a crowd and especially more so in the undersized hostel rooms of University Malaya. They lasted three months before Ali decided to move out in a vain attempt to avoid his prince charming with an Osama-like goatee.

I doubt his strategy worked, for before long they were reconciled again in a union of no foreseeable ever after. He lost himself even more later on in medical school, failing exams repeatedly despite being a relatively fast learner. The gay and effeminate community in university grew larger over the years. They moved as a united happy-go-lucky group with the flamboyant Betty as their de facto village head. Ali became a regular face among this daily gay parade and presumably, he felt most accepted among others like himself.

I lost contact with Ali after he failed his final examinations. It is hard to study to be a doctor when one aspires to be a woman. Ali does not in any manner typify gay men. Heck, one does not need to giggle with hands over the mouth in order to be gay. Similarly, one who does so isn’t necessarily lustfully eyeing that muscular college swimmer.

Anwar, Saiful and an Endless Rectal Examination
The whole nation is abuzz and reawakened politically after the first revolution of March 8th. The coffee shop talk and blog discussions are inescapably over the latest developments in Anwar’s alleged act of sodomy upon one Saiful Bhukari.

Photo evidence has emerged to suggest that the accuser has been an UMNO spy all along.

In the midst of all the accusations and counter accusations, we seem to have forgotten that the alleged victim was sent for a physical examination which inexorably included a close examination of the rectum. This is one all-important rectal examination which will alter the political landscape of Malaysia. It is also perhaps one of the longest and secretive one.

Are our wise and esteemed medical examiners brainstorming over their findings in Saiful Bhukari’s rectum? Perhaps they are writing a thesis in preparation for the next world Gay Pride celebrations.

Suspicious isn’t it?