The Rantings of Janda Baik

THERE is a world of difference between janda (divorcee) and balu (widow). A janda gets to be one when she is divorced; a balu earns the title when her man is dead.

The irony is that only when a man is dead and gone does society accord his wife some respect. If he is still alive but chooses to discard the wife for whatever reason, more often than not, the erstwhile spouse, now a janda, is the unwitting recipient of flax from that very same society.

When you are a janda and some horny bast*** harass you sexually, expect no sympathy. No one takes you seriously. People you turn to – family and friends included - are reluctant to believe you. Many think you got it coming.

The image of the pleasant, housewifely you that they have known all those years somehow goes down the drain the moment you turn janda. You have been conveniently transformed into a man-eater in the blink of an eye.

If you get sexually harassed, it's your fault. You must have initiated it. You must have given the SOB the eye. In other words, you asked for it. You are a janda after all; so it must be your own doing. The fault lies squarely at your doorstep. No two ways about it.

By anyone’s reckoning, a janda belongs to that vile specie of sexually starved vixens with tentacles out to trap any unsuspecting male (especially someone else’s husband) and milk him dry, in more ways than one. To all and sundry, a janda has nothing but sex on her mind and that all she wants in life is to get laid.

Well, I’ve got news for you. And I speak with the highest authority on Jandahood because once upon a time I too inhabited Jandaland; not a pretty place to be for sure, but to the likes of some of us, it was home (even if for a while).

Although I eventually took the late train out, I faced enough to make me want to kick the groin of every man I met. Read on and you’ll understand why I held men (in general) in poor regard.

Bear with me please, for I am not out to diss men. There are some good ones out there, I know (and I married one too, bless his heart), and I salute them all. My diatribe is targeted at the scumbags and they should know who they are.

Being a janda was no fun. Married women kept you at arm’s length; they had husbands to worry about. Single women didn’t want to be your friend either; they saw you as competitor, even though you couldn’t care less about a prick (you left one, remember?)

Men – married, single, available, whatever – saw you as easy meat. To their sick mind, you had been deprived of the pleasures of the flesh that you must be dying for a poke. And they thought they were such pokers extraordinaire that you simply must sample their ware.

They failed to see that you were sick to death of anything that spelt P; prick, poker, pecker, to name but a few. In fact, you would rather immerse yourself in ice than go anywhere near one.

In 1988, age 34 and a year into my jandahood, I received a phone call from someone pretty high up in a key government establishment, asking me to present myself at his 6th floor office in downtown Kuala Lumpur “for a story.”

Because I don’t want to get my knickers into a twist (I didn’t then and certainly don’t want now!), I shall abstain from revealing too much details, to protect the innocent family of the SOB (who, by the way, is still alive and kicking, and living in relative comfort). I hope he reads my blog because I want to say “up yours!”

Sensing a scoop (ever the reporter that I was), I hastened to his office. I had never met this man before but knew of him, of course. He was a familiar figure to the press corp.

I was ushered into his office by an assistant and made myself comfortable on a sofa while he attended to some stuff at his desk, after which he came around and sat next to me.

Lo and behold! He held my hands – this cretin who was a total stranger – and boldly said: “I have a good proposition to make to you. All you have to do is say yes and we shall both be very happy. Think about it and let me know of your decision.”

By then I realised it was no scoop I was getting. To get to the gist of it – he offered to install me in an apartment somewhere, pay for all my expenses, provide me with a car and “whatever you need”, all for the price of regular ‘service’. Simply put, I had just been asked to whore myself.

Suffice to say the blood drained from my face. Thoughts raced in my mind. I resolved not to upset him with harsh words because I was on foreign territory – his – and I didn’t know how he would react. Instead I played dumb. That probably saved me that day.

I told him to let me mull over it. He said he would send me back to my office in his official car. So he escorted me down, got into the back seat and held my hands all the way from his office to mine in Jalan Riong, Bangsar. I decided the best way to handle the situation was to be as calm as possible in his presence.

Firstly I asked him how he got to know about me. He said someone from MY office (his regular contact and my own colleague as it turned out to be, that despicable scrap of humanity!) alerted him that there was a recently divorced lady reporter worth trying his luck on.

Sadly enough, a lot of men out there think women journalists are easy pickings, just because they run around so much, meeting people and chasing after stories. Well, listen to me and listen hard. They aren’t. So keep your pecker where it belongs. We have no use for it.

Anyway, the moment I reached Balai Berita, I rushed into the office of K. C. Boey, my editor, plonked myself in front of him and cried. He was pretty pissed too and asked whether I wanted to make a case out of it.

Since it was very much a "her-word-against-his" situation, with nary a witness, we decided not to. We were sure the SOB's assistant and chauffeur would not upset the status quo, given the circumstances.

Boey said he would devise a way to protect me from this man, and he did. The plan involved my fellow colleagues in the Malay Mail who took turns screening all my calls.

The SOB tried to get through to me a couple of times but was intercepted by my colleagues. In the end he wised up to the game and gave up.

It was a painful episode in my life, to be thought of in such a humiliating way. To be so brazenly approached, with a proposal to become someone's perempuan simpanan (kept woman), was the ultimate insult to my janda dignity. That harrowing incident, in no small way, contributed to my decision to lay off men and marriage.