I was having a funny dream when the lights came on in all of its blinding fury, followed by dad’s quick and ultimate words of “Wake up; time to get to work.”

Work?

And then I heard something about parangs and rakes and getting rid of the leaves once and for all, and I knew that there was something about Cutting the Mango Tree.

Perhaps cutting is the wrong word to use. Trimming would sound better, only in an ‘understatement’ manner; so elevate it as you can imagine, and you’ll probably get a picture like this:

The 10 year Glory, reduced to a bald humiliation (it happens to us sometimes)

No before-and-after picture though; I saw little need to photograph the mango tree on regular times. Now the sun and wind reaches our door unhindered, and I swear my handphone signal notched up a bar. But most importantly; no more leaves to rake. Yep. I don’t have to literally feed the mosquitoes while having to pile the fallen leaves to be discarded; I feed them while feeding the rabbits and bird and dogs (one option down).

It came at the price of sore limbs and fatigue, on my part at least. Of course, my family didn’t have to walk around a hill for a good part of 3 hours, then hitch off to PJ and back to Kajang on a very crowded train.

Melawati Hill is a beautiful place. Apparently some developers are thinking of clearing it for construction, and if the Save Melawati Hill T-Shirts that I saw every now and then (mostly on Pauline) didn’t quite say how important it is for construction to be stopped, the serenity and beauty of it sang a song of pleading; gee, it’s not right to build on lands like this (listen to me; the place I sleep now used to be acres of lush green forest). Secondly, though, building anything there is suicide. It’s a hillside. It’s a hill. Landslides and mudslides and catastrophe, people!

You don't get something like this is Kajang

(I live on a hill, too. A highland. Damn, I’m a hypocrite).

But it isn’t quite the hills and placidity that entirely won me; it was the winds and the freshness of things. Think fresh mornings where roaring engines drown under calls of cicadas and wispy mists; think waking up to sunlight peeking out of the hills and growth; think walking up the hill and watching rays piercing through the canopy painting fairytale beauty on reality.

No wonder rich buggers go there and retire.

I want to wake up to this daily... now i wake up to a bald mango tree

Some of the plants there... this one reminded me of Junji Ito's stuff.

It’s a lost cause, I heard, but at least there’s a cause. I guess there are things worth protecting, even if you’re probably never going to win it.

Here’s a good luck, and someone pass me a T-Shirt, perhaps?

(P.S: This are only the few pics i have on my Nikon. Pauline, will send you the others once i work out the drivers for the Canon 350D)