by S. Jayasankaran
I found out recently the most common reason we head for A & E (Accident and Emergency) rooms in Malaysia is to obtain relief from stuck fish bones in the throat.
In New York City, it’s for gunshot wounds. OK, the US doctor gets better on-the-job training, but I think we’ll stick with fish. You could argue the point, but this is neither the time nor plaice.
Speaking of fish, I’m reminded of a story I heard about Justice Eusoffe Abdoolcader (later Tan Sri). The man had a brilliant legal mind, but occasionally could get tripped up.
While hearing a case in Ipoh, the Judge was irritated with a lawyer who, in his opinion, was belabouring a point to death.
He called a timeout for lunch and, glaring at the said lawyer, advised him to “repair in haste” to a shop nearby where there was fish head curry. Fish, remarked the judge tartly, “is very good and might help your brain.”
“Very good, My Lord,” replied the unrepentant belabourer. “And you will be joining me?”
I interviewed Justice Eusoffe for a profile in the early 1990s, and he was all he was reputed to be – sharp and testy.
When I asked for some judgments he was proud of, he summoned his secretary. Ms Lee was asked to fetch MLJ (Malayan Law Journal) Vol 26 and photostat pages 124 through 148.
The man had a photographic memory.
But his writing could be over the top. There was one particular sentence that I read with incredulity. It went through word-thickets and muscular metaphors, through comma, semi-colon, parenthesis and colon, winding its way in perfect grammar to its bitter end, 220 words later.
It was during the late 1990s when I heard of a case being heard in the High Court involving Japan’s Yomeishu.
I was working for a foreign news magazine then, and it was a dry news week, so I went to court.
Yomeishu is a potent medicinal liqueur that’s claimed to promote vitality through boosting circulation.
The Japanese firm was outraged that a local company was selling a similar product with a similar-sounding name and was suing, claiming patent infringement.
The judge hearing the case was one VC George (later Tan Sri), and things got interesting when Yomeishu’s President took the stand.
The President was extolling his product’s virtues using words like “health” and “blood circulation” when the Judge wondered aloud if it had any effects on male virility.
The President replied in the affirmative, so certain was his opinion that Viagra itself would have folded its tent and stolen away into the night.
But the answer didn’t satisfy the Judge because he followed up with a question so keen and penetrating it reduced the courtroom into hysterics.
Judge: “Do you drink it or does one apply it?”
All this with the deadpan gravity of a Walter Matthau.
The Japanese interpreter had a fit of giggles before he translated the question.
After the President digested the question, he had a giggling fit himself before he composed himself sufficiently to inform the suddenly-interested courtroom that one had to drink it for full benefit.
Remember, you read it here first.
(The views of the writer are entirely his)
WE