Rene Burri.

Oh, they are just doing that to get attention, you say but you don't know what they've been through.

Yeah, maybe they are doing it to get attention, because it's the only way they know how to. We don't know because we don't know what they've been through.

God hates people who take their own lives, they burn in hell for everafter but we don't know what they've been through.

It might be a small a matter to you, how stupid their problems and their grieves but you don't know what they've been through.

Instead of all the sneering why not we spend a time and think about what they've been through?

You know that guy in your class, on the same bus as you, in that corner of the restaurant every Tuesday afternoon, their long blank stares and their fingers lost in the mess that is their hair. Why don't you ask him what he's been through?

Or that girl alone on the bridge in a cold winter's night. What is she going through?

Why don't you trying giving them some attention before they demand it themselves? You have people you can talk to about your mom, your work, your friends, your dreams, your hopes, your fear, your pain, your joy, your love. Be that someone to people who aren't quite as lucky as you.

You don't know what they've been through.

You don't know what they've been through.

You don't know what they've been through.

Suicide is painless when it is not happening, though it's not as painful as living with no one listening.

You know how when you go to interviews and you'll be asked what do you want to be in 5 years time? A few times I answered 'Happy'.

I want to be happy.

Most times though, what I get in return is blank stares.

"Happy?"

Yeah, happy. I figured that what they wanted to hear is that I want to earn RM10,000, live in a house along Jalan Bukit Pantai, drive around in a Volkswagen Golf.. you know, that sorta stuffs. Being happy doesn't sound too ambitious I suppose, or perhaps, earning RM10,000, living in a house along Jalan Bukit Pantai and driving around in a Volkswagen Golf is their idea of happiness.

Sorry I'm not that guy. There's plenty of him around, you can have him. I can't be him.

I remember telling one interviewer, chit-chatting in an interview that is clearly lost, when he asked me what is it that I really wanted to do, that I want to be a photojournalist, a war correspondent perhaps, with my dusty camera, behind debrits of what was a house, somewhere on the frontline of some future war, covering every minutes of it.

He then asked me, aren't you scared you might get hurt? I told him, if I get to do that, I don't mind dying. But don't ask me to do things I don't want to do, because I know that I'll never going to do it.

This is Amir Hadi Azmi

To paraphrase Izham Ismail, 'Tak terror, tak handsome, tak kaya. Rock pun tak.'

March 2011.
Jalan Imbi.
Leica M6 + Summilux 50/1.4 + Kodak Ektar 100 + Hariry Ariffin's lasik eyes.

Ehsan and Sofia