OF SMOKED BEEF, NAPIER GRASS & THE WORD GRAVE

Last Friday I again visited Jerantut district. It was to complete my last visit to the district - remember my tv appearance wearing the cowboy hat cleaning the soon-to-be-converted-to-cattle-shed pig sty?

My first destination was to Hj Hamzah's famous smoked beef.He was still the same as my first visit. His smoked beef and fish was still high on demand. It was a pity that he did not have the manpower to expand and diversify.

I suggested to him that he should diversify his products. One very viable product was something like the American jerky. He should produce more of such products in future.

His lemang and smoked beef treat under the cherry tree was something else.

The we proceed to the veterinary reserve land in Perlok. That 250-acre land has been approved to two parties. The land was still under sedcondary forest and with terrain I did not think it will be cheap to develop.

After Friday prayers at Jerantut mosque and a hurriedly taken lunch, we left for a Napier grass trader. He surprised me by telling that he was earning RM10,000 a month by selling grass even at 10 sen per kg.

On the way back to Kuantan I stopped at Mat Kilau's, the famous Malay warrior fighting the British, cemetery. As I approached the cemetery two beautiful black racket-tailed drongoes flew away from a Bacang tree nearby.

On a marble or was it granite information stone I saw one word that irritated me - the word grave. It was very rude to refer the resting place of a great warrior as grave. It belittled his contribution to the state, the nation and Islam. It should be cemetery instead of a grave!