Thanks to your keen interest and support, Pukul Habis was Amazon Singapore's #1 Best Seller in Books (as of yesterday), #1 in New Releases and #1 in Movers and Shakers.
Get your copy from the Amazon sites in your respective countries, or use Amazon sites that ship to your location. "Look Inside" function on some sites shows sample pages.
Singapore: https://bit.ly/3XJzInH
Australia: https://amzn.to/3ViaX0i
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We will continue engaging you in coming days via this blog, Kementah.blogspot.com, while your book finds its way to you via Amazon's global supply chain. In the meantime, we will share the Pukul Habis back story to help you know more about the book before it lands in your hands. We promise no spoilers.
Why did you choose a Malay title for Pukul Habis?
The book title is arguably one of the most important touch points with potential readers. The Malay phrase, Pukul Habis, has always resonated with me ever since I heard it as a full-time National Serviceman (NSF) while serving with the Public Affairs Department (now MCO MINDEF) in MINDEF in 1991. I was then an NSF media relations assistant. I typed the press release that announced the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) Open Mobilisation on the eve of National Day 1991 and accompanied the Media Relations Officer, the late Captain V. Mano, to the Open Mob at an armour camp.
So I experienced and saw firsthand the tension during that period. I wrote about Pukul Habis in one of my previous commentaries for The Straits Times. It was titled "A Strong and Silent Keeper of the Peace" and you can find it here.
"Do you know what Pukul Habis means?" CPT Mano asked.
I shrugged and replied that I did not. My Malay back in 1991 was poor to non-existent.
"It doesn't mean you whack the fella until he's finished. It means you really whaaaack the fella," he explained, dragging out the word "whack". I remember him pounding his fist for emphasis.
And the name stuck.
I knew, even back in 1991, that this would make a great name for a book - though back then, I had no ambitions to write one.
While speaking to people on military stuff years ago, I found that certain terms elicited a strong reaction from people - especially Singaporeans who had served with the SAF at some point in their lives.
One was Pukul Habis. The other was Mersing Line (which we will address this weekend in another back story).
You almost had to whisper the terms when speaking in public. And dropping these terms in mid conversation seemed to make people's hair stand, almost like a bomb went off.
Now, when you are writing a story, you want to look for words that can make an emotional connection with the reader. You try hard to make them part of the action, describe battle planning and combat scenes that place them at the heart of the war zone. And as a writer, I looked for words, phrases and situations that would hopefully keep readers engaged.
Pukul Habis was one such term.
To me, it defies direct translation from Malay to English. Loosely translated, it can mean "total wipeout", "complete annihilation", "absolute obliteration". I think you get the picture?
But in my view, the English translation seems to lack the element of controlled violence and fury that Pukul Habis connotes.
I read many war books - a mix of memoirs, non fiction battle reports and fictional stories - before I decided a fictional story of a Malaysia-Singapore war was absolutely fascinating and would be interesting enough to write about.
The book Samurai, which is the memoir by Japanese Second World War Ace Saburo Sakai, wouldn't be the same if it was titled "Japanese warrior".
The book Das Boot, the book by German author Lothar-Günther Buchheim about the U-boat war, would probably have less impact if it was titled "The Boat".
Coming back to Pukul Habis, one feedback I got from test audience members was that the book would look "like a western novel" if it was titled "Total Wipeout". There would be nothing to distinguish it online from the many, many books as readers browse through Amazon's vast trove of war fiction.
I set out to make the book distinctly Malaysian, with a Malaysian Armed Forces war machine on the cover, and a title that would leave readers with no doubt that the story they are about to discover is one of a kind, unique to this region, and hopefully worth their leisure reading time.
Hence, Pukul Habis.
I hope you all enjoy the story.
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