About Us

Who Are We Anyway?

20 Feb 2026: I've thought a lot about how or what to write, or whether this is even necessary. After all, we are both just regular people who will be forgotten once we depart this earth. But, I wanted to put this out there while I still have this space I can call my own. Here is a text written by Aliff in 2023 and edited by me, that was never published. It was supposed to be the opening post for a new blog that didn't happen, that I now feel may provide insight into the headlining question.

I was often told by my mother and other older people (read: boomers) from my community that modern Malays are lacking “ilmu,” which means “knowledge.” Not the academic stuff you learn in school, but here it refers to special abilities for manipulating one’s surroundings—whether it be the environment, people, or animals. In other civilisations, this would be called magic (the witchcraft kind, not the David Blaine kind). Due to strong Islamic beliefs among the Malay people, openly practising or promoting magic eventually became taboo, but practically everyone still knows someone who practises some kind of magic. Magical knowledge was often passed down through generations, as serious institutions such as Hogwarts did not exist in our country. From helping to find lost items and livestock to tilling paddy fields, protecting properties, making love potions, or tormenting your enemies, there is always a use for magic, and those who claim to practise it are called “bomoh.”

I am often intrigued by a special class of bomoh called “bomoh hujan.” According to ancient Malay folkloric traditions, bomoh hujan (trans. Rain Witch Doctor) were employed on every major occasion in the community—for example, during festivals, weddings, and traditional games. Their purpose is to keep bad weather from disrupting such occasions.

To clarify matters, I am not a “bomoh.” I don’t know any magic or magic tricks. I am also not an expert in meteorology. Based on my limited reading on the history of religions, in one major civilisation, people started to worship “God” based on His ability to produce rain. In English, a rainmaker is someone who attempts to bring rain through rituals or scientific techniques. A rainmaker also refers to someone who brings success to a business or organisation. What makes this interesting is that in my culture—perhaps due to the extreme monsoons and floods that happen every year—we find the services of rain repellers more useful.

This is the story of a pop concert event that I had to perform for about ten years ago. It was the monsoon season, and the venue was outdoors, but the stage had no roof whatsoever. Why no roof? The concert producer said, “The stage wouldn’t look nice.” So I asked one of my colleagues, “What if it rains?” We found out that the event organiser had employed a bomoh hujan, so surely this event would not be interrupted by rain.

We had to start rehearsing at the venue two days before the actual show. The best part is that it rained on each day—heavy thunderstorms. As a result, we could not even get on the stage, so we all hung out at a nearby shopping mall from afternoon to night for two days. Due to the lack of rehearsals, the music for the event had to be pre-recorded, and magically, there was not a single drop of rain during the actual event. My colleague joked that perhaps the bomoh hujan was only paid for the event day, not for the rehearsals.

I was perplexed that even in the early 2010s, we were relying on ancient esoteric knowledge rather than modern weather forecasts.

I have been performing and organising events for the past eight years. Most people enjoy our performances or concerts and ask for more.

However, if there is one thing I can say about my work, it's that with the help of my wife, we have both made extremely tedious tasks look easy. From booking venues, planning programmes, getting musicians on board, designing posters, writing arrangements, printing music scores, directing musicians, inviting guests, managing attendees, marketing, networking, recording concert videos, fixing stage lights, hauling instruments and equipment, driving people home after concerts, keeping lost items, managing cash flow, and countless other tasks, it was all the work of two people. We hardly had any money to get things going, but we always made sure it happened anyway. We were the rainmakers.

Despite the never-ending tasks, we never failed to deliver great music to our listeners. However, it seems that we've done things so well that people take our hard work for granted. People demand we keep doing amazing things, but the best they could reward us with was by wishing us, “Congratulations, great show!” and then forgetting us for the rest of the year. It made me realise that we are not in the music business but are actually low-cost (sometimes free) bomoh hujan, or rainmakers, because people can have ridiculous desires and expect us to deliver or repel the rain.

Rain can be a blessing in the right amounts, but it can spell disaster if there is too little or too much. Brace for rain!