I miss my friends, and some of them, I'll never meet again.
Yasmin Ahmad, was there for me during one of my worst times.
Some people said bad things about her, and even last week, I was in a conversation where they made fun of her. It was in bad taste, at least in my book. I left, of course, leaving them baffled.
They were actually more baffled as to why people loved that woman. I mean, she was human. Her movies are not perfect. Her life was not perfect. SHE was not perfect. And yet, she has touched many lives - even those a lot would deem insignificant.
I am not the closest person to her, but for a time, we talked. I was a young, hardheaded journalist and she - by the time I met her - had achieved everything she sought to achieve. Even some impossible things.
I guess, the thing I appreciate most about her is the fact that she hid nothing from me or anyone.
There were some people who raised the question whether or not she was a man, in her youth.
So, me being me, I asked her that question. Directly.
She was stunned. We were having coffee. And then she gave her answer.
And then she said, "Amir, if anyone ever asks, ask them to do what you did just now."
"What did I do?"
"Ask me straight to my face."
And some people wonder, why she was loved? Unconditionally?
