Reading about an old contact, Port Klang state assemblyman Datuk Zakaria Md Deros, in trouble following the construction of a palatial mansion without approval from the local council, Sunday Star Vasthu Sastra columnist T. SELVA decided to visit him to have a chat and do an analysis of his house in Kampung Idaman in Port Klang. A SOLEMN mood prevailed when I walked into the muddy ground of Datuk Zakaria Md Deros unfinished dream house.
Wearing a faded short-sleeved shirt and sitting on a wooden bench outside the construction cabin, Zakaria was looking through the stack of yesterday s newspapers, including Chinese dailies, which carried front-page reports and photographs on the commotion that took place outside his controversial property last Sunday. Hello brother, he greeted me and I was surprise he could still remember me, as our acquaintance goes back over 25 years when he was just a budding politician in my hometown Port Klang. There were a handful of his supporters, two carrying walkie-talkies, at the site and all of them welcomed me with a salam.
I told Zakaria the purpose of my visit was to report his side of the story because he had not spoken to the media at all since the controversy broke out in early October. Hang on, as I m still compiling some facts, and I plan to hold a press conference in one or two days time to explain all, said Zakaria. He was tight-lipped on the issue but said: I m not arrogant, and it is unfair for people to brand me that way.
You know me better, as I have helped many people in this village and around. You can go and interview my neighbour, how I gave him a new lease of life, said Zakaria as he pointed to the house behind the construction site. I told him that it could be the Gucci sunglasses that he was photographed with when he met Selangor Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah on Saturday that could have portrayed him as being a hostile person.
Zakaria said: I wore the glasses on that day because an insect entered into my eye a day earlier and the eye was watering. He said he had been staying in the construction cabin since work on the mansion began because he wanted to keep a close watch on the development. His children were with him at the two-unit construction cabins.
A Land Cruiser and a Toyota Harrier were parked under a Klang Municipal Council canopy. During the chat, Zakaria s handphone kept ringing and he screened the calls and took calls that came for him from his daughter s mobile phone. Before I drove to his construction site, I went to his existing single-storey house, which has been converted into a double-storey house about 200m away.
It was locked and there was a police patrol car at the lane. I opened the subject of Vasthu and offered to give Zakaria my analysis on his problematic house, work on which has stopped. Zakaria explained that the Indonesian construction workers were still on Hari Raya leave.
I drew the flag-shaped plot where his new house was being built and pointed out the faults. One major affliction is the main entrance located in the south-east and facing a road spearing into his house, which is very inauspicious in Indian feng shui. I told him that he was already experiencing the effects of the defect and such an unfriendly plot would invite unwanted trouble and would defame the owner.
He nodded his head in agreement and when I told him that his present east-facing house, although small, was better, he agreed. I have been staying there for 38 years and that is the place I prospered, he said. What can I do now?
he asked. The only way to correct the T-junction fault is to disallow traffic from using the road, as there is no other remedy. Zakaria appeared worried and scratched his head and offered me black coffee.
He excused himself after our 30-minute meeting saying that he wanted to perform his prayers. Before he left, he said: Don t forget to come for my Hari Raya open house on Nov 20. Kampung Idaman was an unheard of village two decades ago and since Zakaria rose in politics, his presence brought development, including a community hall and the construction of a welcome arch.
Residents appeared undisturbed by the unwanted media attention their kampung was currently receiving. But everyone who drove past Zakaria s mansion did not fail to slow down for a closer look.
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