THE college where I teach has an in-house radio station, where students learn to broadcast ‘live’, play music over the air, sometimes crack one or two lame jokes, and such like, making it challenging for staff and students trying to have a meal at the college canteen. Generally, they practise and try hard to speak like the professional radio DJs (aka Simon and Caroline on Light and Easy, etc). Occasionally, however, they play too much of one type of music, or play too loud, or stutter on air, or use too much ‘ah’s and ‘erm’s, making an embarrassment of themselves ‘live.’

I asked my class of Mass Communications students the other day how often did they work at the college radio station. “Is it one semester? Or three days a week for a term?” My students replied, “Two hours” and I asked, “Two hours per day several days a week? Is it throughout the entire semester?” and her next answer was, “No, just two hours, that’s it.” I thought she misunderstood my question and asked again, “You mean two hours per week throughout the semester?” Her reply was, “No, just two hours and no more.”

I was dumb struck. Why only two hours? How can a person be a good radio DJ from just two hours of practice? Some people spend years at the microphone and still either talk too much or talk too little The answer was hardly convincing, “There are many students.”

Can a student learn to be a good chef with just two hours’ practical work at the kitchen? How can anyone learn how to do a good piece of sirloin steak with only two hours at the stove?

When I was in the military (during the days when dinosaurs were still on earth), one of the things that they taught us was how to throw a hand grenade. Before the practical, they taught us everything there was to know about hand grenades: different types of grenades, why it was pre-fragmented, the role of the primer, the spring, the locking pin (that’s the part where heroes in war movies remove using their teeth), etc. Then they took us to the firing range for a ‘live’ practice of throwing a hand grenade, and you know how many grenades each of us got to throw? One.

Now how was I expected to be a good hand grenade thrower if I had only one hand grenade to throw? How could I be any good at lobbing hand grenades at enemies charging at me screaming “Yaaaah!” baring their bayonets? Did they expect us to practise throwing stones or what?

The fact of the matter is, there is no substitute for practice to achieve perfection. Tiger Woods did not get to where he is today swinging a club for only two hours. Nicol David did not get to where she is today learning all the theories about squash but spending only two hours on the court. Cristiano Ronaldo certainly did not get to where he is today just watching the other football greats on video and spending only two hours on the football field.

Whenever I am in Penang, one thing that I never fail to do is to have a drink of fresh coconut water, straight from the fruit. At RM1.50 a fruit, it’s arguably the cheapest fresh coconut in town. I tell the Indian fellow I want a fruit and he asks me whether I want it with or without the flesh. I answer, “half-half, not too much and not too little.” He nods, picks up a fruit from a huge pile with his left hand, taps it just once with the middle finger of his right hand to determine the amount of flesh inside, then slices the fruit in two strokes maximum with his very sharp semi-circular sickle and there I have it; exactly the right amount of flesh: ‘half-half, not too much and not too little.’ I go there ten times and this coconut guy, who has been selling coconuts for as long as he could remember, gets it right ten times.

Sometimes, my luck runs out and he is not in. Instead, his assistant mans the stall. This bloke picks up a fruit from the pile, taps half a dozen times all over the fruit, slices it with four or five strokes (instead of just two), and gets it wrong! For those familiar with Penang, this particular coconut stall is on the famous Burmah Road junction opposite the Giant Supermarket and one cannot miss the stall because there are bins and bins of husks on the road waiting to be thrashed. Although I usually drink standing on the road, many customers come in BMWs and Benzes to pack them away.

Besides having a favourite coconut seller, I also have my favourite durian seller especially these days when ‘tis the season to be eating durians. There must be at least 30 different varieties of durians nowadays, from the very basic ‘kampung’ durians to the more touted ‘D24’ and the other members of the D-family, but as far as Ah Heng (my durian selling buddy) and I are concerned, there are only three categories, that is, bitter, bitter-sweet or not bitter durians. I go to him and always tell him I want ‘bitter’. He repeats ‘bitter’ and then asks if I like ‘mountain cat’, or ‘XO’, or ‘Lizard’, or whatever he has at the time. I ask a little about the price of each type, then say, ‘Ok, I’ll try a mountain cat this time’ or ‘I’ll take a Lizard today.’ He repeats my choice then picks up a fruit from a pile, shakes it with both hands as if listening for something from within, taps it with his fingers (I would never know for the life of me what good tapping a durian with such a thick layer of skin does), and puts it to his nose for a smell. Occasionally, he puts the fruit back in silent disapproval before picking up another for the same selection routine. Eventually he finds one, slices it open with his short but very sharp flat knife, and it turns out to have very nice bitter flesh, bingo! His reliability in choosing the right durian for me is second only to the rising of the morning sun, which is the reason why I buy durians only from this durian guy who took over the durian business from his father and has never done any other job in his life.

Again, my luck sometimes runs out and he is not in. I tell his brother I want ‘bitter’, he picks a fruit, shakes it, taps it, smells it, and when he opens it, it does not turn out right.

What then is the moral of the coconut and the durian stories? It goes without saying that the coconut fellow must have been tapping coconut for years, and Ah Heng must have been smelling durians for years as well. It must have been, for each of them, a lifetime of devotion. Perfection does not come easy. Perfection comes only from hard work.