I'm sad to say that I never knew Yasmin Ahmad well, though I had the pleasure and privilege of meeting her several times.

The first occasion, as I vividly recall, was 12 years ago when I interviewed her for a piece I wrote for the inaugural issue of my old friend Harmandar Singh's marketing communications magazine, ADOI.

Actually I'd set out to interview Yasmin for a cover story, but in the event found it so hard to get her to talk about herself that I came up woefully short of enough material for anything but a short column.

But I did, I feel, capture some of the essence of the tremendously talented and charismatic person Yasmin was, and managed to express the great admiration I had for her.

Here, in her memory, and in mourning for our loss of a magnificent Malaysian, is what I wrote back then:

Yasmin Ahmad, we love you

What a natural, we thought, for the cover story of Malaysia's first real advertising magazine.

A paean of praise, a heartfelt tribute - what the hell, a love letter - to the woman who, in cahoots with her alter ego, Ali, has shown us that it really is all possible.

That you don't have to be male to make it as a creative director.

NONEThat it really is possible to find an MD to work for who, like her current "boss, friend and confidante" Phil Febig, has the guts to give you the job and let you get on with it.

That an agency really can afford to dispense with creatively incompatible clients and still achieve astonishing growth rates.

That you actually can turn the KL office of not just one but two multinationals - first O&M and now Leo Burnett - into the hottest shops in town.

And that in the process you can clinch for your agency not just 8, not just l8, 28 or 38, but 88 awards in the year of l996 alone.

She was tops to all

Like we said, a natural inaugural-issue cover story and - adoi! - we blew it.

Or, to drop the journalistic "we", I blew it.

NONEPersonally. Because in the one and only interview I was able to get with Yasmin, we seemed to touch on just about every topic but the one I was there to discuss. Herself.

I tried for a second chance. God knows I tried. But every time I reached her handphone she seemed to be in Singapore, in Bali, in transit, in conference or indisposed.

In short, incommunicado.

So all I can really tell you about Yasmin is what must be patently evident to anybody who happens to meet her.

She's petite, slim, sexy, smart, utterly charming and totally elusive. I'd love to ask her - and I'm sure you wouldn't mind knowing - a whole bunch of the standard celebrity-interview stuff.

Like where was she born, raised, educated? Who were her teachers, role models, mentors, idols?

What are her loves, hates, hopes, fears, regrets, disappointments?

Favourite movies, books, activities, people and places? And so on. This is really all so embarrassing.

Here I am, after weeks of obsessively pursuing and pleading for a second audience with this person, and I still can't even tell you her star sign, for goodness'sake.

Fortunately for us all, though, the important facts speak for themselves.

On TV, radio and billboards. In the press, magazines and awards results. In the outstanding creative talents she hires and inspires.

NONEIn her enduring and endearing comradeship with Ali. In the trust and admiration of her management and clients.

More than sufficient reason for us all to say, however unrequited the sentiment feels to your hopeless, hapless interviewer, "Yasmin Ahmad we love you". Whoever you are.

Of course, as everybody knows, Yasmin scored even greater acclaim in the decade or so since then, with the wonderful movies she made about her beloved Malaysia.

But I have to confess that, like another Malaysian I greatly admire, and another former advertising colleague, Antares, I came to have some misgivings about her continuing to create festive-season commercials for Petronas.

Yasmin was shocked at Teoh's death

As I can't express such sentiments better than Antares did himself on his blog the other day, I hope he'll forgive my quoting it in part:

"Yasmin Ahmad, I just want you to know. I really do admire your accomplishments and deeply regret that we never became good friends.

I don't dislike you at all. It's just that I detest the advertising world you chose to call your own.

Maybe it's just a stale chip on my shoulder, having begun my own uncareer in advertising.

I guess I just didn't understand why anyone with your talent and sensitivity to the nuances of the human heart would opt to continue producing commercials that ultimately served only to prop up the status quo by making it look so much better than it actually is."

NONEBut in the end, both Antares and I know that, whatever Yasmin's reasons for continuing to devote a portion of her precious time and great talent to trying to make Petronas appear people-friendly, her heart was in the right place all along.

Shocked by the death of Teoh Beng Hock in MACC custody, here's what she wrote in her blog just a day or two before she died:

"Someone please wake me from this nightmare and tell me that this did not happen in my country and that Teoh Beng Hock is safe at home with his family."


I wish Yasmin was safe at home with her family too.

But even though we've lost her, at least we can console ourselves with the memories and movies she left us, and with the sure and certain knowledge that she knew how dearly she was loved.