DONATING BLOOD AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK OF THE CORONAVIRUS @ COVID-19 IN MALAYSIA, AND THINKING OF NEW YORK CITY AND MY SOLO PHOTO EXHIBITION AT THE NATIONAL ART GALLERY POSTPONED. – PART I.

By Mansor bin Puteh


‘If you hear of an outbreak of plague in a land do not enter it; but if the plague outbreaks out in a place while you are in it, do not leave that place,’ says Prophet Muhammad, Peace be upon Him, as related by his Companion Tharmizi.

No one can deny what was uttered by Prophet Muhammad, pbuh, 1,400 years ago, is so true today as it was then that no one had uttered anything similar to what was said by him.

We are not in such a peaceful world, but it was not the weapons of mass destruction and destructive policies and military maneuvers of the few world superpowers which are causing this to happen.

Unfortunately and ironically, it is the unseen forces that have got all of us riled up and feeling scared to death, literally as no one knows when the virus – Coronavirus or Covid-19 will infect any of us, despite thinking that we have been doing everything necessary to keep the deadly virus at bay.


Queen Elizabeth and her son, heir too the British throne, Prince Charles and Prime Minister Boris Johnson and many international signatories have been tested positive of the virus and some succumbing to it and even medical experts and doctors who were dutifully tending to those who had been infected by the virus had died.

That the whole world has been turned upside down, is not an understatement; it is affecting the lives of all, despite not being in the epicenter of the outbreak of the virus, and far away, yet, the effects are personal and direct.

Airlines and many major companies are finding it hard to survive with the current situation that has held their business in limbo forcing some to go into red and also bankrupt while pleading for their respective governments for large bailouts to sustain the huge losses they have incurred the last few months.

International trading and traveling have also been severely curtailed, making life impossible to many who even within their own territories are not able to move around freely and behave in the fashion they had been accustomed to because of the lockdowns and movement control order (MCO) imposed by their respective governments.

And the military are in order to come in case if some untoward events break out that can even cause the collapse of some regimes which had been known to now give space and live to some segments of their population. 

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And I am thinking about all these things while I am lying down on the bed at the National Blood Center in Kuala Lumpur (KL) on Saturday, 28 March, 2020 – in Malaysia a good distance from New York City (NYC); halfway across the world in fact, and with most of the roads in the capital city of Malaysia cleared of traffic because of the partial lockdown, and only those who have special and urgent reasons to be out are allowed to drive around but only to go to their destinations and return to their houses, and alone in their vehicles.

And I can’t help but feel a sense of personal anguish with pangs of anxiety that crosses the globe bouncing from KL and NYC, a city where I had the good fortune to live in for close to three years, as a student at Columbia University and the quagmire we’re in with the outbreak of Coronavirus or Covid-19.

Donating blood today clearly put me as the country’s second top blood donor with the top donor having made his 589th donation recently.

It also adds some drama and color to mention that the time difference between the two cities is exactly twelve hours, with KL ahead and they could very well be the furtherest that both the cities could be on the globe.

I had indeed arrived to the furthest point on earth from where I was in KL to NYC to study at a university there, from where I could see a new world that was totally different from the one I had been used to before.

But New York City and America had come into my life and awareness from the many Hollywood films I had watched in the cinemas, and my personal encounter with world-famous heavyweight boxer, Muhammad Ali who came to KL to fight British boxer, Joe Bugner in 1975.

It was my sheer luck when I found myself standing in the elevator of the Kuala Lumpur Hilton where he and his entourage were staying at for the fight. He was with his younger brother Rahman Ali and trainers, Angelo Dundee and Budini Brown, all looking larger than life. I felt I was as tall but not as big at Muhammad in size because he was not the boxer in the ring we saw when his muscles were taut and body expanded.

I have been holed at the house for some days and only managed to drive around in the neighborhood to get some errands for self-sustenance, so driving for close to thirty kilometers to get to the blood center was a new experience I had not felt before and being able to drive smoothly all the way.

This is the 545th time I am donating blood – mostly plasma and sometimes platelet. From information I managed to see in the internet, each time a person donates blood he burns 650 calories or jogged for ten kilometers, and for each donation, a donor’s blood is said to be able to save three lives!

It was possible because the staff who checked my body temperature using the infra-red thermometer said it was 36.6 Celsius which is way below the limit of 37.5 Celsius.

However, after donating I got the temperature checked again and it was 36 Celsius and the temperature outside was 37.5 Celsius – and very hot, so if one has such a temperature he can easily tell it without the need for anyone placing the thermometer near his forehead or inside his arm below the palm to read it.