The day Neohikayat is put out of business by competition from publishing houses set up by bands of young Malay writers with actual talent, is the day when I'll know I have done my job. There is no shame in having your life ended by the hands of your own child (or monster, if you prefer the Frankenstein imagery), if that is a signal that you have to make way for a world that has outgrown your usefulness for it.

An old man should know when it is time to retire gracefully, after all, and if he should refuse to, then he ought to be taken out forcefully. As I expect the people before me to yield, so do I submit - however painful it shall turn out to be, for I know I shall resist as the people before me have struggled to resist - to the same dictum.

I started Neohikayat in November last year on a whim, after finally getting tired of hearing all the whining around me about why literature is in the state it is in Malaysia. But this is true of almost anything you care to think of, which makes you wonder, why are these people content to just moan and groan, and hope that someone else will come and do the job? Why don't they get off their arses and change it themselves?