Jai Hanuman Ji

Two things happened today that got me thinking. Both the two events were totally unrelated, but were they?

In the first incident, a stray monkey entered the study room and helped itself with some cookies placed on the study table and scooted off upon being spotted. The second one happened when I was waiting for my kids to finish their music class. There I saw an unkempt handicapped Indian (immigrant, probably illegal) man limping around spitting on the road with no care in the world. The hawkeyed can always smell out a non-Malaysian Indian. They are the ones who wear singlet under their T-shirt or wear a long-sleeved shirt in the heat of the afternoon sun or like donning chequered shirts with thick lock of curly hair.

This guy was walking back to his make shift quarters built at the corner lot of a terrace house.  I was fuming as he was spitting on spreading germs to be distributed among fellow Malaysians and fuming as misfits like him were allowed to roam the streets of Malaysia due to lax enforcement of the Immigration Department and the local government MPKj which was given the broom award by the previous Selangor state government for allowing them to build them homes there.

I am getting angry because the serenity of my living space has been invaded and my way of life has disturbed. This is probably how the monkey must have felt. His ancestors must have been swinging without a care in the world until the bulldozers came marching in to bulldoze their playing fields. We are looking at them as invaders of our privacy. We are wary of their presence because of fear of rabies and other communicable diseases.

This is also probably how the Malays felt in 1946 when the question of citizenship arose. They must felt that it is appropriate to get special treatment as they were here earlier!

With time all the migrant population will assimilate into the country. Just like the other day, a Bangladeshi family drove to the pasar malam in their Proton Wira to buy their favourite meal from the nasi lemak stall! Looks like we also have learn to live with the monkeys, too. Learn? Am already!