RIFLE RANGE BOY

I am not ashamed to say this. As I was growing up, I used to ask myself why I was born an Indian. In Malaysia, the stereotypical casting of an Indian was that of a poor, unkempt, poorly educated, loud, smelly, hot-tempered and drunk. They are assumed to be dark-skinned and occupy low-ranking menial jobs. They were often the butt of jokes in social circles and even on the national TV. Our perspective and values are formed by the association we keep with, so thought Amma. Coming from a Tamil school background but cutting short her studies after primary school for being born into the wrong gender, she had a very negative opinion of vernacular education. In her mind, the way forward is mastering the lingua franca of the most expansive Empire of her time, English. My sisters and I could only speak English when we stepped outside our flat. We were not to show others that we knew Tamil, as that would, in her own words, draw unsavoury characters. These people would skew our minds away from our...

Yes, I do my job but I am not your slave! They tell your vocation is God. They tell you stories of postmen clinging on their mail-bags like it was their dear lives they were holding on to in fatal motor-vehicle accidents. You have seen simple men giving their whole lives away doing repetitive mundane jobs to bring food to the table. You have heard of Men of God or self-appointment saviours of mankind in obscure places performing seemingly meaningless rituals that garner no worldly gains but only personal satisfaction. To the uninitiated, it may appear that they are just deluding themselves into doing something worthwhile for the rest of humanity. You, the simpleton, may not visualise it. In short, in the old world, a person's job was viewed as their purpose for living. You are born, you do your part for the continuity of species, then you wither away. The thinking man, however, looks at it from a different angle. Sure, everyone is answerable during his assigne...