Once they were kings!

Sensuous Horizons - The stories and the plays
Author: KS Maniam

Thanks to MEV for introducing this book.

This is an exciting collection of plays, prose and newspaper writings on plays written by KS Maniam. In the 1990s, all through into the Millenium, Kishen Jit was an influential theatre practitioner. His collaboration with various local and international playwrights, including KS Maniam, set the template for stage plays in the post-colonial multicultural Malaysia. He was one of the founder members of Five Arts Centre.

Most of the book discusses KS Maniam’s play, ‘The Cord’. It is a social drama about the goings-on in an estate where the workers are predominantly immigrant Indians. Still living in the shadow of their cultural beliefs from their home country, it seems that most of them are missing their ticket on the bus to modernity and prosperity.

In this story, the thundu, or ceremonial piece of cloth worn by Tamil men in cultural functions, acts like a MacGuffin. A thundu, in better times, is kept clean and pristine, and it never lets touch the ground. It gains its honourable status by being over the shoulder. As the Tamil worker slowly loses his status and starts working as a coolie, the thundu becomes a towel to wipe his sweaty sunbaked skin. It becomes dirty and loses its ceremonial status. It goes a notch lower on his body, tied over his chest or waist. As a mark of respect, too, he would automatically remove it in front of his bosses, as if he is unworthy of wearing a thundu, a sort of blazer to cover his bare body.

As the stresses of work and family life spiral down the path of destruction, when domestic violence, toddy, and post-drinking fights become the norm, the thundu becomes a weapon. The divine thundu loses its divinity to evolve into a weapon used in a fight to strangle in a drunkard brawl.

Metaphorically, a proud Indian with his rich heritage, culture, and tonnes of wisdom and knowledge to civilise the world finds himself becoming a slave to the colonial masters during the imperial phase of history. The once most affluent country in the world has become one of the poorest.

The question that begs to be asked is this. Why do you rever a tradition that has obviously failed you? Cultures and traditions evolve from the practices that have worked for societies for a while. They would assume that that must be the way to do things as they carried the society over generations. Now, here, it had obviously failed you. You were displaced, scurrying like a headless chicken for safe space and the bare minimum to survive. Instead of reassessing, changing and emulating other successful groups, you chose to do the same repeatedly and expect a different outcome. That is madness. Living in the glory of the past will only make you stumble and fall.

Many of the characters in the stories are so compelling. I swear they feel like some of the people in 'The Sandpit' and 'Rock Melon' used to be my neighbours. A guy used to have a well-concealed double life for more than ten years, only to be discovered when he died suddenly, and his mistress turned up to perform the final rites at the funeral. Yet another had no qualms about parading his mistress in front of his docile wife. The legitimate wife was to care for his kids, while the mistress took care of his needs. The last time I heard, the man had a debilitating stroke. The legal wife stayed back to care for the man. The mistress and his two kids just scooted off once they grew wings.

I know how a few couples in my neighbourhood went along with their day-to-day living very secretively. They generally kept to themselves, mainly living behind closed doors. They would suddenly disappear for a long time and return for short visits. I used to wonder what they did for a living. Perhaps they were in the same as 'Mala'.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.