All the justice money can buy.

Chief Justices Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, Chief Judge of Sabah and 

Sarawak Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, and apex court judges 

Nallini Pathmanathan, Mary Lim and Mohamad Zabidin Diah.

The naive, straight-thinking, law-abiding me with no background in the legal field used to think that the buck stopped at the Court Of Appeal. If one fails at the Appellate Court, it was pretty much that. One goes to jail to complete a sentence or meets his maker as he hits the gallows. 

Now we know there is life after the appeal. One can seek justice by pleading at the Federal Court. If the results there are not to his liking, he further argues to have a judicial review of the panel of judges that meted his sentence. Even the Federal Court can be held at ransom. This is called justice in the world of the high-heeled. Everyone deserves adequate legal representation, and it is his human right. Of course, it becomes mandatory if the client can afford the obscene amount of retainer fees involved as the case goes higher in the hierarchy of the legal accolade. Nobody has the guts to inquire about these people's seemingly bottomless coffers and the disproportional amount they save from their structured civil servant pay.

Not to forget the special treatment these VIP client is entitled to. In the eyes of the law, unlike what everybody else says, he is not a criminal until he has exhausted all his legal avenues. Till then, he will be roaming freely, still flashing his designer outfits and not repeating wearing the same tunic more than once. He can perhaps add a tinge of tangerine in his tie to mock naysayers who miss the joy of seeing him in an orange prison suit. The shiny steel cuff links can remind them of the handcuffs that he does not have to wear. 

We, the mere mortal we are, are also told that everyone deserves a second chance. Like a true religious confession, with a single stroke of the royal quill, one can get a clean slate, free to do what he seems fit, sniggering at the whole parody of it all. 

In the true mantra of cash is king, money can buy friends, love, liaisons with the rich and famous and definitely justice and freedom. Laws are made to make the powerless remain so and squirm at the sight of the stick. For the privileged 1%, it is just an inconvenience. Laws are meant to be broken. The rich can challenge it. The poor just have to oblige. 

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The higher you fly, the harder the fall!

Bad Boy Billionaires: India (Documentary, 2020; Netflix)

This is another one of Netflix's productions that hit a snag in India, this time it spurned court cases demanding against its release. Three out of the four episodes in the series were released recently. The fourth episode, a documentary narrating the rise and fall of Ramalinga Raju of Satyam Computers, was successfully stopped at the courts for its damaging portrayal of the man.  

The remaining episodes tell about the escapades of the three Indian icons.

Vijay Mallya, a fugitive currently residing in the UK, is also known as the King of Good Times. Born to a beer brewer father, despite the Prohibition of liquor in many states of India, managed to glamourise beer drinking during the dot com bubble heydays of the '90s. From there he went on to the world centre stage through his involvement in the 'no frills' airline business and the F1 races. He made a few shady loans, and soon he was hot on the heels of the authority. He fleed to London and is fighting extradition efforts to India.  

Diamondtaire, Nirav Modi, was born into a family that delved in the jewellery business for generations. He was the one who singlehanded showcased the master craftsmanship of the Indian jewellers to the world stage via his international brand that carried his name. He allegedly inflated the value of his own merchandise through sales of his jewellery to different shell companies. His shady loans with Punjab National Bank, however, alerted the lawmen to investigate his dealings. Modi is now seeking asylum in the UK.

We are familiar with the brand Sahara which use to be displayed proudly on the Indian cricket and hockey team jerseys. Sahara (Saviour) is the name of a financier group created by a rags-to-riches individual named Subrata Roy. At one time, the Sahara group of companies was the biggest employer in India after the Indian Railways. Its primary business was chit fund, a type of savings for the poor. It later ventured into real estate, hospitality, airline industry, healthcare, education and many more. His problems started when he decided to public list two of his companies. This spurred the Market Regulators to look into his company accounts. Despite the repeated accusations and huge fines imposed on the conglomerate, the company's fundamentals are still intact.

The story of fame and fortune always excites the deprived or those dreaming for the unattainable. Perhaps, the safest way to gather wealth is to do in the sly without kicking much pomp and splendour. Splashing obscene amount of cash for private events always open the eyes of the regulators who had been entrusted with upholding the law, has the Hobson's choice of needing to investigate. No system is leak-proof; it is easy to find a discrepancy. One thing leading to another, years of labour will come tumbling down. The middle ground seems prudent but then how do create something earth-shattering without a thud?

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Deprival Devours?

A thought flew past me as I was sitting through a lavish wedding dinner in a posh establishment recently. A doctor in the infant years of his career was proudly showcasing his catch to the world to ogle. Set with the high-brow society setting and the ambience to match, we, the mortals were given a sneak peek into the lives and times of the groom and bride through a montage of a roll of photos that was rolling during the function. We gathered that the respective families went through thick and thin, scaling the waves of obstacles to attain the comfort that they had acquired in life. 

Well and dandy, all these...

But how is a measly paid medical officer in the notoriously underpaid system of Malaysian civil service going to sustain the same type of lifestyle? Is he still going to be that dedicated doctor who will weather all kinds of resistance to put wellbeing above everything else as he chose the profession, not for the glamour but the calling? Is he going through grind those hard times dealing with difficult cases in the wee hours of the morning? Is he going to pacify his anger nerves as he treats drunks with avoidable wounds? Is he going to tell himself that it is a calling to be a physician as he slogs through the long New Year weekend as the rest of the city embroil in stuporous revelry of the Season? Will he think that his good deeds would earn plus points for his afterlife or that the divine forces throw him a bone to lead a comfortable family life? As the demands for modern living becomes more expensive, is he going to sacrifice the comforts of his early life for an epicurean one?

At a Klinik Desa, the reality.

Bordering on stereotyping and over-generalisation, it is probably going to be a ‘no-no’ to the above. Living in comfortable times deprived of the valuable lessons from the School of Hard Knocks of Life and acquisition of a degree through the back door means would hamper his tenacity to face the realm of the unknown. 

Now, whose fault is this? Are poverty and deprivation the only way to strengthen the mettle of Man? Will the comforts of life only create snowflakes much like how a sterile environment lowers one’s immunity guard?

Should medical vocation be reserved for those with aptitude only or to those with undying zest to serve despite adversities? Are these mere statements of assumptions?

I envisage the groom, ten years down the line, abandoning the real call of the profession to serve the needy of medical attention who are invariably the ones least deep-pocketed, to venture to something less demanding with better remunerations, like rubbing shoulders with bankers and financiers. At least their clients do not come with tales of melancholia and hopelessness but with tall stories of the impossible of pots of golds and pink unicorns. 

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What is it that you really want?

After the demise of Singapore's founding father, LKY, the question of personal liberty and freedom versus the need for Big Bro to oversee things for the nation's greater good made its rounds. Proponents of human rights and individual freedom would argue that the Government has no business barging into personal lives and tapping into our telephone calls. After gruelling all the wrong decisions in the past and paying dearly, the West could no longer trust their governments. Instead, they would let their elected leaders mess up all people's (Third World) future than their own. The leaders are elected servants, and they are there to serve.

On the other end, paternalistic leaders feel that human beings are just brainless blind invertebrates with a herd mentality. They just follow their peers without much thinking or analysing! This was proposed by Sayyid Kutb, the Egyptian school inspector who earned a scholarship to the USA. In his daily dealings, he discovered that people are only obsessed with materialism, violence, and sexual pleasures. They are clueless about what they actually want in their lives, and they need strong leadership to pave and lead the way. His ideology became the spine of many ultra-nationalistic and religious bigots.

LKY has an impressive set of laurels to prove that his formula of regimentalised dictatorship had been pivotal in transforming a backwater village into a first-class metropolitan city. His foes would say that the only difference between Kim Jong Il and LKY is the prosperity of its citizen. But is not that the end of all, being prosperous and affluent? Or is something more than being happy, belly full and money jingling in your pants and knowing your old age is taken care of?

Now that you have it all...

Now that you have it all, you can sit in the comfort of an armchair and advise those on the lower rung of the ladder to see the bigger picture. We were all there, struggling to weather the unknown, dreaming of walking shoulder to shoulder with the Titans. You thought that, by being up there amongst the immortals, life would be a pleasure cruise, a walk in the park. Life difficulties, you assumed, would be a thing of the past. Oh, how wrong you were!
You discover that new powers beget newer problems which are just as challenging to solve. You realise that money is not the panacea for all your woes. Your worries were just beginning but how you fail to take notice.

Then it would hit you...

You then start questioning the meaning of life, the meaning of existence and purpose of it all. You would find that there are other things in life than just chasing wealth and prosperity. It becomes crystal clear that the coveted pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is just an illusion. Just like many things in life, it is all a mirage, maya...
But by then the people who were around you, supposedly through thick and thin, feel that it is their birthright to savour all the fruit of your success. Suddenly, it is their journey, their labour, their right to flaunt your success. And they have the cheek to show off their affluence to the same people who are yearning to be in your shoes.

Well, well, well... karma has a cruel sense of humour. Just wait and see...

https://asok22.wixsite.com/real-lesson 

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‘Wealth is Health’ or ‘Health is Wealth’?

25.5.2010

‘Wealth is Health’ or ‘Health is Wealth’?

That is a good question. From the time I can remember, the age old adage of ‘Health is Wealth’ had been ingrained in our impressionable minds to be the ultimate truth. Is it really the elusive truth that everyone is looking for?
In the pre-industrial era when most people led simple lives toiling on the wonders provided by nature, e.g. farming, hunting or any work which involve indentured labourers or bondage slavery. Here, a healthy fit body will ensure ability to endure the hardship of calamities of nature to bring home the bacon! An unhealthy invalid or an aging senile individual will be a burden to family and society unless a social safety net is in place.
If you were the servant of the palace or a sorcerer in the dawn of human civilization, (as if we are more civilised now), health is of paramount importance for survival. Is this adage still of relevance at this present date and time?
Let me look at how health brings wealth to an individual. For a cynical person like me, I would look at first at how many caregivers in the healthcare services (e.g. doctors and nurses) who generate wealth from other people’s ill-health. They are not ill-gotten gains, mind you. Then there are the giants in the healthcare industries like the HMO’s and the insurance companies who managed to build a conglomerate from people’s sickness. In fact, I have seen so many friends whose family and generations have been elevated the rung of ladder of strata of society via acquiring medical studies (either via pure hard work or via the short cut). In fact, medical studies have gone so cheap. Advertisements are often seen in the local dailies showing SPM as requirement for entry to some of these so called Government-approved medical institutions.
It is no secret that the cost of healthcare all over the world has leapt by bounds over the years. It will literally cost a leg or an arm to afford cutting edge medical care in a private hospital anywhere in the world. So, to acquire good health, one has to have some wealth and be willing to part with it. I remember a relative of mine, who during a routine screening procedure, who was told to have a small benign looking renal cyst. It kept on reappearing on repeated subsequent screening. Being not satisfied with reassurances by his doctors, he flew down to Singapore for more invasive diagnostic procedures. To cut the story short, he underwent a nephrectomy after biopsies showed slow growing renal cell carcinoma. Here, it is apparent that this individual acquired good bill of health after paying a hefty bill of wealth! Of course critics will say that it is a slow growing tumour anyway which would have been picked up by subsequent regular screenings. To the patient, however, his doctors in Malaysia have failed him and he will always be wary of their treatment modalities.
Many diseases that use to plague mankind (e.g. small pox and poliomyelitis to a certain extent) have been literally wiped out from the surface of earth, save some kept in the laboratories (which may be used as a biological weapon when the time is ripe). Beri-beri which used to plague Malayan bonded labourers in the middle of the 20th century is unheard of in modern Malaysia. All these happened with improvement of economic climate and affordability of vaccines and proper balanced nutrition. On the other hand, wealth has brought with it some life style related diseases as well – obesity, diabetes, hypertension, coronary events, etc. It looks like here wealth has brought in some health issues as well.
Fearing for their health, wealth affluent societies no longer believe in curative medicine but rather concentrate on preventive medicine. This has been instrumental in mushrooming of numerous health sanctuaries. Here, absolutely normal individuals of various ages are subjected to various tests just to find a result which would deviate from norm so that more tests can be done, all in the pretext of finding sickness in a health person. Business is generated – healthcare providers are happy- they got a job; insurance companies are happy – they have got low risk individuals tied down with their policies and are laughing all the way to the bank; the ‘patients’ are happy – they have taken care of their health so that they can continue acquiring wealth! And continue their way of life, for good or bad...
Now which side are you on?