This is one of the songs we use to hear almost daily from the veranda of our flat, no thanks to 'Iyer', the MPPP bus driver who would, without fail, play his 78rpm to relax after a long morning of exhausting driving. As they say, one man's meat is another man's poison (especially if he is a vegetarian and a fussy one at that); his daily routine was much a nuisance to us the book worms! Necessity was the mother of invention and the mother of all inventions was studying in the cemetery to escape the torture of the persistence of noise pollution from the inhabitants of RRF, including one occupant of E15-11! Well, all meant well and everything ended well, just like the tagline in the movie 3 idiots - Allz well!
Did you know the remake of this movie (Aradhana) of the Hindi song featured above in Tamil is called 'Sivagamiyin Selvan' and the scene above of the mule train in the hilly terrains of Kashmir Valley is shamelessly copied? In the Tamil movie, the singing star was Sivaji Ganesan and his sidekick was the born again pastor and ex-movie star of devotional movies AVM Rajan who prefers not to talk and think about his acting years.
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?
I remember visiting Petrosains at KL City Centre a few years ago. I had an uneasy feeling on exiting that visitors to the venue had been hoodwinked into believing (via its exhibits and messages) that petroleum had indeed made Mother Earth a more delightful place to live. Really? Sorry, I cannot buy your story!
Recently one of my friends emailed me an article narrating the potential devastation waiting to happen as a result of BP's misadventure of oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. The damage to the environment is said to be in gargantuan proportions as evidenced by the 22,000 people and 10,000 vessels deployed in rescue plan making it the most massive effort in the history of disaster recovery. That got me thinking.
Actually, petroleum seems to me like a curse or the root of all evil rather than our saviour. Most of the world catastrophes are somehow linked it -e.g. Twin Tower incident, Iraq War etc. etc.
The Second Industrial Revolution, fuelled by the discovery of Colonel Edwin Drake helped to jump-start the modernisation of the world as we see it today. We can build mammoth structures and architectural marvels at a fraction of time used by our ancestors. Anyway, the Incas and the Egyptians built these too, but at the expense of much human (slave) sufferings and lives. We are not much now after so many years - now we have sweatshops! I digress. I am not a proponent of anti modernisation, and that we should all be moving from point A to point B on a bullock cart or that we should all don cavemen hide and be stoned in Stone Age - anyway, I am too lazy to hunt for my meals!
Revolutionary ways of extracting petroleum deeper into the ground rather than scooping it off Earth's surface made kerosene replace whale oil in lamp fuels in Northern America at the turn of the 19th century. This, with many other innovations, made petrol the most sort after commodity creating strings of obnoxious billionaires especially in the US who worshipped the God of Capitalism. Over time money seem to justify and compensate all our deficiencies and inadequacies. The ferocious appetite of these billionaires seems insatiable that they have ventured beyond their shores, influencing governments and warlords towards this end. The ugly side of Man is revealed by his fixation of expanding his arsenal of nuclear heads to achieve his goal.
In the early 70's, the oil cartels held the world at its throat by fixing the oil prices. It then showed us how vital petroleum was to mankind. It is also quite evident to us by now how George W. Bush and Tony Blair smoke-screened us into believing on the existence of weapons of mass destruction, hence justifying their march into and colonisation of a sovereign nation, all in the name of the completing the missing link between the Siberian-Caspian pipeline! As a result of these, air travel had never been more cumbersome and human being, who had been quite accommodating of each other, (are you sure?) have started staring at each other with suspicion, especially at those who believed that they should cover the religion-sanctioned areas of their bodies (aurat).
Do not even bother talking about the environmental damage caused by oil spillage and the carbon footprints left by this fossil fuel. Marine biologists working in the tropical waters off the coast of US in the 80's actually found extinction of the male gender in a group of marine life some ten years after a massive oil spill. So, petroleum has changed mankind in a big way. Right! Even my toes are not laughing.
@Thanks to Sweeney for the email. Now I am more confused now than ever and have been put on suicide alert! There I see it now, the shadow that had been following me all day....
The day after Indra Shan passed away, the obituary column in the Star announced with a verse from the Bible…
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Then, I was watching a Denzel Washington movie called ‘Book of Eli’. He was portrayed as a gun wielding futuristic servant of God trying to save the only surviving Bible. He managed to follow the said path but succumbed to his injuries sustained in his journey albeit accomplishing his mission. He was narrating in the background at the end of the movie and his last words were…
I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
Is it because I am looking out trivial things like these?
23.5.2010
Amnesty and Gotong-Royong
What amnesty has got to do with gotong royong, you would say. Amnesty usually refers to affairs between countries whilst gotong-royong involves things at the village level. If you have a criminally cynical and critical mind like mine, then you would probably correlate these two phenomenon and skewer them together in the same BBQ pit in a negative light.
Amnesty here refers to the recurrent government amnesty (grace period) to allow illegal immigrants to go back to their countries of origin before the long arm of the law goes on a blitz to nap illegal immigrants. This will predictably start a slowdown in nation’s economic activities as all our nitty gritty work of cleaning our homes to building mansions are manned by immigrants (legal and otherwise). Pressure groups in the form of politicians and businessmen, like a knee jerk reaction, will start pressing the enforcers to go lenient on the wrongdoers who in turn will temporarily slow down the whole wheel of enforcement, yet to start churning again sometime in the future.
Gotong royong is a cultural entity among the Malay community where after one whole year of dirtying their village and not bothering about cleanliness and hygiene, a wake-up call will come in the form morbidity or mortality due to communicable disease. Villagers will then get together to embark on a spring cleaning drive.
The striking similarity between these two scenarios is that, in both instances, after months of malaise and lacksadical attitude (of lax enforcement and not taking care of own backyard), efforts are made to right the wrong. When the load gets too heavy and dangerous, they call for everyone else to do their dirty jobs. If the Immigration Department officials were not sleeping on their jobs, the number of Indonesians in this country would not have skyrocketed to levels that make Malaysian Indians (who had toiled their blood and sweat to prosper early Malaya) a minor minority! If the villagers had taken care of their own backyard, the need for gotong royong would not arise at all.
Giving amnesty to illegal immigrants and performing large scale gotong royong is not something to be proud of. Neighbouring countries from where these illegals originate from is not going to be eternally grateful for not charging their citizens. Instead, they will be sneering at our inefficiencies. Just like the gotong royong which just reveal our malaise and of the people in power.
In most cultures, music is synonymous with joy, celebration, victory and worship. In Indian folklore, I have heard of divine music healing the moribund and maybe raising the dead. Probably, only in the Indian (particularly South) subcontinent do you have songs sung to denote melancholy, tragedy and helplessness! No wedding, birthday celebration, church service, temple prayers, funfair, circus, street celebration or even sports event is complete without music accompaniment. Hence, one can say that the story of music is the story of the evolution of mankind itself. Now, have you heard of the Dark Forces using their subtle ways to pull us over to the Dark Side? From the turn of the 20th century, people have associated certain music with Satan's dark forces. Islamic fundamentalists like the Taliban also link music to evil, as it is addictive and hinders mankind from fulfilling their obligations to God. Hence, radio transmissions in Taliban Afghanistan can only comprise Quranic recitals. When 'Rock and Roll' started rolling into our radio transmissions, purists started preaching on moral decadents, Armageddon, and so forth. Elvis Presley (The Pelvis) was condemned for his socially unacceptable gyrating pelvic movements. Publications of negative news on singers' behaviour further flared up the hell-like flame of despair, e.g. with the spread of tabloid information like Jerry Lee Lewis marrying his 13-year-old first cousin and John Lennon announcing, in 1966, that at the time, the Beatles was more famous than Jesus Christ!
"Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity." - said John Lennon in a 1966 interview. In that era, the news was rife with certain Beatles songs (if played backwards) that would glorify drugs and the devil. Their association with the mystical cultures of the East gave the Believers a field day at their assault. (e.g. Lucy in the Sky of Diamond and LSD, Let it Be refer to the carefree attitude after indulging in drugs –Mother Mary denoting a colloquial term for heroin etc.) Soon after the flower power days and its sexual liberation came the lack of inhibition days of punk rock and the decadent behaviour of the heavy metal bands. The phenomenal successes of certain songs were attributed to the fact that their performers have sold their souls (pun not intended) to the devil! In this category are songs like Stairway to Heaven (Led Zeppelin), Heaven is a Place on Earth (Belinda Carlyle) and The Ballad of Yoko (Beatles)- where the lyrics mention 'They are going to crucify me'.
In 1978, a country-rock band named 'Eagle' led by Don Henley, came up with a massive hit song called Hotel California. This song has stood the test of time and has remained evergreen and a classic to date. Its melodious catchy song and equally skilful guitar work make it one of the most popular songs of the 20th century. Well, and okay. Do not ask the naysayers…. They will have a different story to tell you! Here is the story now… Apparently, the whole song and album cover are about Satan worship! The band members are allegedly members of the Church of Satan, situated in the Navajo desert in California, commonly referred to as Hotel California by its members. The album cover supposedly depicted a picture of a hotel lobby with the image of the founder of the Church of Satan (Anton LaVey). In the song, they sing of decadent lifestyles, drugs and human sacrifice (? cannibalism). Let us peruse the piece…
"Hotel California"
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim I had to stop for the night There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, 'This could be Heaven, or this could be Hell' Then she lit up a candle, and she showed me the way There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say... It is alleged that they are talking about a confluence of its congregation at their church in the Navajo desert, coming from all over the country. Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place) Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year (Any time of year) You can find it here Her mind is Tiffany twisted; she got the Mercedes bends She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
Is this about cross-gender dressing, decadent lifestyles and drug addiction? So I called up the Captain, 'Please bring me my wine' He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since 1969' And still those voices are calling from far away, Wake you up in the middle of the night Just to hear them say... Wine refers to the Holy Spirit. 1969 is the year of the establishment of the church of Satan. The voices refer to sacrificial souls?
Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place) Such a lovely face They livin' it up at the Hotel California What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise) Bring your alibis
Alibis – new intakes? Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice And she said, 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device.' And in the master's chambers, They gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives, But they just can't kill the beast Are they talking about drugs, amphetamines? Killing the body, not the soul, the Holy Spirit? Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before 'Relax,' said the night man, 'We are programmed to receive. You can check out any time you like, But you can never leave!' The Eagles have categorically denied all of the above. It is supposed to be telling about the changing materialistic American lifestyle. To quote… Members of the Eagles have described the album as a metaphor for the perceived decline of America into materialism and decadence. In an interview shortly before the album's release, Don Henley said: This is a concept album, there's no way to hide it, but it's not set in the old West, the cowboy thing, you know. It's more urban this time (. . . ) It's our bicentennial year, you know, the country is 200 years old, so we figured since we are the Eagles and the Eagle is our national symbol, that we were obliged to make some kind of a little bicentennial statement using California as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the entire world if you will, and to try to wake people up and say 'We've been okay so far, for 200 years, but we're gonna have to change if we're gonna continue to be around.'
In the meantime, let the conspiracy theories come and go while we sit down and enjoy the music without a care in the world while the world outside cracks its head about nothing. Let there be eternal peace …Aum……………. Om, Shanti, Shanthi, Shanthihi….
