Think For Urself

So little time, so much to do. Like a mosquito who only can live only for48 hours (not proven) but can suck as much blood as it likes before it expires, seems like the politics of today. Make hay, while the sun shines, seems like the order of the day.Intelligent beings such as Imitiaz or Farish seems to be brushed aside. Swept under the carpet it seems, as most Malaysians don't understand their brand of English! Why? When we have world class leaders better then the Clintons and the Bush(es) do we need to hide. Why, when we have visionaries lie BC Shekar and now Vinod Shekar do we need excuses! Get a grip, get a foothold, grab unto something....less you crumble and always remember you made it yourself. I always said and always maintained that politics was not for me, did'nt have the balls, couldn't sell people out, couldn't betray friends but at least i can sleep at night. Knowing that i did not take the few precious belongings that belonged to rubber tappers and pensioners. I remembered once, a politican said after there was a hue and cry for equitable wages, how do we know what they do behind the rubber trees or something like that. Shame is not a word fairly used on people like that, as even when they speak they seem to spit on the very people who interview them.

Kotama Sa ga

We Punjabis, have a very unique dish. It is called Kotama saga and Popeye the SailorMan hijacked it a long time ago and called it spinach. Our civilisation and religion is only 300 years but we have moved further then most indigenous people who are racially segragated in their own homeland. In Malaysia lol. We were jagas and called bengalis, how ignorant, people from Bengal are called Bengalis, we are called Punjabis and Sikhs, the Aryan warriors. We are also called the warrior race to those who know our history. Nowadays you don't see any more jagas at banks as most of their children are professionals, running their own business or in upper management. Anyway from my humble beginnings, i extend a hand of friendship to all Malaysians who care to share their two penny worth on any subject on earth,especially people social issues.

I write best when i drink

Some people might find it offensive. Especially if they are muslims. Some of my best friends use to be muslims. We played football together. I studied in Lasalle School. It was tough, we were poor, but when we had enough, we shared. Indians, Chinese, Malays, Sikhs and damn everyone else. We are the greatest nation on earth and we act so small. We have everything and yet nothing. Politicians divide us and like the British, try to divide and rule. What a joke? Are we that naive?. Or stupid? I have a dream, I want to be Malaysian and i dont want to say i am an Indian, Chinese or Muslim and i dont want people out there to deny what i am, enough, leave it alone, i am fed-up, when can you guys stop! RPK got a lots of balls. I admire him. Damn, that man has a lots of balls, i am not like him, probably will never be like him. Honesty works for me, like family and his wife, you think i am looking for credit, smile walk on.

I sit in a coffee shop. I tell people what RPK writes about, and i influence people. I am not a balls carrier but the truth will set u free

Typhoon Nargis

The tragedy is dumbfounding. I awoke to the horror and my fellow human were being slaughtered, not buddist monks by a phyco junta and a man who calls himself a General but poor peasants again. How do we fight the forces of nature? Some call it an act of GOD. After all the satellites and tracking devices this world has, we could not warn 100,000 people to evacuate. What a joke! Only the poor suffer and die and we say what a shame, the pictures makes us look at our kids and pray that we never have to go hungry again.Damn, 100,000 people are dead and we, the world, have so much, it should be pouring into Burma like a banjir (flood). I cry tears of regret of being human and able to feel sometimes i wish i could not feel. I did what i could i gave what i can afford, please give if you can.

Credit Cards and Greedy People

There is a saying that what goes around comes around. Its akin to credit cards. Once we get our hands on it, it becomes addictive We never thought of paying back as the initial amount used to be only 5% of the outstanding balance, so we lived life as lords with bottles of Black Labels galore scattered all over our tables, defining our status to those who could only afford miserable jugs of beers. There lies the misconception. Those guys with jugs of beers were living within their means, we were not. Sooner or later, we had to pay the Piper where even 5% became a hindrance as we now had to secure more credit cards, just to roll the payments.

Basically what we did then was that we lived on other peoples' money and we ended up paying a dear price for it especially during the recession of 1997, when some people became virtually bankrupt, some which destroyed the very fabric of their families. Gone were the people who claimed to be our buddies over free Black Labels and hugged us and danced with us and promised to be there for us through thick and thin. After 1997, upon mysteriously finding out that some of the artificial big spenders were in the doldrums, the OCs' or freeloaders disappeared, citing some really creative and imaginative excuses.

But what if the situation was reversed and i actually lived the life of a lord on other peoples money and misery without having to pay a single sen back. No bank would dare take action against me and neither would any authorities initiate investigations on me. So the bank might probably write it off as bad debts and find an ingenious way to recoup the loss of millions which i had borrowed. One day, say for example, this NPL banker dreams of an idea. Hey!, the banker says and shares this idea with his brethren, why don't we charge people to withdraw their very own money, a nominal sum, when they use the ATM machines. Ingenious, imagine at 50 sen per withdrawal, WOW, the figure is mind boggling, the profits are awesome and all is well in the hunky dory land of finance.

So who suffers once again, probably the normal guy in the street, who on average goes to the ATM at least 8 times a month and has to fork out RM4 extra per month. Lets' now multiply that with an average of say 10 million ATM cardholders (just an example, don't get your knickers in a twist), well go figure it out! I hate figures unless you are of the fairer sex.

In the first instance, we paid for our folly dearly and learnt a bitter lesson to live within our means as we had no political clout or connections. We did not take or rebut anything from anyone and we eventually paid our debts, albeit reluctantly as the debts had ballooned to unimaginable proportions. It was either that or get blacklisted, no more loans for a car, house or anything else for the matter. Basically the banks had us by our balls and even today they still do.

In the second instance, the guy was heavily connected and a political heavyweight. He could ride roughshod over anyone, even for example buy valuable ancestral land for a pittance. So, who would he have to answer to?. No one i suppose! Surprisingly i believe that what goes around comes around, it could affect his family because of the duit haram he took to feed them and to live the luxurious life without any remorse from where he took it from. But the tears of poverty has a damning way of dealing with such people. Sickness, ill health and deformity could manifest itself to his family and the person above would probably live to be a 100 years to witness the punishment for his greed dished out to his loved ones.

So what is the moral of the above story, well it is something you have to figure out yourself as Punjabiminds can be very confusing but please read carefully between the lines, and you will get my drift.

SOME CHAPATIS ARE ROUND AND SOME ARE SQUARE

My articles are meant to be read with a pinch of salt, it is meant to create humor as well as to enable us to laugh at each other as we marvel and dwell in our universal differences. It is not meant to insult or degrade so don’t get your knickers in a twist if it touches on the fairer sex, I wonder what they mean by fairer sex coz there are a lot of dark women around as well as a lot of fair guys around just like me.

For example, women today are so proud to be single mothers, probably because they are financially independent, strong willed and not willing to compromise or maybe is it because there are just too many effeminate men around huh. It’s like this, you meet this woman for lunch and you say, hi I am Manjit, what’s your name” and she goes, “Well I am Suzy and I am a single mother”. I am flabbergasted; I did not ask her that! I am dying to ask her if she had a one night stand and things went wrong but I swallowed my tongue as she was wearing high heels. They can be very painful. She could have said I am a divorcee, a widow or a single mother but I guess she felt saying “single mother’, gave her an aura of power or it was more in keeping with the times.

In those days, that statement would have been frowned upon and the woman would have been considered a harlot but here was a woman holding her turf and being proud of it. I salute her, luckily I did not remind her the evil practice of sutee in India, where a widow was immolated (it means burnt alive, guess not everyone has a dictionary rite) upon the death of her husband, ouch!

Let’s look at the other side of the coin, you meet this bloke in the park and he is playing ball with his son. He comes and sits on the bench and you make idle conversation and he says his wife left him and he now takes care of his son, mind you he does not say, “I am a single father”. He could have said well he had a good time with a foxy lady and nine months later the package landed on his porch with a tag saying, “ Here is your unit trusts returns after nine months, enjoy the fruits of my labour”.

What we say and how we say things is how people perceive us, it is like you see a typical Chinaman drive past in a Mercedez Benz , the perception is that he is a drug pusher or a pimp. You see a Malay chap pass by in the same car and some people will say, “angkat gomen punya contract tak bikin beli kereta, bungalow and kawin lagi’. See an Indian guy and they will say sure gangster one, this dirty fella. That is perception, while all of the chaps above would have worked their butts off to earn that status, sit lazily back…mostly failures or losers and pass judgements.

Now that is perception and we pass this perception to our kids and they photocopy what we say and when we hear them saying things such as the above, suddenly we are aghast and we reprimand them so righteously as responsible parents. We forget that we planted the seeds of perception in their fertile minds a long time ago.

Time we stopped judging people and started looking at ourselves, people in glass houses should not undress.