The Entrusted

Entrusted to the boarding centre, the cats were left for a week to starve and die. Now, we humans in Malaysia, how much longer can we entrust those we entrusted ?

Recent news headline sees a cat boarding centre had neglected their promise which had caused 13cats dead. They had shattered and infuriate many cat owners which had trusted them wholeheartedly to take care of their cats while they went on for festive holiday season in various parts of the nation. No words can describe how shaken these pet lovers had felt, in return, the alleged owners of the pet boarding service offered an apology citing they were shorthanded, plus, they wanted to sue pet owners responsible for breaking into their premises in order to rescue the distressed pets.

Between broken premises and broken promises. Which one has a higher magnitude? Don’t need to be shock with the outcome. Amidst the ruckus of pointing fingers and blame game, one direction had struck me: the tax collector

I recently found the wise words of Mohandas Gandhi: “One can measure the greatness and the moral progress of a nation by looking at how it treats its animals”. It is no less true in this case when we failed to provide good treatment onto animals, which are non-talking beings, it would imply mankind would simply treated as bad, or borderline bad, nothing beyond satisfactory, excellent would be farfetched – this is all cukup makan.

Difference between a ‘food’ and ‘real food’

Cukup makan mentality exists in bazaar Ramadhan. No, its not about the food portion where it is just too little. We petite Asians do not eat huge serving portions like fellow Arab, European or Americans. It’s a hurting to walk at the stalls seeing foods were prepared in reluctant and somewhat deceitful . Unethical business practice like putting too much ice instead of juices are widely spoken for years, but we had been a slave to cukup makan culture that we surrender and swallow after all these types of food. Going to bazaar ramadhan is akin to looking for a speck of diamonds in a teaspoon of sands – it takes both sides of brain to precisely calculate and abstractly judge. Well, some may argue food preference is something very subjective. But take a stranger to a bazaar, and let them pick the food randomly. There will be an undoubted sense that the poor stranger would end up forcing untasteful food down his/her throat rather than feeling satisfied.

The usual Malay response would not favor much the ‘customer first’ etymology taught in business school worldwide, instead we go the emotional way “ kalau nak sedap buatlah sendiri makanan yang nak makan tu”, while no one utter that, the action speaks louder than word, if hard proof is needed, then, look forth on food poisoning cases nationwide during Ramadhan. If I were to pass on a RM5 note on a meal, I expect it to be good, well prepared and tasty for my buka puasa. I do not expect anything bombastic with an exquisite garnishing or lavish content. I have idea how hotel food tastes like, and when I stepped to a bazaar ramadhan, I knew I wanted a real food which that suits my bujang and single status. (Yes, if I had a wife or girlfriend, I’ll asks her to cook )

My RM5 note is undervalued in bazaar ramadhan. My RM5 plastic tear-free note would compensate the worker time, energy and cover the basic material spend on those food. I entrusted them with my RM5, but its too little for them. Recycled oil, old vegetables, bland, half cooked, greasy - the seller don’t care “kalau engkau tak nak beli, ramai lagi datang nak beli “What I get is food. Edible but, its just a food. But I sought ‘real food’

Where can I find real food? I instead went to Carrefour and bought some lamb shoulder and grilled them to well-done tenderness, I bought pastas and made ala-carbonara and Alhamdulillah, I cooked a dozen time for both buka puasa and sahur I had this year. I got my ‘real food’, but there is a price to pay for that.

Robbed

If I’m shortchanged of my RM5 by reluctant bazaar ramadhan operators, how about those who pay taxes by the thousands ringgits per year. The citizens which entrusted other by the thousand ringgit. Do they feel shortchanged ( or worst, robbed? ). The answer is very apparent about what perception floating in the air regarding of our ‘tax collector’ and ‘how the money made use’.

Take for instance, tuition centres. We…pardon me, I mean.. tax collectors dedicate a lot on education expenditure every year. Indeed, when you travel around, many new schools are being built. existing schools is busy undergoing extension and erection of new blocks, with new classrooms comes new tables and chairs, new appliances, laptops and textbooks given out, likely iPad would be given out in near future. Teachers are being trained and re-trained annually without exhaustion and syllabus were being reviewed almost every time the minister responsible changes. Big words are being used like ‘transformasi’ ‘perubahan’ ‘anjakan’ ‘berprestasi tinggi’ ‘bestari’ etc, etc. which makes a lovely headlines

But parents still has the urgency to send their children to tuition centre because what their children get in school is considered ‘insufficient’. Although tuition centre doesn’t replace school as a prime avenue to get taught, tuition cannot be dismissed altogether. It seems school and tuition co-exists with an irony that tuition centre teachers mostly school teachers too.

Malaysian kids could claim valuable time doing outdoors, bonding with family or doing something outside-the-schema – but instead when the school system failed to address this, the classroom hours extended into the night, in the form of tuition; with 8pm to 10pm classes, weekends eats up by more tuition and further intensive tuition towards the last minute. It has been ingrained within the minds of parents nowadays, similar to the bazaar ramadhan eulogy, “ kalau mahu yang sedap, buatlah sendiri”. You get ‘education’ and shut up, be thankful of that. Forget ‘real education’ and whatever it meant.

You have to swallow that a school is not responsible for academic excellence, incapable on its own of turning a child into an all-rounder, and if so, they don’t mean to sculpt your children to become outstanding, superior or distinguishing –teachers are there not to seek your child talent and refine them, they have strict schedule to complete. Unless, if you want so, please do spend more that you have paid with your tax, send them to intensive tuition centres or private schools which uses special syllabuses.

Robbed Again

Security is another apparent area where we got robbed. Housing areas in Klang Valley and other big town had similar sight of one-man guardhouse with roadblocks, what they’ll do is asks for your MyKad number – a nuisance during rush hour or during festivities where your relatives comes over– then, after obtaining your ID, they’ll let you pass and bury themselves in the guardhouse equipped with a FM radio. These guards, usually Bangladeshis or Nepalese, need wages, their wages were not borne by the tax collector, instead, tax payer had to cough additional money to pay directly to these guard.

Additional money were spend installing trident grills and other scary contraception that block the drains and other openings from any walking and talking organism. Give and take no chance, and the next thing they realized is they are living in the safety of their own prison, surrounded by these intimidating hardscapes of walls, barriers, gates and roadblocks replacing the green lungs and landscape.

A minister holding this portfolio, previously responsible for the education, loves making statistical headlines in the news. Powerful and confidence-inducing words like ‘improvements’ ‘extra personnel’ ‘crime reduction’ ‘mobile stations’ litter the daily, when something tangible are much comforting rather than rhetoric. Acid splasher, raided mamak stalls and snatch thieves; these would put a dim to our days and days ahead.

Like Apple Inc. announcing new products in San Fran with Steve Jobs looking all casual. You all know how Steve Jobs would begin his presentation boasting about numbers. Millions, thousands, hundreds in pie charts, graphs, quotations. Once in six months or so, a convention hall is rented and open for public to announce these claims in a eventful ways . ‘improvements’ ‘extra personnel’ ‘crime reduction’ ‘mobile stations’ … sorry, the safety of our citizen is not a matter of Applesque reality distorting presentations. Serious change is needed.

Back to Gandhi wise words: “One can measure the greatness and the moral progress of a nation by looking at how it treats its animals”. Logic is animals couldn’t speak, and if they were given certain rights and protected properly, it’s a guarantee, humans can go beyond that. But what we have witnessed here, animals are left to rot by persons which had been entrusted, and humans sooner or later may fell to that state of despair where its fine to rot, a green light given by the people we entrust. Today, our level is borderline – cukup makan. and who cares, we are not aiming to be a great nation after all.