Not a Typical Malaysian lah : Diary of a Traveller

Suicide, or was it Homicide Mission? Probably Both

I saw this image online but lucky enough to have captured it myself

Being an accessory to a suicide mission today. Or was it a homicide mission? Probably both. I was totally dazed. Scared shit.

We went to witness Kumbh Mela, the biggest humans gathering on earth in Prayagraj, formerly known as Allahabad.

The day before, we asked our host, of the possibility of taking a day trip from Varanasi by train. He said he’d check with his friend who was travel agent. He asked us to check with him a few hours later.

A few hours later, he was not there. His co-host was there and we repeated our inquiry to him. He said the possibility of doing a day trip by train was very slim since this was the biggest Khumb Mela ever. Up to 4 million pilgrims would be in Prayagraj.

The day after nearly 4 million people left Kumbh Mehla. Still many stay behind for two or three more days.

He recommended bus. Or car hire. I asked if he could arrange a car hire. He said yes. We agreed on the price quoted. We also agreed that we would leave for Prayagraj 8.00am the next morning.

8.15am the next morning we followed Rakesh, the young helper of the guest house to the car which was on the main street. From the guest house to the main street, the only option was to walk because the maze-like alleyways of Varanasi are very narrow. Motorbikes are the only motored vehicles that can pass through.

We weaved between people, cows, dogs and motorbikers, at the same time watching our steps to not to step on fresh dog shit & cow dung which basically was every where in Varanasi. When we reached the main street 15 minutes later, Rakesh said,

“Two minutes.”

He disappered and reappered four or five minutes later, pulling a bicycle. We followed him. After 6 or 7 minutes walk we stopped outside a residential building.

“Two minutes,” he said. And disappeared inside the building. We waited. Two minutes passed. Then another two minutes. Then another.

“The driver must still be sleeping,” I said to Ben.

Twenty minutes later Rakesh appeared, in a car, with him in the driver seat.

“You? Driving us?” I asked. We thought he went to fetch a driver for us. We did not expect him to be our driver. He looked barely 18.

He smiled. Nodded. He barely spoke English apart from “Two minutes.”

His suicide-homicide mission began once we got into the used-to-be white Suzuki Celerio. And my 120km of nightmare commenced. He sped. He weaved. He overtook other vehicles that I never thought possible. For about 10km we were totally on the wrong side of the road, weaving through oncoming vehicles. Hundreds of times we narrowly missed collission with oncoming cars, lorries & trucks. Even an elephant once.

The car rattled at the back. Or rather groaned in protest of the way it was being handled. Or of being driven on the road with very bad surface.

I was very scared. Scared shit. Not just for myself. But I was scared for others too especially motorbikers and cyclists. But they seemed oblivious to the extreme danger of being rammed from behind. Or from every which way. They rode in the middle of the road or lanes with no crash helmets. Joyfully. Fuck them for making me feel scared for them.

“I want to take train back to Varanasi, if we get to Pragyaraj alive,” I hissed at Ben

We stopped for Ben’s pee break, once. Toilet was a roadside open ground. Rakesh also needed a pee break.

“Two minutes,” he said.

We got to Pragyaraj around 11.30am. Alive. Nobody got killed. I wanted to murder Rakesh though.

We agreed to meet Rakesh at the car park 6pm. Then we joined the pilgrims, which were thinning out since the big splash day at the confluence (Sangam) of Ganges-Yamuna & invisible Sarasvathi was the day before.

Anyhow, I forgot about my nightmare. And mingled with the crowd.

Part of 4 million pilgrims leaving Pyayagraj

By 5.30pm we left Pragyaraj. I asked Rakesh to take it easy. He obeyed. We got to Varanasi minus nightmare.

“How old are you?” I asked Rakesh. Out of curiousity, after we arrived at our hotel. I was half expecting him to say “Two minutes”.

“Twenty four,” said him.

Dhobi on the Ghatt

Only after visiting Varanasi and seeing one of the many activities on the ghatt (bank) of the Ganges River, I now know why and where the name of an area in Singapore, Dhoby Ghout came from. Some time ago, before modernization of Singapore, an area on the bank (ghatt) of Singapore River was for washing clothes (dhobi). Hence, the name Dhoby Ghaut.

Besides the cleansing rituals by bathing in the Ganges River, another very interesting sight every morning is laundry. In Malaysia we call it dhobi (verb) which is not quite what it means.

Dhobi is a cast group in India whose traditional work was washing clothes. Dhobi roughly means “Washerman”.

The traditional way of washing clothes is still very much alive here. From the type of fabric that they wash, i.e. white towels & bed linens, I assume that many of their clients are guest houses in Varanasi. Or they work for the guest houses.

All done by hand. They apply solid detergent, followed by brushing, vigorous beating a few times againts the concrete made specially for the dhobi, rinsing, squeezing the excess water and drying either on the clothes lines, bamboo sticks or on the steps of the ghat.

Washed and dried under the sun on the ghatt

For extra quick drying of bigger fabrics, two persons hold 2 ends of the cloths and run back & forth a few times. It’s like blow drying lah…

Aarti – Fire Ceremony on the Ganges

After the sun sets, comes the party on the ghats (steps) by the Ganges River. It’s a nightly spiritual ceremony called Aarti, a fire ceremony performed around 7pm by Brahmin disciples to honour the Ganges, the holy river. And also to Gods & dieties.

Basically it’s dancing with fire, waving lamps filled with incense, conch blowing plus chanting.

The performances are highly choreographed. And my my….. the performers can’t be sadhus. They look like they’d been handpicked or flown in from Bollywood. Well I guess attractive performers attract more crowd. 😋

Being Meany, again. In Varanasi

Went to visit this temple. One young boy, could be around 15, greeted me and asked me to start with a small chamber on the right.

There were 2 items of importance in the chamber. He told me but I forgot the minute he finished explaining. Then asked me to repeat after him. Something like “om”, “shiva”, etc etc.

Neither being religious nor spiritual, I found it a bit too long & got bored. I interrupted and told him that I was done. Then he told me that his grandfather was looking after the temple before. Now it was him and his older brother. He asked if I could donate some cash for the temple. I put INR100 in the donation box. He said INR500 would be good. I said I don’t have 500 rupee.

His older brother who just came into the chamber asked how much I had. I said only 160. He said that was very little. I asked them if I was supposed to donate or pay a fixed price for something.

He said donation. I said donations have no fixed price. You only fix a price if you sell something. Otherwise it’s called cheating. Holy men like you in a holy place like this do not cheat, do you? I’m sure you don’t like to be called a cheat, or this holy temple be called cheat temple. No response. There…..

Make Earth Greta Again

ClimateStrike means:-

Our most important friend but unsung, under-appreciated and being poisoned heroes.

1. Lifestyle change. Downsize all you’d been doing before. Don’t fall for commercials, even with tags “sustainable”, “organic”, “fair trade,” “environmental friendly,” “10% of profit goes to bla bla” etc. Remember they, the capitalists are capitalizing on what’s “hot” or “trending” right now.

And oh, the “green bags”…. How many of these green bags have we got at home? Are we all still thinking that owning 12 green bags is helping the environment?

2. Diet change. Slowly go vegetarian-based, consume less & less meat & dairy products i.e. cow’s milk, butter and cheeze. Go for coconut milk in lieu of cow’s milk. Drink more plain water instead of sugary drinks like CocaCola, Tropicana sugary juices, coffee or tea (tarik) or milo. I know i love Milo too.

Please note that not only cows, milk, butter, cheese & palm oil that destroy the planet. Tea, coffee, cocoa (chocolate, Milo), soy & sugar are also playing big roles in the destruction of mother earth.

No-fun facts on how much water goes into producing our food and drink:-

– 15,000 litres for 1kg of beef
– 4,300 litres for 1kg of chicken
– 1,000 litres for 1 litre of milk
– 200 litres for 1kg of sugar (cane)
– 1,700 litres for 100g of chocolate bar
– 130 litres for 1 cup of coffee☕
– 30 litres for 1 cup of tea

Cows and other farmed animals contribute about 50% toward #GlobalWarming. It’s not their fault, but our fault for our appetite for their meat, milk, cheese and butter.

3. Buy local at local shops and groceries. Check where they came from before buying. The farther they travelled before they reached your local shop, the bigger the carbon footprint they left behind. Walk instead of driving there, if u can. Bring your own basket/bags.

4. For takeways, bring own containers if you can. Yes we can. Remember, less meat, more vegetable and fruit.
.
5. 3R’s. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. Reduce is most important. Recycle is last resort. Reduce your petrol usage, electricity usage, water usage, beauty, cleaning & cleansing products usage, food usage & wastage. Let’s make zero-wastage woke.

6. Plastic, sodium laureth sulfate or SLS (in all foamy/suddy cleaning items), microbeads in cleansing & exfoliating products, palm oil in most beauty & food products are damaging to environment. Ditch or reduce them. Check how many beauty & toiletry products in your bathroom are in plastic containers. The more you have, the bigger your contribution toward the earth catastrophe a.k.a. #ClimateChange or #GlobalWarming

Check what’s in your bathroom. This doesn’t look too good for our planet. Too many plastic containers.

7. Use items not damaging to environment. Not many people know that white vinegar (cuka makan) & sodium bicarbonate are very effective cleaning, cleansing, exfoliating & stain-removing agents that also are edible & not damaging to body & environment at all. Sodium bicarbonate, white vinegar, lime and lemon can replace all chemicals that we use daily for washing, cleaning, cleansing, detoxificating abd exfoliating. You can also make deodorant from sodium bicarbonate. All cheap, natural and effective. Google or DuckDuckGo them.

8. Check at the end of some period if the above steps taken have downsized your body weight, food and utility bills, hospitalization bill, petrol etc. If they have, you are doing the right things not only to the earth but yourself.

9. For couples who like to make babies, please don’t manufacture too many. One human added means you are responsible for one more person that causes damage to the planet earth. Please note that there are already 7.5 billion humans that are destroying the planet right at this moment.

Humans. We are the biggest threat to ourselves. We cause sufferings to ourselves by destroying nature.

10. Plant as many trees as possible. If it is not possible because you don’t have land, please do not destroy or cut down trees unnecessarily. We have a very symbiotic relationship with them. We supply them with carbon dioxide, they in return present us with fresh oxygen. Only that we oversupply them with CO2 while at the same time clear them off the face of the earth size of Switzerland everyday!

Forest the Saviour – our source of oxygen, medicine, food and fresh water. They combat #GlobalWarming. But we kill our saviour, provider, comrade and best friends.

11. Finally, ditch your political representatives (wakil rakyat) that represent big corporations, enriching themselves and their cronies instead of repreresenting you. Vote for those representing the people, not corporations, those who work on saving the planet, not destroying it.

Don’t vote for this guy. He destroys our earth.

Make Earth Greta Again….
@ Catalonia, Spain

How the “Civilized” People destroyed the World

Some 15 or 20 years back, the pre-Facebook & Co. era, I did voice my view that the now-called Americas (north & south) and the now-called Australia were not supposed to be colonized by the barbarians from the Old & Sick World and be called the “New World”. They were big lands resided by what we refer to as Natives, First Nations and Aboriginees peoples, free of “destructive-capitalistic” people not for no reason.

Perhaps the most important of many reasons was to absorb CO2 emissions from the “Old World” and supply us with fresh air and food. Imagine the Amazon Basin, the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta, the Grand Banks & the Great Barrier Reef a few hundred years back. And look at what became of them today.

The Amazon, the lungs of the earth is being burned. It is burning at an alarming rate that will cause the entire world to be hotter than ever. With Bolsonaro, a climate change denier as the caretaker, it is almost as asking a thief to look after your money.

The Yazoo-Mississippi Delta once fed the entire world with its highly fertile flood plains, while at the same time played the role as one of the world’s biggest sanctuaries for plants, birds, land and aquatic animals is almost gone. The BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 nearly turned the entire Mississippi Delta and the area affected almost uninhabitable. The tragedy was the largest environmental disaster ever recorded. Sadly now, it is now under the care of Bolsonaro’s bedfellow, bird of a feather Trump.

What happened to the Grand Banks off the coast of Nova Scotia is another very sad story in humans’ greed. It once was abundant with fish that supplied us with cheap protein now barren of aquatic lives. Overfishing was the culprit. Even though the current chief in taking care of this vast source of our food looks lovable, looks can be decieving. Trudeau is not the poster boy that you think he was.

While typing this story, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, the sanctuary and breeding ground for fish and other aquatic lives are dying. As of today in September 2019, scientists believe that about 90% of the coral reef are dead due to global warming, water pollution and overfishing. How sad is that. And Australia keeps mining and burning coal for energy.

All these areas were once guarded by the native peoples. They were the guardians of the nature of the Americas and Australia that helped keep the climate change we caused in the Old & Sick World in balance. But look what happened after the “destructive-capitalists” arrived from the Old & Sick World. Not only did they exterminate most of the guardians of the nature but destroy most of the New World, just like what they did back where they came from.

They upped their reputation to another new level by being the most evil villains in history, the “Climate Changer”. Australia, USA, Canada and Brazil are guilty, as the statistical data show, but not charged. It’s because they rule the world. Even the spokespersons of these gangs of criminals, Bolsonaro and Trump, when reminded of their crime of warming the globe, cockily fired back, “What global warming?”, and continued scorching the earth.

Not only they deny the crimes they have committed and continue criming (my invented word), they push away the victims of their acts, the climate-change refugees. They even label the refugees as invaders. How very dare they.

City Palace – A Palace within Palaces. Or is it the other way around?

Last day in Udaipur. We went to Monsoon Palace. Built on top of a hill. I guess the name said it all. It was for the monsoon seasons, in case the City Palace built by the lakeside got flooded during the monsoon. Just a guess.

However this beautiful structure was in a very sad state of long neglect. What a pity.

We didn’t stay long here but long enough for the strong wind to blow my cap off. It glided down and landed about 300 metres down the steep hill. Heigh ho…

The entrance to the Monsoon Palace, looking down on Udaipur city

We came back to Udaipur city for the highlight of our trip to Udaipur – to the structures within structure, palaces within palace – The City Palace.

New Maharana. New palace built in the complex. It kept on expanding for 400 years commencing 1559.

Interestingly, in Indian Republic the palace still functions as a Royal Palace. The current Maharana of Udaipur and his family members occupy one part of the palace that had been divided into 3.

The other 2 parts are for money making – a posh hotel & museum.

Meany Me in Udaipur

We hire a taxi in the morning to visit a Hindu temple in Eklingji. Two young girls are at the entrance of the 8th century. They look like 9 and 10.

The entrace of the main temple, viewed from inside

They ask me to take their photo. I snap one. Then they ask to see the photo. As quickly as they see their picture, they ask for a 100 rupees. How very entreprenurial of them. I guess that’s their daily job.

Being entreprenurial myself, I delete their photo.

“See. Gone,” I say to them.
“And so is your photoshoot fee. Kaboom,” I add.

Little do they know that I can still restore the deleted picture. Ha di ha. @ Udaipur, Rajasthan

Udaipur – City of Lakes and Palaces

After a one hour and thirty minutes flight by Spice Jet from Mumbai, we landed in Udaipur. Udaipur is formerly the capital of the Mewar Kingdom, a city in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. I was founded by Maharana Udai Singh II in 1559. It’s set around a series of artificial lakes and is known for its lavish royal residences. City Palace, overlooking Lake Pichola, is a monumental complex of 11 palaces within palaces with beautiful courtyards and gardens. City Palace is famous for its intricate peacock mosaics.

Udaipur, viewed from our hotel room, Mevari Villa Hotel.

Taxi driver dropped us at the wrong place in the city, as always the case with Indian taxi drivers. We, or to be precise, he overshot our hotel by about 200 meters. The dragging of suitcases on uneven road plus climbing up 30 steps of staircase to Mevari Villa Hotel all worth it once we were shown our room. The corner room gave us a 270 degree view of Udaipur. Beautiful.

No time to be wasted on arguing that wifi was not available even though the booking website said available. The friendly front desk staff, Salim apologized profusely about the problem with wifi in the room. We understood well that India is still behind in embracing the IT world despite exporting the most number of IT experts in the world!

Since it was already late afternoon, we went for late lunch across Lake Pichola. The chef took his time. We took our time absorbing the view and inhaling Udaipur’s relatively cleaner (compared to Mumbai’s), balmy February air.

The sun slowly set. Then we strolled by the lakeside for a dusking walk. The city started changing colours as the sun completely disappeared. We walked onto the middle of the bridge. The reflections of lit buildings and palaces glimmered on the Lake Pichola’s surface, a 12th century man-made lake.

In the picture above, on the left is City Palace that’s been divided into 3 parts – museum for public to visit, hotel and private residence. The current Maharana and his family, decendant of Mewar Dysnaty still reside here, in the private residence. On the far right, in the middle of the lake is Jag Niwas. It is part of the palace which is now a hotel, renamed Taj Lake Palace.

A small boat that we saw some distance back came into view more clearly, slowly. Two men were rowing their boat against the backdrop of Udaipur Ciy Palace.

Once in a while they bit the water surface with their oars.

I asked some young locals watching what I was witnessing, of the purpose of water-beating. All were clueless.

I asked an elderly man nearby. He said it was an ancient fishing technique. Fish deep below the surface got attracted to the splashes of water on the surface and came up to check. Then the fishermen netted them. I nodded my head and thanked the elderly Rajashrani with grey handle-bar moustach in safron turban. He nooded and smiled back.

I guess it was the sign that ancient arts were dying.

Mirror on the Wall knows

Another day. Another argument. It’s all entrenched on hatred toward each other. The Malays firmly believe that the now-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE) as terrorist organization and up in arms demanding authority to go on witch hunt and prosecute those they believe are/were supporters and sympathizers of the group. The non-Malays, especially the Tamils look at it (the witch hunt) as racially motivated.

LTTE was initially a separatist armed group, fighting for their own independent state from Sri Lanka. They were terrorists to the majority Sinhalese Sri Lanka, but heroes to the minority Tamils in Sri Lanka. LTTE was designated as a terrorist organization once they switched their modus operandi from only combating the Sri Lankan government to high profile assasinations including Indian Prime Minister in 1991 and Sri Lankan Prime Minister in 1993.

LTTE was not quite different to the IRA in Northern Ireland and ETA in the Basque area of Northern Spain. All internationally recognized as terrorists organizations. They had been disbanded or totally abandoned their struggles for independence with guns and bombs. Even though designated as terrorists to international community, they were liberation heroes to their people that supported for their struggle for independent statehoods.

LTTE, IRA, ETA were very similar to the Malay Muslim separatists in the south of Thailand, Moro in the Southern Philippines, Kurds in the Middle East, Kashmir Liberation movement in India. They all are fighting for their own independent statehoods.

Again, they are terrorists to central governments or international community, but liberation heroes for those who support them.

The question is, whose definition of terrorists or heroes are we going to subscribe to?

If supporters & sympathizers of these separatist groups are considered terrorists, then arrest them all, charge them as terrorists, not LTTE’s supporters & sympathizers only.

Muslims tend to support fellow Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir, Rakhine, Xinjiang, South Thailand and Mindanao. They condemn their oppressors while at the same time close one eye, if not both to Muslims’ atrocities toward others, say Boko Haram that kidnapped 200 young girls in Nigeria and forced them to convert to Islam and marry them. Or the ethnic cleansing of the Yazidis in Iraq by ISIS.

The same applies for the non-Muslims. It’s just natural for most Tamils in Malaysia to sympathize with Tamils in Sri Lanka, especially after LTTE had been crushed by Sri Lankan army in 2009 and the hardship faced by the minority Tamils afterwards.

And it’s also natural if many Hindus close one eye or both to the Hindu government of India’s action on Kashmir. Also, it’s not unnatural for many Malaysian Chinese’ refusal to condemn or acknowledge the identity-erasure of the Uighur Muslims in China by the Chinese government. How many Malays condemn the colonization of Palestine by Israel? Almost all. How many Malays protest, let alone strongly condemn the murder of 160,000 Yemenis by Saudi Arabia & UAE? And the attack on Kurds by Turkish military in North Syria? Almost none.

So let’s all be mature. It’s human nature, or most likely by nurture to support and sympathize with those of our kinds, that we have in common with, be it in the forms of ethnicity, religion, language or culture. To FEEL for them does not mean that we are terrorists or supporting terrorism because again, one person’s terrorist is the other person’s hero. Only that we have to look hard in the mirror and ask ourselves. Am I a racist? Am I a religious extremist? Am I a hater? Fascist? Terrorist? The person in the mirror has the answer.

And oh, for the record, Al-Qaeda & ISIS are not the same as the above “terrorist” groups. They are not fighting for their own independent statehoods. They are international terrorist organizations that want to topple internationally recognized sovereign goverments by force, with guns and bombs. They are terorrists through and through. They kill non-combatants, innocent people all over the world. I’m sure LTTE supporters and sympathizer are not going to shoot or kill anybody randomly in Malaysia, let alone topple our government. Hence, they cannot be charged and accused as national threat.

On the other hand, those who support or symphatize with Al-Qaeda, ISIS and the likes of them are the ones that the police should go for. They are a threat to national security. They can shoot or bomb anybody anywhere indiscrimately. We might not know who they are but the mirror on the wall knows.