Hannah Yeoh and me...

Growing old is a privilege. Growing old healthy is a bonus. I am now old and reasonably healthy. I have no clear and present need for additional funds to meet any immediate expenses. What money I have on me is enough to keep my body and soul together. My mind is ticking over quite well, thank you. I am not under any pressure to write an article to post on my blog because at 4.30 this morning, I finished “cakap cakap…moral values or the lack. of it,” and posted it on my blog. So I am done for the morning.

How good is it to know that I have a decent roof over my head, good food in the house to keep me contented until the weekend, enough money until my next payday (or in my case pension day) to not have any worries, and the whole day in front of me to do as I like?

That is where my life is at, now. I can cruise around comfortably this way until …..until you know when lah. Until my mortal coil is severed, my natural life ends, or my allotted life span is done. Kan?

Now, here is the not too wise part of my life. I am 6000kms away from Malaysia and I want to involve myself in the affairs of that country! I am still trying to work out in my head why I do so but suffice to say that after over thirty years of living abroad, without fail, I think of Malaysia every day.

This morning I was thinking about the morning market at Lucky Gardens in Bangsar. I still remember the time that the Nasi Lemak Mak Chik kept pieces of fried chicken skin to put together with my Nasi Lemak …without me knowing about it. It was only when I got home to my place at Bangsar Permai in Jalan Tanduk and sat down to have breakfast that I found out what she had done. crispy fried chicken skin is my idea of food heaven. That made my day!

I remember the Ramadan Market. Malaysia at its finest! You can have a feast for the whole family with so little money and be happy while doing it. The jostling, pushing your way through the crowd, and the buzz of happy people around you are infectious. It never fails to lift my spirits.

Whether we do our shopping at TMC or BSC will depend on our mood, not on our attire. We, my dear wife and me go anywhere in Bangsar in our slippers even though we know that we would invariably meet up with my upmarket cousins and relatives or friends…but damm if we care. We have always lived in Bangsar when we are in KL….our Kampong forever.

It has now been over a decade since I was last back in Bangsar. For me, in my mind, nothing has changed in Bangsar, but I am sure, the reality will be different.

Maybe it is best that I live with the memories I have of Bangsar, and of the Malaysia that I left a decade ago. Perhaps not. I am still at sea on this. Suffice to say that there really will not be an end to my life until I know that whether I go back or not to Bangsar, will be a decision that I alone will make. Not a decision tempered by politics. Not a decision deferred because the powers that be had an interest in me. And certainly, I hope, not a decision made too late by an old man (me) who wants to pray by the graves of his parents for one last time.

Until then, I know, that for every day of my life from now until I am done with this earth, I will be thinking of home - of Segambut where I was born, of Kampong Kassipilay where some good childhood memories remain, of Bangsar my Kampong and of Kuala Lumpur which really is the center of the universe for most Malaysians. Kan?

And one last happy thought. I was born in Segamabut. My MP is Hannah Yeoh! Yeah !!! Surely the best MP that anyone could have hoped to claim as their own. Maybe I will join DAP. If they will have me.... kan?