Sunday, August 31, 2008

The Merdeka Post.

For starters, something seen on the landing page of TheStar Online on the eve of Merdeka, where as you can see, the left panel dictates on Budget 2009 which aims on helping the poor (yeah right) and on the right panel, is about a particular private college in Penang using 17kg of chilli, 250kg of sago and 20kg of lentils costing RM800 to design the spicy Jalur Gemilang to show their patriotism.

Image courtesy of TheStar Online. Nothing much, I just find it funny for these posts to be displayed side by side.


So, its our 51st celebration of Independence, much less lavish than the one held last year and not forgetting the fact that there was even a cut on the budget allocated for the Merdeka celebrations, hence the buy your own Jalur Gemilang campaign.

Up until early Friday, the August 29, I have only managed to spot 3 vehicles attached with those mini-stick-on Jalur Gemilangs around KL which is a pretty sad number considering how things used to be.


This Merdeka also marks the first time ever I am working around the KL area during the rehearsal week, the traffic was pretty bad due to road closures. Kinda pity one of my colleagues who was stuck for almost three hours. If I'm not mistaken, there were some suggestions previously to move the parade to Putrajaya instead, since most of the government offices and such have been moved there, which to me is pretty good stuff but then, I seriously have no idea what happened after that.

To me, it seems as though ideas that are dynamic and beneficial in the long run are never taken into consideration nor implemented, just suggested.

Patriotic songs overdose for the whole week, I never knew there were so many of them! Playing the songs back to back, it lasted like what, forever?


When I was much younger, I used to stay up on the eve of Merdeka till the clock strikes 12 and together with all the others in the idiot box, I would chant 'Merdeka' for three times, the usual count, before heading to bed.

And I would make sure to be awake early in the mornings to catch the parade proceedings on TV, momentarily wishing hard that I could be one of them marching past our King and Ministers. Semangat patriotik yang berkobar-kobar. That was actually one of the reasons I joined the uniformed body after knowing that the participants were selected from random schools each year but the chance never came for me.

That was back then, now, I fell asleep much earlier than usual yesterday night, totally drained from all the activities throughout the day and cursing at the planes and choppers in the morning for jolting me awake with the fly-past. Semangat patriotik sudah tenggelam mendalam-dalam.


I may not be as enthusiastic as I used to be, I may dislike or at some point even despise the some of the politicians governing us, I may be wishing a certain segment of rowdy Malaysians eat shit, drop dead and die, I maybe unhappy with just about everything about Malaysia but this is still the place where my blood first fell upon its ground, literally, this is still home. For this, I wish for nothing but only the best for Malaysia in the days to come.


Selamat Menyambut Hari Kemerdekaan yang ke-51, semoga hari-hari yang bahagia akan datang dimana kita boleh lagi sekali menyambut hari Kemerdekaan dengan gemilang.

2 comments:

coffee81 said...

Your post is really funny! Berkobar-kobar and mendalam-dalam! Hahahahaha!

Jed said...

Hey there! It has been a while. How are you doing?