AUG 6 — In a time of stories within stories, with levels of complexities obliterating what remains of the average voter’s grey matter, perhaps a simpler story would be welcome today. 

It welcomed itself to me anyways, as I continue to traverse the coastal roads of the west coast to find my own answers to what is Malaysia. A prescription needs a diagnosis.

And I found catalysts..

It started for me by the side of a listless road with a left lane left in tatters — seemingly sharing the fate of the many living in the quaint hamlet of Hutan Melintang.

There is an ominously named restaurant, Baasha — reminiscent of a Rajnikanth movie in the 1990s with the same title but without the dance numbers —, at one end and the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC) office at the other, and between them the service centre of one Kesavan Subramaniam, the assemblyman for the said area.

If seats are won on how impressive service centres look like, Kesavan would have a better chance of completing the Paris-Dakar Rally using a bicycle while still being in this forgotten town — whose claim to fame would be being near Teluk Intan, or Anson as the older crowd still call it — than ever winning an election again. Even as dogcatcher.  If looks decide.

Sitting down and listening to his personal assistant, Manogaran, the sinking feeling in me grew.

Votes and pay

While Kesavan has won two elections, it appears there is little reward in being the Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) assemblyman for an area short of opportunities for the lower earners, predominately Indians.

Which introduced the two key challenges for his office — to register more voters and to up the wages of the electorates.

The first is Kafka-esque. There are supposedly another 30,000 unregistered Indians, but they can’t register because they work the hours the post office is open — they can only register at any of the four post offices situated in the area but the 45-minute lunch afforded to them negates a realistic window to do so. 

And as usual with low-wage earners registering to vote is never a priority, because day to day exigencies precede all other concerns. 

The office had some success when political parties were allowed to register voters for a couple of years, which the Election Commission duly in their infinite wisdom discontinued without explanation.

Now, the assemblyman with his three staff and volunteers have to convince eligible voters to inconvenience themselves substantially to register so that they can possibly vote in someone who would be equally helpless to overcome the local economic depression. A real sweet deal to sell.

Many of the estate workers and former estate workers — the assemblyman is local and from that modest background too — earn the minimum wage, RM900. (I met later several girls manning the petrol kiosk who confirmed their RM25 per day pay which has the fringe benefits of breathing in the fumes while managing four pumps per person for eight hours.)

Manogaran, who is much older than the elected rep, posited a Mahathir-style solution for the situation. The ex-prime minister in the 1980s championed a small group of Malay millionaires to spur other Malays on. 

Mano said similarly that if every family owned a lorry, they can somehow lift themselves up from the poverty belt. Capital is the beast that keeps each worker ant from setting up his own sugar mill I was told in college, and fitting that ethos Manogaran was of the opinion that a decent opportunity to one person in each family would result in that family having a fighting chance to escape the permanency of economic disenfranchisement.

Don’t create 10 millionaires, have hundreds of thousands with modest tools.

The caveat

What is striking is that the Hutan Melintang state assembly constituency is one half of the Bagan Datoh parliamentary seat which is held by Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.  A bigger win by Kesavan in the next election might boot out Zahid of Parliament, which means out of Cabinet too.

A majority of 2,108 edged the Umno man to victory in 2013. That is slim, that probably keeps the Javanese speaking former Youth chief and Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee up at night.

How much of an incentive would that be to many Malaysians to involve themselves in the developments of the Hutan Melintang I am not sure, but it is likely to be attractive to a fair number, I am guessing.

Drive to Hutan Melintang one of these days.

They are from Hutan Melintang

I promised a simple story, so here it is. I want it to be a story of hope too.

Today is the 70^th anniversary of the atomic bomb brutalising Hiroshima. Beyond the destruction it is the resilience of the people which inspires.

They got up, dusted away the agony and pain. They never forgot but they knew there was a tomorrow and that one must live with that in mind more than feeling sorry. 150,000 dead but no city was buried.

Which is why I am careful about writing “destroyed” because Hiroshima stands today.

So does Hutan Melintang.

While Kesavan continues in Hutan Melintang with no certainty of winning again, his message is that “he’s continuing.”

His staff open the office every weekday, and then they meet those who need them and they carry on.

While all their frustrations remain, they soldier on. The children are still travelling on the bus to Teluk Intan’s secondary schools. The estates business is rolling down and those who grew up on them are now inside the nearby factories or carrying odd jobs or looking for the next new thing or business.

As a man who presumably made it out better than most, Kesavan could have just packed up and left, or a fate worst sold out to the highest bidder for his seat.

There are much easier ways to make a living.

As I was sampling a tosai at the Khalifah restaurant across the office, a young lad came over to tell Manogaran that “wireman” died.  The PA enquired a bit more and nodded before the informer left. 

He said to me that he would have to accompany the assemblyman tomorrow and pay their respects, and leave RM100 to the family to help cover funeral expenses.

In recent days Malaysians have been informed that RM100 is actually peanuts when it comes to political expenses. But even in corners of Perak or perhaps because it is a corner of Perak they understand intent. RM100 means everything when the right man gives it away.

As I said, drive down to Hutan Melintang. Be ready to be unimpressed.

* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.