As often mentioned whenever the issue of Budget and Education is discussed the cancelling of the Arts and social Program studies become the victim of removal as irrelevant. Sad and worse yet it is sheer ignorance of our society to deprive the human mind the essence of what is creativity. What is interpersonal communication what is getting along with one another or what is prejudice and what is racism. Children go to school to be bred for servitude of what modern technology has to offer and how they can serve these technologies for the benefit of the owners and we call it employment; children are taught to slave to employment. Success is measured by the highest standard of employment as a gauge to considered a successful person in life. There is nothing right or wrong with this concept of life as reflected in the educational system of our country. We are in need of a wake up call in the awakening of our educational system that is still imitating the West especially the British system of education. I went through this system during my school year of 1956 - 1969; I never liked school until i went to college in Green Bay, Wisconsin where i graduated in 1982. O owed the US government USD10000 and paid back in full after ten years.
My first classroom experienced happened at the Sekolah Rendah Kampung Jawa, today renamed Sekolah P.Ramlee after Malaysia's icon actor of the Black and White screen. One morning while listening to the teacher i must have floated out of the window and not paying attention and next thing i knew my face was forcefully slammed to the desk top. His name was Cikgu Hamid and till this day I remember his face. Fortunately my uncle the man who adopted me decided to change me to an English School instead it was a life saver for me after the trauma of one incident I dreaded school. I was registered at the Francis Light Primary School located on the junction of Anson Road and Perak Road. There is a Chinese Temple at the junction and it is still there after all these years. Walking to school from Sungai Pinang and River Road was a pleasure as I would pass so many exciting scenes from the field of hutan deruju { a thistle like plant growing to 6 feet tall} These plants are mostly found in mangrove areas along the coastal shore and then the Tan Lembu or cattle coral are where the Indians live and the place looked like Little Rural India from the distance. I had a few Indian friends in there and once in a while would hang out with them as I loved the smell of cow dung and curry cooking in the air. Even as a child i was very sensitive to the sense of smell of my surroundings, I can still smell my village after the hightide at noon and the smell of a pile shit five to six feet below me while I take dump. I loved the smell of bales of rubber in the Gudangs along the Weld Quay and the tangy smell of onion on board the HMS State of Madras or the vessel The Rajula which would dock where my uncle worked and sometimes he would arrange for me to be taken on board these ships, a guided tour by his office boy. Pig farms have a distinct smell to it from that of a goat coral or a cow's and chicken houses have a whole different aroma about them, I loved the fishy smell of the wet markets that I would go to with my grandmother and I love the smell of Jake's Pizza on Eastside Mainstreet of Green Bay, Wisc.
I have many days to recuperate from my operation, so I got time to dwell on my childhood days in a little more detail no reason why but simply cause I enjoy it. What i cherish most about my morning walks to Francis Light was during the flowering season of the Angsana trees that grew along Perak Road and bright yellow flowers would cover both sides of the road like a carpet of gold. The air was cooler back then sometimes early in the morning it was almost misty and made the whole scene like a wonderland. The smell if strong Chinese incense floats along into your mind reminding you that school is around the corner. It was a Love and Hate relationship I had with this school. I loved it for having allowed me to sing in front of the whole school on stage Elvis Presley's song "It's Now or Never!", it aloowed me to paint six feet tall murals hung all over the school every Parents' Day. I have never ventured into the school ever since I left it and every time I pass it i was tempted but I keep making excuses why not: I hated my school years there. My name was Nanda Sena s/o Simone Bartholomuze while I was in my primary school and this disqualifies me as a Malay among my fellow Malay students. Then I was raised as a Buddhist by my uncle and this disqualified me from going to the Friday Prayers on Fridays and that qualified me as a Kafir. I went home everyday to a house full of Muslim Malays, my Uncles and Aunts, my cousins, everyone who lived in the same house were Muslims except for my uncle and me. Well I must have retold this episode more then once so I will not get into it here even if I have all the time in the world. Moving right along back at school it would not be hard to figure out the consequences were for being in the state that I was - nothing is more vicious than a religious judgement and prosecution. The Malay boys distanced themselves from me but were never mean except for one or two who called me a kapiak or kafir in my face. I was too young to take to heart and fight back but it stung deep. So, I hung out with the Chinese boys!
What I missed at school was replaced by being at home where everyone except me was a Muslim and Malays and I was one of them without doubt even to my Kampung friends who were almost all Malays, no one ever called me a kapiak in my grandmother's house. Ego says. perhaps behind your back they did and i would have flipped had i known. Dealing with religious issues has been a real tough act to follow even for one who has tasted life in all its facets and levels. Even till this day I am still lost in the dark as to who or where i fit in where my faith and religions is concern. The closest I have come to an understanding is that I pray and worship one All Encompassing Being, the Supreme Consciousness, Lord of Creation and the Afterlife and as a Muslim by birth I call my Lord Allah Aza wa jala. The Lord of the Universe. and that Muhammad is His Messenger. From Him I have come and to Him shall I return. In the meantime I shall keep on living my life as I see fit honoring my Parents and their faith and fulfilling my destiny to the end that my children may have a glimpse of where or what I put my faith in. This too is a subject i have much discussed in my earlier posting and so I will give it rest here. Suffice to say I dealt with my social and religious issues at a very early age and believe I have survived the worse. I did not turn away but took on the thorough understanding of all the religions that i was exposed to and till this day am making sense out of all the non-sense as my practice in life, I took it as a challenge eventually when I was smart enough to think intuitively. On many occasion when I came close to taking in my last breath I would pray to my Lord for forgiveness and surrender myself unto His Grace and Mercy. I return to Him as a slave returns to his Master and Owner. When I am in this state of mind I felt ready for death and almost look forward to it but it never happened and I have to keep on living.
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