Therapy?

It’s raining out… what a lovely, lazy morning.

I will be cut open for this, but as a kid, one of the first few times I believed in praying and religion as a whole, was when I prayed hard for Sunday evenings to be rain-free. So that I would have free reign at the pasar malam within my area. I would always say "rain the other 6 days of the week, I don’t care, but as long as Sunday evenings are kept dry…" I was a happy camper.

The pasar malam here has existed for as far back as I remember. From the humble beginnings of just selling food and vegetables and fruits in the 80’s, the addition of clothes (pirated), everyday utensils (cheap), baked goods (for school the next day) in the 90’s, and finally the pirated CD/VCD/DVD revolution that dominated the late 90’s until now. The pasar malam has always been a part of my life, and honestly I cannot imagine life without it.

Everyone else can have their daytime bazaars, jumble sales, morning markets, country fairs, I just prefer the solitude, anonymity and sheer delight of shopping in the dark, in your most relaxed tees and shorts.

Many people here would agree with me still, that the pasar malam is a part of our national identity. What makes us Malaysian. Along with Dr. M, Siti, mat Rempits, tongkat ali, vandalism, PAS, Proton cars and other things less embarassing, the pasar malam deserves its place among the higher ecchelons of our collective pride.

Like I said the pasar malam in my area has existed since the 1980’s (and possibly before that but it doesn’t count because I wasn’t born yet). And for as far back as I can remember, it has this peculiarity. All the shops with white lighting belonged to the Chinese, and all the stalls with yellow lighting was Malay. And for my pasar malam, we would start off with a 500m or so stretch of Chinese shops, then towards the tail-end, there would be a good 200m of Malay shops. Now comes the weird part. Between the Chinese and Malay stalls, there would be 50m of darkness, no stalls in between, no lighting whatsoever. Total darkness. So if you had to walk from the Chinese shops to the Malay, you’d have to cross 50m of road, in total oblivion.

No one knew how to explain the 50m gap inbetween. Maybe it was because the Malay shops were located closer to the student hostels of the nearby polytechnic, maybe that dark area was haunted, maybe the good people need to walk a bit more for their fix. And it only happens here in my area, everywhere else the pasar malam is just a messy grid of stalls.

But all the same, every Sunday evening (unless it was raining or when I prayed less), nearly every patron of the pasar malam would do the same. Depending on which end we started, we either began with the Malay stalls or the Chinese stalls. And after traversing through those stalls, no matter who we were, we would all, with no exception, cross the 50 metres in total darkness to get to the other side.

Imagine this. A kelompok of human beings of all ages, shapes and sizes. From being illuminated geisha-white, to being tar-black, to being jaundice-yellow. All in the name of covering all the pasar malam stalls.

We, the coloured people. National unity indeed.

Our nation is 50. Half a century old, baby. Sometimes I wake up and feel privileged, sometimes oppressed, sometimes with apathy, sometimes with empathy. But its a wonder that I can wake up every morning, set a list of things to do, and go out and do it. Some countries consider that a luxury. I nearly take this for granted.

Happy birthday then. Less screw-ups for the next 50 please?