THOUGHTS AND DEED

It is my custom to go for an early walk or “jogging” in the early hours of the cool morning. It keeps up the constitution and prepares me for the long hours of work in my clinic.

The road is then deserted and few traffic to trouble pedestrians. In some part of the road, old angsenna tress grow on both sides of the road giving one the sense of going through a tunnel.

A sense of well-being and sense of love towards all mankind seems to grow within me as I jogged along the smooth road. I thought of all the ills and evils committed by man and ways and means of putting all the mischief done thereby. Wow! What a thought!

Suddenly I was aware of a man some thirty meters ahead of me. The road here was straight and fairly wide serving four important institutions in Kuala Kangsar: a district hospital, a railway station at one end and the Malay College and the Ridzunaniah Mosque, one of the largest and oldest mosque in Perak at the other end.

The man looks like a middle-aged man clad only in a Malay baju and sarong and on his close-shaven head was a skull-cap of indeterminate color. The way he was holding a white painted stick and the way he was tapping the stick on the ground ahead of him told me he was a blind man. In his left hand he held a red plastic cup extended outwards as if asking for alms.

Exactly opposite the Ridzuanniah Mosque he hesitated and the stopped, but by then he had unfortunately strayed some distance towards the middle of the road, apparently with the intention of crossing the road, to go to the mosque on the opposite side of the road.

I was some distance from the man, but fortunately a bystander nearby realized the poor man’s predicament. He shouted for all he was worth, for at that precise moment a lorry came barreling along exactly towards the blind man.

The bystander’s lusty shouting might have warned the lorry driver of the impending danger, for he braked his vehicle for all he was worth and the lorry came to a screeching halt just a few inches from the blind man. The Chinese lorry driver jumped down from his lorry and held the blind man by his right arm while the Indian bystander held him by the left arm. Together they ushered him to the far side of the road.

What a pretty and beautiful sight they made as they walked across the tarmac – the Indian, the Chinese and the Malay blind man between them, walking arm in arm to safety and security of the mosque’s compound. Could this be an omen of things to come? Not only in small things like this but in bigger things like trade, industry, defence and administration. Who knows?

The love, care, affection and concern for one another among the races that make up this nation should be as pure and as unconditional as seen in this incident.

What happened between these three people should be an eye-opener to all those in this country who base their sense of values on politics, race and religion rather than on love, care and affection arising out of a sense of equality, justice and freedom.