Everything Is About Politics

I have been busy since yesterday taking the school archery team (actually we got 2 archers and one chickened out so I am left with only one) for the Penang state school level competitions. Actually we don't have archery in school but we do have some archers hence the participation. I was roped in at the last minute to baby-sit our only archer.

What I am going to write is not about archery but about what happened at about 5.00pm today. Since my archer was with her friends from other school, I chose to sit under a shady tree beside the 30m competition zone watching some promising youngsters. They were quite good. Then an Indian gentleman about 40 came to sit beside me. He introduced himself to me and likewise I introduced myself. If this guy is an athlete he doesn't have to warm-up too much. He was the kind I would call ever-ready. He straight away told me that he was a taxi driver and that he also helped people in his free time or if he has extra money.

Then, just as I had guessed, he told me that he was an MIC branch chairman. Then he was bragging about how he helped the Indian community and how he has already got 3 awards for his services. It seemed that he is very close to Samy Velu. It was Samy who recommended all the awards that he got. Then there was a phone call. After the call, he told me that it was from the ADUN of Prai who called him. They had to discuss the coming elections. He was dropping names like ripe mangosteen dropping when vigorously shaken.

He knew just about every ADUN. He knows who is friendly with whom and who is not. He knows which candidate would be dropped and who wouldn't. It seemed that he is quite buddy-buddy with Pak Lah. He told me that Shariff Omar of Tasek Gelugor would be dropped and so would some other UMNO YBs whom he called 'sombong'. All the while he had assumed that I was an UMNO man and I didn't do anything to change his perception of me. Sometimes we could korek, korek, korek a lot from people like this.

He talked about the Chinese sentiment and also the Indians and he sounded quite unsupportive of HINDRAF. To encourage him on, I dropped a few UMNO ADUN's name. I told him that Datuk Jalil was a classmate of mine. He looked impressed.

Then I gave it to him straight in the face. I said, "Saya banyak marah sama ini kerajaan la". He was taken aback. I told him about how many people are also angry at the lying tendencies of this present leadership. I told him why the Malays are angry, why the Chinese are angry and why the Indians are angry complete with made up figures. They were not made up actually, I got them from blogs. Of course I do not know where those blogs got the figures from but who cares.

I told him about what people are writing in the internet. Suddenly he changed his tone. "Dia orang cakap itu macam dalam internet ka"? He never once questioned the authenticity of what I told him was reported in the internet.

Then seeing that I am not a government man, he revealed his disgust for the authorities. He told how the police violently treated the HINDRAF demonstrators and took out his camera to show pictures of the HINDRAF demo. He admitted that he attended the demo.

The competition ended for the day. While walking with me he told me how 63 parliament seats with a sizeable Indian electorate are in danger of falling because the swing in Indian votes are massive. He also said that many Indians do not care who the opposition is.. They would vote for DAP or PKR or even PAS. They don't care.

I don't know if his claims are true or he was pulling a fast one or if he was an SB. Just to share with you. What do you think? If he was SB, it is not the first time. My former Pengetua told me that he had 3 queries about me from people claiming to be from the Special Branch before.