My name is Gana

Learning the alphabets. All of you knew the alphabets before you got into school. This however did not help Subash as he had to start off with Malay as the medium of instruction. However he was a fast learner and there were kind teachers like Chegu Ghaffar who helped him from the beginning. Of course he used to brag about the elder bother Ramesh whose name was etched in the best student board displayed in the hall. During my younger days it was a different experience. We used to identify alphabets thru car number plates. There were few cars then; we had A for Pk, W for Pg and Province Wellesley and S for Selangor. While I and Naina were engaged in this game a careless driver knocked into me paid RM10/- to Naina and bolted from the scene. That put me in Hospital for 40 days. I still have a scar of 3” in my right calf to remind me of the incident. When an inquiry was held both of us did not recognize the make of the car or the number plate. Our statements confirmed we were at fault. Tha...

Public Servants can develop policies and send to the Treasury for consideration and if approved the Government would need to allocate funds to enforce these policies. When I worked in the Ministry of HR the Deputy Minister Padmanaban said the Government is to table its budget and he noted the estates were being left out of the budget and urged me to see what the Labour Department can do to rectify the situation. Officers could draw up public policies that can improve the quality of life of target groups. I wrote a short paragraph for the following year’s Malaysia Plan that the Government will undertake to facilitate the estate communities to have access to electricity and potable water drawn from public sources and assistance to crèches in estates where there were more than 10 children who were housed in the estate crèches even though estates were located on private properties. I wrote a paragraph that would commit the Government to provide assistance to estates to provide electricity ...

In the years gone by arranged marriages were common unlike the present times where women are more emancipated and there is greater mingling of members of the female gender with male friends and a higher proportion of love marriages.  Maniam uncle, me and Ratha a mutual friend got into a hired Morris Minor to head to Telok Intan where Ratha’s heartthrob was residing. We accompanied our friend to check if the bride was a suitable prospect. Maniam was driving as he was the only one able to drive. The car had a hand held clutch where the clutch was attached to the steering column instead of the foot area. We reached the prospective brides house some two hours later. In those days the roads were narrow and winding. If there was a Hindu shrine the road would go around it as the Chinese contractor who was commissioned to pave the road dared not flatten the road as he feared reprisals from the deity and not so much from the villagers living around the area. The hand held clutch gave way ha...