Guessed what? We were greeted with the distinctive and raucous sound of the kompang (a tambourine liked hand drum of various sizes) . This is indeed strange. Perhaps some nearby Malay family was celebrating a wedding. Someone very important indeed judging from the number of policemen present and the long fleet of expensive cars parked along the road. Alamak, all the cars looked like they were from the various embassies and belonging to the top dogs too (ambassador cars are denoted with red registration plate with the numerals 01)!
We minded our own business and entered Jalan Berhala which will lead us to the Vihara. As usual both sides of the road were lined with makeshift stalls selling vegetarian food, flowers, books, trinkets and junks. However the scene that greeted us was not quite right. We felt as if we were in Cannes attending a film festival! On the hot and dusty road was a very long red carpet, leading from the beginning of the road to the temple’s gates. This was very strange indeed. Even stranger still was that almost all the people avoided stepping on the carpet except the foreigners in suits! We guessed the modest Buddhist were not used to such grandeur and pomp.
Despite this the scene was still out of kilter for us. Then it dawned on us that there were no beggars seeking alms! This was another strange occurrence indeed. We knew that from past experiences, this road will be peppered with beggars and most of them congregating at the very gates of the temple. Have they been driven away and by whom? Did they not know that by removing the beggars, they were preventing the Buddhist from performing their charitable acts of Dana? Jangan main main (don’t mess with), nanti (later) Karma will come back and bite you on the arse!
The mystery was solved when we entered the temple grounds. We saw a big banner telling us why. The Prime Minister and his beloved wife the first lady were visiting the temple!
Of course we never saw them la. They were already seated in the air-conditioned hall with all the chief monks, VIPs and foreign dignitaries. But we knew what was going on. We had no choice because the proceedings were broadcast for all to listen! Anyway we were there to pay respect to the Buddha and seek his blessings, so no need to go busy ourselves with other people business. So we went to join hundreds of devotees waiting to enter the temple shrine.
The going on in the hall was really very intruding. Here we were, trying to be solemn and mindful of the Buddha’s teachings but at the same time we were bombarded loudly with the sounds of electric guitars and drums playing Jai-ho! Haiyo, so no respect and so salah (wrong) wor! Whatever happened to ‘awareness’ and ‘mindfulness’?
After the brief blessing ceremony, we made our way to light an oil lamp for peace. And guessed what? We thought RM20 for a small cup of oil was too expensive. At the same time, looking at the way we are heading, we need more than RM20 to get peace. Look at all the spilled oil in the Gulf of Mexico, more problems than anything else, right? So we decided to spend the Rm20 on some animal welfare instead.
Anyway Karma was a real bitch that morning. When we got to the monorail station in Sentral, we found the service suspended. Maybe this was for being so misery with the oil lamp. Ha Ha Ha. As usual nobody from the station made any announcement. I think this is typical Malaysian crowd behavior, we just stood and gawked like chickens. After several minutes mimicking poultry (believe me there were many of them around even at that early hours, if you know what I mean) we went to look for a taxi. This time good Karma, the taxi not only agreed to fetch us to Sungai Wang but the driver put on the meter too! And the taxi was clean too. What a blessing!
Shadhu, Shadhu, Shadhu.
No comments:
Post a Comment