Cigarettes and a moment of realisation

Today, at around 12.30 p.m. I made my way out of the campus to Ipoh to settle off something at Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh. It started off as just a normal trip back to my hometown; I took a bus from UTP all the way to Medan Kidd. Then, from the Medan Kidd station, I took another bus to Ipoh Parade.

After completing my task in MBI, I decided to have lunch in Ipoh Parade. It was about 2.15 p.m. then. In Ipoh Parade, I met an old Michaelian friend of mine who is currently studying in Lower 6. We had a talk for a while before we parted.

I made my way up to the food court of Ipoh Parade when I spotted some teenagers near the internet cafe. One of them, I am sure, was a Michaelian. His Michaelian Military Band t-shirt gave away his Michaelian identity. I wasn't sure if his friends whom he was accompanying were from the same school, but they were having a great time, indeed. While it is strictly forbidden to smoke during school hours and within the school compound, these group of students smoked out of the school compound. I observed them for quite some time; they were having a great time taking huge puffs.

Sometimes, it makes me wonder, has our Prime Minister, Dato' Seri Abdullah Badawi's "Tak Nak!" campaign gone to waste after all? All the efforts that he had made to combat against smoking seemed to have produced the reverse effects. Instead of reducing the number of smokers in the country, I see that the number is growing, and to students as young as 16 or 17 years old!

Through education, it is known that smoking cigarettes affects and harms our health, and once addicted, it is just simply too hard to kick the habit. However, curiousity brings the worst out of a human being sometimes, and people sometimes just cannot resist the temptation to know what is it like to smoke. So, once they got hooked to it, they couldn't release themselves.

How weak mankind are! We perish easily under such heinous things that we create! We are so easily controlled by just a burning stick known as cigarettes!

Nevertheless, I ignored them and had my lunch quietly. At about 3.00 p.m. I left the shopping complex and got into a bus; I was extremely on luck that the bus arrived upon my leaving the complex. I returned to Medan Kidd and from there, I took another bus back to campus.

During my journey back to campus, I was the only passenger in the bus. There were no other passengers (except three Burmese, who left the bus after a short trip) throughout the whole journey from the bus station to my campus. Throughout the whole trip, I observed the behaviour of the bus driver.

He is just a typical Malay man, who somehow got my respect as well. Before my coming up to his bus, he asked to where was I heading for. I said that I wanted to go to UTP, and politely he said that it would be RM2.50, which I paid him instantly. Before I went up his bus, I went to another bus which stated that it was also going to Tronoh, but I was rudely put away by the driver who said that he would only go as far as Tronoh town, and wouldn't reach UTP at all (note: both buses are from the same company).

No sooner had I left the bus station back to campus, it started to rain. I was thankful to have an umbrella with me. Being the only passenger in the bus, I set at the second row from the front. It wasn't a special bus, just a normal one, but with a blaring loud engine. The engine roared so loudly that I almost couldn't take it anymore.

We passed Menglembu, and it was there when something struck my mind. He met another bus driver, a Chinese one, from another company. The Malay driver simply waved out to him and the other driver jokingly showed an "I've shot you" hand gesture (then the Malay driver laughed). It was an obvious scenario where both the drivers were merely acknowledging one another. No sooner did the bus which I took passed a hawker centre and seeing the owner of the centre, the bus driver hailed to him and said, "Hey! It's raining!" and the owner of the hawker centre said, "Yes, so I've got to close now!"

Though this Malay driver may (note: may) not have good education, he certainly knew much on how important it is to socialise with people. I was taken aback when I saw the friendliness of this so-called middle-class community.

Eventually, after about half an hour later, I reached the main entrance of my university. It was raining heavily so the driver even offered to stop me at the bus stop about 50 metres ahead. I declined the offer and he asked me if I had an umbrella. I told him that I had so he let me off. I was walking through the main entrance when I saw about four or five cars coming and were heading into the university as well. None of them stopped to offer me a lift back to my hostel.

While somebody with not much education understands the meaning of lending assistance, I am surprised that people who drive into the university, supposedly with good education, lacked that understanding. Part of me was disappointed that throughout my walking journey from the entrance back to my hostel, nobody stopped their cars by the roadside to offer me a ride. Well, it is not that I would request anybody to do so when they see me, but I would think that a person who has proper education would naturally step forward to give a helping hand to those who need it. The Moral Education that we had had simply failed. Uneducated people could be no more barbaric than those educated ones. While I was hoping for a Good Samaritan, sadly, there was none.

While our country prides on its "friendly nation" status, I believe that it really needs a review. With such hostility being practised here, I doubt if that status should remain in our country.