Mandore-ism - A letter to Aneh

Private Memo

To:

My dearest most respectable yang sangat berhormat (DMD*) Uthy,
(*dimasa depan)

C’est moi, your tamby, Dodgee Dimsum. My dear dear Aneh who is like Puratchi Thalaivar, eppati irukkinga? Unnai rumba izhanthu vittean.

Enakku udhavi seivienkala? I wonder what you think of the situation in Hulu Selangor. I ask only because my dear Aneh has been noticeably silent about it, unlike your usual wonderfully succinct blasting at that Chinese communist dictator up north on that island, and demolition of his mandore deputy.

Aneh, I was expecting you to lambast those people in Hulu Selangor too for being mandore-ish, in toeing their Big Aneh’s line. They have lost their sovereign dignity, mind you, not that there was any existing before.

Isn’t it just mandore-like of them when even the president’s personal recommendation was ignored and chucked aside, and the deputy president (and future president, though now this is very much in doubt) was left in a devastatingly humiliated state. They were treated, so to speak, like mandores.

Thus I was a wee surprised that Aneh didn’t immediately lambast those mandores. Methinks Aneh is just reserving your energy for that No 2 man up north on that island, but you know best.

My grandfather who saw life through the British colonial period into our nation’s independence, told me of Aneh’s people, brought over from the homeland. There were two groups, one from an island (not that one in our north where your mandore lives) but the one which is more ‘Eelam-ish’ just across the samudera (I feel so privilege to use this word from your homeland), and the other from the sub-continent.

Those orang putih deployed them according to their skills, the islanders (because they were better educated) into their civil bureaucracy and the latter into plantations or as labourers.

All of them, from the two groups, were considered by those colonial masters as mandores, but my grandfather was amazed that among the two groups, the islanders considered the other group as mandores, and would not permit their children to ever marry anyone from the mandore group (though in recent times, a few brave ones have). There was a very conscious division based on class, caste and pannikote origin, and it saddens me because aiyoyo ma, no one with sub-continent ancestors will ever have a chance to marry the delicious hot looking daughter of the man once-reputed as Malaysia’s richest. Sayang saje.

The class distinction was so unlike Chinese society, which could explain why Chinese are more likely to lean towards Marxism while Indians are not so, being faithful to God - a case of agama but not bangsa.

Again it may explain why Indians in our military have been more trusted than the Chinese by the Malay authorities. Chinese could be potential commies, and which a rather ‘flexible’ politician (in Washington recently with the PM) has brilliantly identified one such Chinese communist dictator, up north on that island. Apparently there was a golf story behind this but let's leave that for another day.

I hope to hear from Aneh soon, if not to me privately, then via the media, about mandore-ism in Hulu Selangor (unless of course, their Aneh gives you the land for 98 Tamil schools in Selangor). Apram paarkalame.

I am, your most respectful and obedient tamby,

Dodgee Dimsum.


The Yum-Cha Chronicles:
(1) Apology - A letter to the minister
(2) Bloggers - A letter to the ministry
(3) Drama queens & kings wanted
(4) May 13 Book - a letter to the minister
(5) Appreciation - a letter to the minister
(6) Goblok to Golek - a letter to the minister
(7) MGR-ish makeover - a letter to a minister
(8) Bahasa Mělayu - a letter to Yang Běrhormat
(9) 'Convincibility' - A letter to Yang Amat Berhormat
(10) Political defections - a letter to a future PM
(11) Healing the nation's wounds - a letter to the PM
(12) Dodgee Dimsum's Statutory Declaration