Malay, Chinese, Indians...should I care?

A few days before election. A few days before May 13. My office mate of several years, a Chinese and a Sikh started "pissing" on a Malay like me. I did not know why, but i can sense their indifference towards me. Prior to this, I had a good slap on my cheek from an Indian co-worker senior as a joke. I was too naive to react but laugh it off more so realise what was behind the slap on my cheek, and a good one too!

When things get too bad for my taste, then I sensed the enmity behind it all. So I told that Benggali Sikh no turban fella, " You are Benggali, you got no business here. This is between the Malays and the Chineseses! So get lost!" The word "Fuck" and "shit" or "Mother-fucker" were still alien to me. Back in the 60's. And I for one did not even know what "Pubic hair" meant when I sawa sketch of a naked female figure with an arrow showing towards that part of the hair! I corrected the spelling to "public hair". Hark! Hark! Hark! So innocent, ah?

I was even touched to see the no-race-barrier in my office when I saw some of my friends smoking the "rokok daun" . How simple and humble, though they can affort Dunhill or Benson. Alll the three racessharing the one batang rokok daun amongst themselves . Now I know that the daun rokok was meant to roll the ganja inside. Gosh!

Back to the confrontion . Our relationships turned sour as the days to the May 13 elections closed by.

oN EHT EVENING OF THE FAteful day, May 13, 1969, as if left the UMNO building in Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman ater rehearsing a stage play directed by the late Malina Manja...enroute to Police Depoh, Jalan Gurney where I lived with my police officer father, I passed the Jalan Raja Muda Musa or then better known as Princess Road. I say may people gathering on both sides of the road with flag posts and banners. They were shouting at passers-by for support. I parked my vespa and with a friend , stand on the curb watching. Then the shouting got louder and tense. I say in the front of the road people shouting and a TV van driven by a Chinese.
The driver drove slow as the mob started closing in towards the van from all sides. Then the ven stopped. Some of them mob pulled the driver out and started hacking him. They overturned the
van and started burning it. The poor Chinese was left to crawl alone to the pavement where I was. Instinct said I should help him. So I got close to help him but my friend pulled me back by the coller, telling me to leave that dying man alone or else I would be hacked too, because my face looked Chinese.

I acted fast. Started my vespa and sped home just in time before the curfew was announced on TV. My friend got caught and seek refuge for a week in just anybodys house in Kampong Bharu.

The restwas history.
And I hope things like this would not crop up again. No now, not ever! Makkal Sakti!