Trilogy 10

Brain : Are you at peace with yourself these days ?

Heart : You asking me ?

Brain : No , I am asking our friend .

Conscience : You mean me ? Ya , who else.?
My friends , I myself don’t know at times whether I am alive or
dead. So, how can I be at peace with myself ?

Heart : You know when you say like that I feel hopeless.

Brain : Let me guess why you guys feel so. No. In fact let me think and analyse.

Conscience : Please , do so and say your piece. At least it may comfort me if at
all.

Heart : Ya , me too.

Brain : The management of the affairs around us!
The governance of the people, by the people …. for the people.
So much manipulation , so many red herrings , so much drama!
the resistance to positive change / In fact there seems to an anxiety shrouding all around.
.
Heart : Please , please. Elaborate a bit. I am but more kampong than you. You
studied in a university and mixed around with other brains. But me , I have
always remained kampong.

Brain : Nothing wrong with the kampong. It is the gullible some like you.

Conscience : Now , now . Don’t take it out on the poor fellow. Like the
thousands like him , he is naïve and simple. Move on
with your analysis.

Heart : Ai. Sorry la. There are times I follow without referring to you.

Brain : As I was saying. The manipulations , red herrings , etc. One must think
why ? For whom ? Think la.

Conscience : You are so right. So much crime , murder , disappearance , legal
jargons . And where is the truth ?

Brain : That is where it hurts you. It muddles you. Does the means justify
the ends or does the end justify the means ?

Conscience : What does history tell you ? What do the words of the prophets ,
sages , philosophers , the revered teachers tell you ?

Brain : We know what you are referring to. Universal principles and teachings.
What could be pricking you would be the maxim “ Might is Right ”
You see that maxim being enforced ? At the cost of treasured values.

Heart : But there seems to be a change of heart here and there.

Brain : You are being selective and subjective. Analyse the practice
of constitutional governance based on the principle of the people , by
the people , for the people. Think . And you shall know.

Conscience : Thank you my friend. Now you see ? Sometimes I do not know
I am kept alive or whether I am being killed.? But I have this
assurance. I may be submerged and even killed but in some form
and somewhere . some time I emerge. The truth will be known.

Heart : How true. I know . I feel.

Brain : In someone’s conscience you mean.

Conscience : In the human conscience at least just before death sucks away your last breath.

Trilogy 9

The Trilogue Continues.

The friends of the trilogue had been quiet for awhile. In reality they had, in their own personal way, been just laying by and see how their immediate world around them was moving on.


Heart : Hardly anything I felt made me feel good.

Mind : Except whenever our person sits on the porch at sunrise and sunset and gazes at the clouds, blue skies, the yonder hills and the horizon meets the sea way beyond.

Heart : Yes ..Yes. The view from the porch at the 26th.floor is heavenly.

Conscience : For sure. It is all GOD given !

Mind : And how many beings even look at it I wonder.

Heart : What a waste!

Mind : Waste? I just saw something just last week and I told what a waste!

Heart : You mean what you saw on the information board in the school office?

Mind : Exactly ! How did you know ?

Conscience : Because both of you felt the same.

Both : And what did that tell you ?

Conscience : That in this country there is no conscious effort to grow a nation.
All that talk of forging a nation is just lip service.

Brain : Woi ! Justify what you just said.

Conscience : What is there to justify. You guys saw it on the school notice board.
So glaring and yet not obvious to the many teachers, educationalists and who-have
you who visit the school.

Brain : I got it. I got it. And you are so right.

Heart : Tell me. Tell me. I seem to feel but I donno la.

Brain : You ‘kattu poochi ! (‘jungle insect’). Remember during our school days during the fifties
and sixties ?

Heart : We were a nation just born. We had just become independent. A new nation.

Brain : Correct. And remember the school notice which displayed the number of pupils in each
class by racial break down.

Heart : I remember….how many Malays , how many Chinese , how many Indians and how many
‘others’ in each class and in the whole school.

Brain : Yes. And that was in the 1950s and 1960s.

Conscience : And what did we all see on the information of that big school just last week in
October 2008 ?

Both : The racial break down by races in each and every class. So many Malays, so many
Chinese, so many Indians and so many ‘others’ !

Conscience : Why ? Each and every one of them was born here in our country after 1990 or 1991. At least 33 years after our nation was born !

Brain : And from day one in school they are branded by race and right through the higher schools of learning in our country.

Conscience : And so I ask ‘ Where o’ where is the conscious creation of one people ….of one nation ?

Brain : And preserving and practicing race and religion on their own within that identity ? Or am I saying what they who-are-in-charge know but it does serve their inner motive and interest…..and so ..don’t change. What a waste of so many precious years of potential growth as a nation.

Heart : Why come out of the box ?

Conscience : So you see guys….they freeze their conscience and I being just a simple lay man of conscience feel the pain silently.

Heart : But take heart my friend. They may not want to come out of the box…

Brain : And as history writes and re-writes….they will be boxed out ! In other words booted out.

Heart : In due time ?

THE CONSCIENCE (C), THE BRAIN (B), THE HEART (H)

CBH - Trilogy 8

H - Hello my friend … you seem to be in deep thought …

B - What else? Thinking is my role.

H - And you know what? Your thinking affects me. I feel.

B - Surely la. You are all heart. You feel.

H - Ya. Like now. I feel your thoughts.

B - Really? And how do you feel?

H - Mixed.

B - Mixed?

H - Ya. On one side love and loyalty. On the other side anger and anguish!

B - Over what? About what?

H - About my country … not really. My country - O’ it is so blessed with natural resources and natural beauty. Even the animals and the people in my country - they are so beautiful.

B - You mean our country!

H - Yes, yes. Our country. Our beautiful country.

B - And so what is this love, loyalty, anger and anguish all about?

H - You know we just went to a country for a few days and came back.

B - Ya ….

H - You saw. You observed. You thought.

B - Ya … that’s correct. Am I not an intellect as well?

H - True. And am I not an emotion? I feel don’t I?

B - Correct. Now to what we saw, thought and felt.

H - About that country we visited.

B - Yes. First the system and order we saw there. Second the conduct and behaviour of the young people we came across along the road, in the trains and buses. Third, the staff serving behind the counters of public service, theatres, shops… just anywhere.

H - Ya. Their attitude and response.

B - True. In the public transport. The train and bus services are so well organized, systematised and superbly convenient.

H - Ya. Even my country cousin, if he were to go there for whatever purpose - all he needs to know is the address he has to reach and just ask …. he will arrive by train and bus safe and sound.

B - And cheap. Imagine - getting a one dollar refund at the end of every train trip!! Unbelievable.

H - And what else. Each and every time we boarded a train or bus, crowded; but some young man will just stand and offer me his seat.

B - Seeing your grey hair.

H - Ya. Respect and consideration shown to senior citizens.

B - Here?

H - No comments.

B - And given a choice, shall we go and settle there?

H - Hey, hey my friend, don’t talk like some stupid, racialist politician. Why? Why should we go and settle there, when my heart is here! My country.

B - You mean in your heart of hearts?

H - Heart, heart of hearts. I love my country and I live here. That’s it.

B - But we are not as orderly, as systematic, as civil and as behaved as we can be.

H - True.

B - That’s what my thoughts are about.

C - About change! Right?

B - How right you are my dear conscience. Change! We need change!

C - And change will come.

B - But how? The conscience of the others…..

H - You mean them. The decision makers?

B - Ya … the conscience of the elite in the seats of power …does it exist?

C - Does not matter even if they have lost it.
The conscience of the people who gave them that power is awakening and surely awaken.

H - Wow. I am feeling a courage.

B - Ya…. and I am feeling a power.

C - That is the power and courage of me … conscience. Once I awake …..

B&H - Conscience kills.

C - Correct. The wily connivance of the politically powerful versus the moral conscience of the people. No match. Need I to tell you who will fall?

B - No need. History is full of it.

H - And so is Literature.

C - So, go … learn … change.

The Conscience (C), The Brain (B), The Heart (H)

CBH - Triology 7

C:Why are you both just smirking and sometimes laughing?

B&H:Ha. Ha. Haa … O’my God …We just can’t help it. It looks so … so … we don’t know what to say!

C:What is it?

B:One day in a year. One particular day in a year.

H:Just one day in a year!

B&H:And they call it FATHER’S DAY!

H:As if fathers did not or do not exist on other days!

B:True … on most of the days I am made to think, calculate and work out how to do and carry out work. Where got time to think of father.

H:Yes la. You are paid to do work.

B:Yes … I am paid to think and do the work I am employed for.

C:So I have seen. Day in ,day out you two fellows are so pre-occupied with so many things.

H:So much so I have taken my father and mother for granted.

B: Only father and mother! You and I have taken so many of our family members for granted. Even good friends.

C:That once a year you have to be reminded to remember and sort of rejoice.

H&B:Ya.

C:And made fools of.

B:Made fools of! By whom?

C:Why? By hotels, restaurants, gift shops, sms messages, blah…blah….
They and their advertisements of lunches, dinners, parties, gifts for Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, this day – that day. All commercialised to make money at your expense..

H:And we take the bait.

B:Gullible.

H:So my dear Conscience – are you saying we should not have a Father’s Day or Mother’s Day or any such “day” at all?

C:How emotional … and irrational. I did not say that la!

B:Irrational! Hey! That’s going too far!!!

C:Hold it. Hold it.
Reflect … reflect on the values you grew up with.

B:Values?

C:Yes. Values. You grew from infancy valuing your mum .. cuddling up to her … valuing your dad … as you held on to his hand … Think back … and you will feel.
(After a long pause)

B:Yes. You are right my friend.

B:Agreed. In fact everyday is Mother’s day. Everyday is Father’s day.

H:After all we remember them and pray for them everyday. Don’t we?

C:Don’t you? Hmmm…..

B:O’ stop that sarcasm.

H:And as if you remember mom and dad everyday!

C:Right! You have come my way now.

H&B:??

C:You see fellows…over the years I saw and felt the pain and pang mothers and fathers suffer through till they die.
Then when news reaches the kids that mom has died … the tears … the remorse … the obituaries … All done on this world – for this world to see.

B:And in the next world or next re-incarnation?

H:I feel pain. I miss my mom and dad.

B:What is your problem? They live just a short bus journey away.

H:And I have not visited them for over two weeks.

B:Busy-busy … just like me!

C:That is when I used to come in. I would prick.

B:Ya … I remember.

C: And who took advantage of it? Not the person I as his conscience pricked.

B:Ya. I get you. The commercial world took advantage of it. All for money … money … money.

H:And the sentimental bloke I am, I fell for it. The cards, the sms, the gifts, the this and the that.

C:Do it … it is okay if you have the cash to spare. But communicate WITH FEELINGS. Not just by forwarding a wordy, romantic sms already sent by so many like you to their mom or day. You think they don’t know.

B:So … what is your message my conscience?

C:Aaah … think … reflect … and you will understand.

H:I do now. Everyday is Mother’s Day. Everyday is Father’s Day.

C:Yessss ,,, because everyday is GOD’s day …

B&H:Thank you Conscience. Thank you!

C:Good for you and better for your mom and day.
“Matha, Pitha, Guru, Theivam.”

B:I think I know what you just said.

H:Ai … I don’t know la. Tell me.

C:Find out.

CBH - Triologue 6

THE CONSCIENCE (C), THE BRAIN (B), THE HEART (IH)

H : Hei - I see you are making the face frown. Why frown?

B : Yes - in anger. In frustration. Cheh!

H : Cool it buddy. You are a brain. Don’t heat up. Don’t frus. Then you cause stress in me.

B : And hypertension. Sorry. I did not mean to. It is just the other brains around me.

H : Who are you referring to?

B : In this instance the bodoh brains of course.

H : Be precise.

B : The politician brains la!

H : And why?

B : Any why?? Because they do not know simple basic grammar.

H : Grammar?

B : Yes. Grammar of tense.

H : You mean Present Tense. Past Tense. Future Tense and so on…

B : Yes - exactly.

H : Go on.

B : Since I can recollect …

H : That would be about 30 to 40 years ago ……

B : Yes. Since 30 over years ago. These politicians - at every rank, more prominently the senior fellows.

H : What about them?

B : From then to today … I have never heard any one of them speak in the Past Perfect Tense. It is always “we will do this, we will achieve that. We plan to complete this and that …”

H : Ya … they are notorious in saying “when completed the country will have achieved this … we will accomplish that” and so on.

B : Always in the Future Tense.

H : You are right. Take the rivers for example. They promised the rivers will be cleaned up in 10 years and allocated millions of Ringgit.

B : Ya … and now it is past 25 years!

H : And the rivers are even dirtier than before .. if not dead!

B : You remember they said “we shall be one country … we shall be one nation … we shall be one people”.

H : Ha … bullshit.

B : I cannot recollect one politician in power speaking in the Past Perfect Tense.

H : I wonder if he knows what it is to speak in the Past Perfect Tense.

B&H : And how do you look at all this?

C : Me? Hmmm. These worldly fellows! They have lost their foundation in grammar. Not only in grammar but in so many other things!

B : And they have lost their sense of self-respect … honesty … O’ I can go on…..

H : Now I understand your anger. Your frustration.

B : And what can be done about it? Send them back to school to learn grammar? Learn the Tenses and use them correctly?

C : Too late!

B&H : Then we are doomed!

C : Not really. It is they who are doomed. Not only here but also in the hereafter. Their karma.

H : Here. Doomed. Karma … also doomed.

C : Hello my friend - can’t you see. Take that once all powerful guy. Today he barks and snarls with no bite. All his snarling is going down the gutters. His colleagues now call him a gutter politician.

B : Ya … I get you, And the other fellow … yelling and shouting until one day his wig will fall off. A very rich but poor fellow.

C : Do you think they sleep easy? Even if they somehow manage to, now … do you think they can sleep easy when they are laid six feet below?

B&H : We don’t know. And really, we don’t care.

C : But I care … I care for my fellow conscience in them, As I said earlier … their conscience has been corralled…. boxed in.

B&H : Too late!

C : To be seen. Change can happen.

H : What change?

B : Wait and see.

CBH - Trilogue 5

The Conscience (C), The Brain (B), The Heart (H)

B :I want to go into infinite suspension. Just feel suspended and float and float.

H : Simple. Go get drunk or swallow some drugs … or self-inject. You will feel hayal and hazy.

B : Ya … slowly get addicted to it and eventually die a slow and disgraceful death. Very funny!

H : No la! I did not mean it that way. Just having a jibe at you la. What’s your problem?

B : You know … I am a brain. The more you make me learn. The more you make me read. The better I can think. The better I can rationlise. The better for my being.

H : True. The better you, the better I feel. Less stress. More steady my beat.

B : But no my friend. I degenerate. You degenerate. And we rot.

H : Why do you speak like that? What’s going on?

B : My person … lately he has been mixing around some politicians. I am being surrounded by politicians’ brains.

H : And what can be wrong with that?

B : What can be wrong with that…! These types of brains … they do not want to think straight. They do not want to think fair and just.

A voice:-

“Not that they do not want to. It is just that they cannot. That is how their brains have been educated from their young school days.”

B & H : Who was that?

C: I la. The Conscience. See! Even you fellows overlook me.

B&H : Sorry my friend. Sorry.

C : Don’t be. It is too late anyway.

B : What do you mean?

H : Ya … what do you mean?

C : Hear me out. The brains of today … be they be in professionals, workers, ordinary folks, politicians … more in politicians it seems.

B : You mean people at all levels?

C : Ya … at all levels; workers, clerks, managers, directors, ministers..

H : Ministers!

C : Ya. It is more glaring in them.

B : Go on.

C : Reflect my friends. Reflect - you as a brain - how much were you made to learn about history. About literature. You as a heart - how much were you made to feel about events in history. Events in literature.

B : You are on to something. Go on….

C : History. Literature. Both are all about people. About human beings. About characters.

B : Got it. About how people behave. History and literature is all about human behaviour.

C : Correct. Correct. Correct. About behaviour of parents, lovers, leaders, judges and so on …

B : So what is missing?

C : Their brains … not that they do not want to think. They cannot think!! Think!

H : So what is missing?

C : Their brains have missed a sense of history. They have missed the wisdom of literature. They do not know. They have not read … and understood … the history of countries and people.

H : Example…

B : China. India. Arabia. Europe. Mao. Ghandhi. Caliph Umar. Hitler. O’ and many, many more.

C : Yes. Many, many, covering hundreds of years.

H : Ya. I can feel it. But tell me. All those countries and all those characters. They belong to different races and religions

C : There you go again. Race and religion. Different communities. Different race.

H : And different parties?

C : O’ stop this rubbish.

B&H : Rubbish!

C : Yes. Rubbish because you have made your heads into dustbins and you have dumped in all this political rubbish.

H : Brain. You think so?

B : Ya, I think so. I think we need to go back to simple basics. Learn all over again the simple values and virtues.

H : Ya … like basically we are born to die. In between, live with honesty, modesty, sincerity, love … my … my …. how much we have lost.

B : Ya. Surrounded by the politics of party and power.

H : That we seem to love the party more than the country.

B : And with selfish motives.

C : Here! here! You are giving me a good flush and a fresh transfusion. With others watching, I believe the flush out and transfusion will complete.

B&H : Good for you, me and our country.

C : Bless be to God!

THE CONSCIENCE (C), THE BRAIN (B), THE HEART (H)

Trilogue 4

B: I feel one kind …..

H: Why my friend?

B: Sometimes I feel stupid. Sometimes a bit confused. Not able to think which is right & which is not right.

H: Ah … what is right is kanan; what is not right is left … kiri.

B: Ha-ha-ha funny....

H: Seriously, what is the problem?

B: My person … this person whose brain I am …

H: Yeah … and I am his heart. What about him?

B: Recently on the 8th of March, his sister told him she wants to get married.

H: Yes. So what’s the problem?

B: That’s the problem. She wants to marry the guy from a family whose father is the owner of a rival business.

H: You mean a competitor!

B: Ya … his family and her family are in the agriculture business and they compete with each other.

H: But business is a competition to win customers. Is it not? So what is the problem?

B: That’s the problem! The brother tells his sister that she can marry the guy but on condition he must not work for his family! He can work anywhere else but not in his family. This is where sometimes I feel stupid … sometimes confused.

H: Why?

B: Look … he is a rational guy. Let him work where he chooses. That’s his freedom of choice.

H: Correct. So what is your point?

B: The point. If he marries her and works for her family, his family will break their relationship.

H: You mean chase him out! Disown him!! Hmm .. sounds like what you told me are happening in some state governments.

B: Yes. Now what shall I, as his brain, tell him. To break with his girl or marry her, work with her family and be disowned by his family?

H: Yeah … I understand. On one side family relationship and emotional attachment. Blood relationship on the other side. Love marriage and work. I would want both. Family and work.

B: I also. What shall I say?

A voice : “Ask me la?”

B&H: Who is that?

C: Me … la. Sahabat 'Conscience'. Nowadays, I myself do not know where you all place me.

B&H: Sorry, sorry. Sometimes we are so taken by this world …we freeze you. Tell us, what do you say…

C: Simple. By marrying him, she is happy and settled. By marrying her and working for her family, he is happy, settled and they are secure. Like it or not …both families are now bonded. It is now a family business. Build on and move on. Both families benefit.

B: Ayaah …. I did not think rationally. You are right my friend.

H: Sorry la my friend. I allowed emotions to blur your rational thinking.

C: So you two guys, let us leave our person whose body contains all three of us alone. He will decide and act.

B: If he allows me, I will rationally tell him to follow a win-win approach.

H: I will make him hear both parties with feelings.

C: That would be a great help … and he will come to a sensible and constructive decision. Leaves me clear.