Namaku Jalur Gemilang, namaku yang baru sebenarnya. Sebelum ini aku  hanya dipanggil sebagai bendera Malaysia. Mujurlah Tun Dr Mahathir berikanku nama ini beberapa tahun yang lepas. Sungguh seronok dipanggil dengan nama baru. Ceritaku agak istimewa juga. Berbeza sungguh daripada rakan-rakanku. Mestilah istimewa. Negara mana yang beri layanan sebegini kepada bendera mereka untuk sebulan lamanya. Bermula dari 15 Ogos hingga 16 Sept setiap tahun, aku diraikan di seluruh pelosok negara. Wah, saudara/i tak pernah tengok aku ke? Aku berkibar di atas hampir semua teksi (sesetengah kenderaan persendirian) di Malaysia. Tak ingat ke? Tak bukan teksi, apa kata saudara/i pergi ke pusat membeli-belah? Pasti ‘potraitku’ ada di situ. Aku juga menghiasi blog orang :P. Ada juga yang buat ‘rangoli kolam’ bertemakan aku. Ada yang pecahkan berbagai-bagai rekod Malaysia dengan menggunakan namaku. Macam-macam la. Ikut kreativiti rakyat Malaysia yang kearifan mereka tidak boleh disangkal lagi. Aku juga diberikan percuma kepada rakyat oleh Perdana Menteri. Wah, bukan main hebat kan? Glamor sungguh hidupku ini.

Tetapi lepas 16 Sept, tamatlah sudah zaman kegemilanganku selama sebulan. Pendeknya hidup mewahku selama 30 hari. Kasihan la aku. Kadang kala aku tercabut dari kenderaan yang meluncur laju di lebuhraya. Terbang dibawa angin masuk parit, loji najis pun ada. Tapi ada juga yang lebih menyakitkan hati. Mulut yang manis memuji aku dalam sebulan ini mengutuk pula diriku untuk 11 bulan yang selanjutnya. Inilah yang aku paling tidak faham dan paling aku benci. Aku tidak pernah diminta untuk disayangi sebegini rupa. Tetapi, bukan main hebat lagi layanan mereka ini. Pada masa yang sama, aku tidak relakan diriku dicaci. Sekali lagi, niatku itu tidak juga dirahmati.

Memang aku tidak faham-faham kerenah manusia ini.

Originally published in tulipspeaks.

To those who have missed the first stage play on Tun VT Sambanthan, here is another chance!

While I can’t remember the exact post, I remember reading a blog post of a fellow Malaysian Indian blogger criticizing Malaysian Indian girl’s clothing. Something that pointing out that sexy and Westernized clothing (and character) of them are ‘killing’ the culture. Yea, something like that.

No, I am not going to argue on someone’s post here. That is not an ethical thing to do, but I would rather argue about so-called burden of preserving the culture that many think only need to be shouldered by women. That would be something I will never agree as a woman and as a person. For example, it is alright for our men folk to go to a temple in jeans but it is not okie for women. While I am not saying it is not okie for a girl to go to temple in a punjabi suit/saree, I’m wondering why men are exempted from such unwritten rule.

Being an alumni of a local public university, I am well aware of the ‘orientation month’ that our students used to have (and I believe they are still having it). There was a rule insisting our girls to wear traditional clothes during the whole ‘orientation month’. Some defended it saying it is to identify the freshies and some attacked the idea. But no one ever asked the boys to wear dhoti or jippa.

Why is the double standard when it comes to who-should-take-care-of-culture? Why parents who are so particular dressing up their daughters in traditional clothes doesn’t seem to mind what the sons are wearing? Why would modern-dressed girls looked down while whose in traditional attire regarded as family-type girl? It can always be the other way around, you know?

Besides, I was just wondering about this - I am able to tie a saree within 5 mins, how many men here able to tie a dhoti in 10 mins? 

One thing that baffles me in Malaysian Indian blogging scene would be the lack of interest shown at variety of blogging genres. Our brothers and sisters who have just jumped into the blogging bandwagon seems to be very comfortable associating themselves with social and political issues - "SOPO" blogs in short. It seems to me that other blog genres are either invisible to them or they simply do not ‘regard’ those blogs as blogs all together! One need only to scan through their link list / blogroll. There is a high probability that you would find a long list of SOPO blogs and no other genres.

Every newbie seems to be a baby when it comes to blogging

While I have a lot of respect towards SOPO bloggers for highlighting important social and political issues on this nation and our community, I can’t turn blind eye seeing our bloggers confining themselves in one category and fighting against each other defending their views. Yes, that is ONE of the purpose of us blogging but it is not the ONLY reason we are here.

I am sure there are a number of personal bloggers, tech bloggers, photobloggers and food bloggers are here. Some maybe blogging on parenting, religious and literature issues. However, the numbers are very small when we are compared to SOPO bloggers. In fact, non-bloggers have the impression that every blogger is a SOPO blogger and are sitting in front of the computer critising the gov/opposition everyday - thanks to the misconception played by the main stream media.

You don’t have to meditate to find an answer to your blogging needs. You just need to equip yourself with some basic knowledge about blogworld.

No, I am not saying every SOPO blogger needs to close shop and/or convert their blogs to another genre. I just want to create the awareness of the existence of other types of blogs too. Maybe, the newbies simply don’t know they can be a blogger by blogging about other stuff too!

Wonder what we can do about it…

What is your say?

Good day everyone. We had wonderful time last Sunday at the gathering. To those who came (Raaja, Puvanan, Saravanan, Murali, Kavilan, Rames, Rujjcoomarh, Hanusha, Vicknes, Mahen, Novin and Sundra), thank you very much and to those who missed it, well.. there is always a next time. There are some photos uploaded in our flickr.

Before the gathering, we had a short admin meeting where we have discussed some vital points regarding the future of MIB. I hope by now, everyone know that MINDSBLOG (Malaysian Indian Blog) is a part of Malaysian Indian Bloggers (MIB). Some of the important points: