ode to the cow dung

i've completed my mission.

hari raya was fun. well, as fun as it could be now that i am celebrating it as an adult. which means it was just like any normal day but with nicer clothes and yummier foods on the table.

oh and significantly less money too. but again, i go through that in many parts of the year as well.

i could not believe how much meat i consumed. gosh, i think i ate more meat in that few days than what i ate the whole year. no wonder at my grandpa's village in rembau, negeri sembilan, i could only see dungs on the road but no cow.

mind you, that was so a sight to behold right now because, get this, i heard they are going to demolish the whole village by next year. yes demolish. which means by this time next year, there will be no more village and no more cow dungs on the road.

evil? i think so too.

you see, my grandpa's village in negeri sembilan is located just by the railway track. it's so strategic that we could enjoy the peaceful environment of the countryside one minute, and get a taste of urban development by the sound of the rushing train in another.






apparently someone has just decided to add in another railway track beside the existing one. which by the way, is so puzzling for me because who on earth takes the cross country train in malaysia these days? like 3 people in the whole year.

anyway, so they are going to add in new track. now, how wide is the train track? less than a meter wide. and how wide area beside the existing track that they are going to take for that so-called railway track building project? almost 50 meters. do the math.

hmm i'm not in a position to comment because i'm not as intelligent to understand the logic behind this. for all i know, i'm dumb-founded, as were my grandpa. these people, they can travel through time. or else, how could they enter the villagers property and did some area measurements stuff before even discussing anything about the plans, the compensation etc etc with the locals?

deal or no deal, we just have no say. it's the government anyway, it's not like they can ever do anything wrong. so it's a safe bet to say by next year, all the cow dungs on the village road would have become history.

i guess, that's the price we have to pay for development. we would want our country to prosper. we want to build the tallest building in the world and live in flat houses like the singaporeans, even if it means letting go of our own wide land for some stuffy houses with zero compound.

so where will we celebrate the next hari raya? in the city and the supermarkets just like what the singaporeans do. it will be ok. we will still have our nice clothes and yummier foods then.

even if it's made of frozen meat that did not litter any countryside roads.








...ed