COMMENT Recently, as I was wheeled away in an ambulance after suffering a motorbike accident that could have been avoided as much as it could have been fatal, the paramedic tending to my agitated self-kept assuring that this was just “an experience” for me.

 

Hours later, I left the hospital with a certificate for a follow-up dated exactly 10 days after the accident, and I was pretty confident that I would be healed completely by then. I was oozing blood on my legs, elbows, shoulders and various others parts of my arms, so it can’t possibly get worse than that, right?

 

Coupled that with the fact that the doctors decided that leaving wounds - lacerations as they had called them (now I know lacerations don’t apply to burns alone) - open would heal them faster as opposed to covering the areas with bandage and dressing, I did very little apart from throb with pain for the next few days. It took me three days to sleep peacefully without feeling the pain.

 

Again, my wounds were bleeding and I was sure things can only get better once the wounds had begun drying off.

 

But I didn’t know that the worse part that would eventually get under my skin, all pun intended, would actually come at a period when everyone else is busy telling me I’m getting better.

 

Ten days passed and I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t bend my elbows, I can’t move more than two positions while sleeping. I wanted to whine and complain, but of course, it could be much worse - I could have suffered fractures, broken bones, or worse, I could have simply slipped into a coma.

 

But herein lies the catch - by being nowhere near being critical and nowhere near being in a clean bill of health, the real value of willpower gets tested.

 

And in the process of getting better - they actually get uglier. There’s your frustrated, unshaven self, with no proper exercise, and then there are the wounds, exhibiting different colours every day and looking pretty ugly by each passing day, creating even more discomfort.

 

But the point is - it’s getting better, it’s healing. You might not feel like you are getting better at all, but you have got to trust that you are getting better. I mean, you do not really have much of an alternative there, do you?

 

There’s the greatest willpower of all - the willpower of patience. The willpower to remain the same person, to retain the same spirit even though you seem to be stuck in an infinite loop of inertia with no way out.

 

Unless, of course, I choose to cut off my limbs.

Neither here nor there

 

During my time away from the forefront of politics, the news I read every day seem to indicate that things are getting worse for Malaysia, quite apparently.

 

But then again, that’s our problem - things can be much worse here - as our BN politicos would readily remind us on a daily basis, and it could be much better - as our ideological politicos in Pakatan would stress on regularly.

 

We are not in a full-blown crisis, we are not in an armed conflict, we are not in a lawless land, that’s what the leaders of the country will tell us - so be grateful.

 

But we are also way behind global standards of freedom of speech and democratic spaces, as the opposition bench would rightfully point out. So we are neither here nor there. We are not bleeding. We are probably inundated with some very ugly wounds.

 

They got uglier this past week. But sometimes, it gets uglier in the process of healing - as it takes all but one day for all that ugly skin to be washed off.

 

But until that day comes, we don’t have a choice but to wait while remaining true to our struggle and ideals, without letting the frustrations of a long wait change our long-term sights.

 

We can’t purge out our bad virtues overnight, but we can keep our wits about us as we wait for our new varieties to replace our old ones. One too many times, the tunnel will seem endless and without a light, but we have to walk with the faith that one sharp corner leads to an exit somewhere.

 

Though, tongue in cheek, I must say, take that corner carefully, lest you might end up like me, with painful scars.

 

My days of inertia often bring me back to an effervescent dialogue in a Tamil movie which I had watched when I was seven years old, and stuck with me till today.

 

In ‘Thevar Magan’, two legendary Indian actors, Shivaji Genesan and Kamal Haasan play father and son respectively - and the son is agitating to leave the village beset by communal fighting, while the father insists he will not leave the village for greener pastures in the city.

 

I have roughly translated the dialogues into English.

 

(Son complains to father about villagers being uncivilised)

 

Father: Why don’t you change them, then? Bring them to the city with you, get them jobs. But be warned, they will come very slowly.

 

Son: How slowly? I’ll be dead by the time they come around...

 

Father: Die then, die! Everyone dies someday... can you expect the tree to grow once you plant the seed?

 

Today I plant the seed, tomorrow you will eat the fruit, the next day your son will eat it. But will I be around to see all that? No, I will not be... but the seed is mine.

 

Is it a matter of pride for me to plant the seed? No. It’s my responsibility!

 

Maybe, all we could do is plant the seed and hope the tree will grow someday, whether we see it with our own eyes or not. Someone will eat the fruits someday. We do our parts, not because of pride, but out of our sense of responsibility.

 

Till then, we keep ploughing away, as ambiguous and unproductive as it seems to be.

 

As for my part, I’ll keep writing.

 

 

RAM ANAND is a member of the Malaysiakini team, who recently had a motorcycle accident.