It is really just another one of those days you feel on top of the world, as you jabber away with your friends at a mamak stall, sipping from a glass of iced milo. Kneaded in the scene is the proverbial people from all walks of life, all with their own color and stories to tell. Tales of daily gaffes and troubles invade the air. They are the typical anak Malaysia, all united under the palings of living in Malaysia and the things brought with it. And it is at that particular mamak stall they revel in the true sense of the word merdeka.
Your shopping blast in KLCC is coming to an end, as you've just been bombarded by calls from your parents warning you about that accursed curfew. Hotfooting it out of KLCC laden with shopping bags and bugged by painful heels, you reach the LRT station with your friends and it is during the time spent on waiting for the train to reach you all bemoan(not too softly) the crawling slowness and general inefficiency of the nation's public transport system. The train I am in finally reaches and they come in, still talking. Brimming with passengers keen on getting home apace, the train moves and whizzes past the lights of the city. Have we failed to notice the beauty, and that more than half of the world's population have never enjoyed this kind of basic contentment in their whole life? Yes, we are merdeka, we just failed to see it.
Moving along, it is also merely another typical day for me, who has just completed another day of my Form 6 life in school, and is now typing in front of the computer screen, trying to finish up an essay to submit for a school contest. I ponder a little on the fact that I have too, like all Malaysians, condemned the nation's shortcomings, but hey, I love Malaysia with all my heart, warts and all. Those are what make it so Malaysian! And I'm merdeka, be it the imminent end of STPM or for the others, year-end examinations, we're MERDEKA!
A happy 50th birthday to you, my beloved nation!
