Endless opportunities for P. Ramlee-type movies – Ravinder Singh

I have never missed my favourite screen idol Tan Sri P. Ramlee like I do now.

You see, we are today living in a Malaysia that has become a land of limitless opportunities for rib-splitting movies that could be made by him to turn real-life anger, fear, hatred, and all the “wisdom” and holier-than-thou acts of the country’s leaders of various shades and colours into an endless number of movies that could provide relief to our senses.

By turning the raging fires into sounds of music and waterfalls, of birds singing and wind rushing through the forests, of laughter and giggles, P. Ramlee could not only provide endless entertainment but also drum sense into the senseless in a subtle, humorous way.

He could hit at the unconscious into consciousness. He could humiliate the arrogant with humour, he could poke fun at the antics of the high and mighty and give us entertainment that could split our ribs laughing.

After all, it is said that laughter is the best medicine!

Let me just draw up a random, short list of topics suitable for P. Ramlee-type movies:

The butt exercises outside Ambiga’s gate;

The four-tonne cargo of mangosteens on MH370;

The RMAF that concluded a radar blip was a non-hostile aircraft;

The minister’s wisdom: why scramble an aircraft when there is nothing to shoot down?

Motive not relevant in the Altantuya case, only in other cases;

No mandatory jail/whipping for statutory rape because the rapist, a young sportsman, had a bright future in sports;

Prosecution for use of the word “celaka” in the state assembly;

Raid on the Bible Society of Malaysia to confiscate 321 copies of the Bible from its storeroom;

Mais/Jais thumbing their noses at the A-G’s advice to return the Bibles;

The lame ducks PM and Selangor MB who have to kow-tow to Mais/Jais;

Mais / Jais taking orders from God, so how can they take orders from men? 

The police detention of a reporter “for her own safety”;  

The Christian-bashing UiTM seminar that was just a “brainstorming” occasion;

The arrest of a bride in the midst of her wedding;

The snatching of a corpse from a funeral house;

The kidnapping of a child after court ruling gives custody to the mother;

Isma and its weird history of the non-Muslims in Malaysia;

The copyrighting of the word “Allah” for the exclusive use of Malaysian Muslims;

A professor’s comparison of Sabah and Sarawak’s position in Malaysia with that of Kelantan’s;

The yearly ritual of the Auditor General’s report;

Shopping around for RM1 chickens & cut-price kangkung;

The “stupid” civil servants who buy RM100 clocks for more than RM3,000 and RM3,000 laptops for more than RM40,000;

“Stupidity” (to procure for government at exorbitant prices) is not an offence;

 IGP’s explanation that missing police firearms could have fallen into the sea;

The taking over of the streets by snatch thieves and gangsters;

Taking over of the highways by the mat rempit;

Taking over of the schools by gangster-like children;

The toilet-canteen as a decent place for schoolchildren’s meals;

Malaysia’s education standard that is lower than Vietnam’s;

The education minister’s assertion that our education standard is better than that of the US, UK, Germany!

Sedition charge for a Chinese New Year satire video;

The unusual “sensitivities” virus that has attacked some people after BN’s loss of two-thirds majority in Parliament;

Defending Putrajaya with broken bones and crushed bodies;

The IGP’s overriding of a court decision to return the unilaterally converted child to her mother; and,

And to cure all these sicknesses, hudud is the answer, short and simple.

The list could go on and on and on.

Even P. Ramlee could be left scratching his head where to start on an endless list of hilarious movies that he could produce based on real-life events in modern, developed, progressive Malaysia.   

Yes, it is in times like this that we remember great personalities like P. Ramlee. Are there any film producers out there who would like to turn any of the above (and limitless other happenings) into hilarious movies to provide us badly needed laughter in these sad times for the nation is very sick.

* Ravinder Singh reads The Malaysian Insider.