Somewhere in a remote coastal town in Selangor, a 14-year-old boy’s future was not written in schoolbooks, which he routinely forgot. It was written in the hardened lines of his hands, earned carrying golf bags for men whose lives were a world away.
His labour was not for pocket money, but to put food on the table in cramped estate quarters shared with his parents and five younger siblings. He called himself a caddy, though he could not read greens or select clubs. He was a bag carrier.
When short-handed, he would hoist two bags on either shoulder, a small Atlas under a double weight.
“No problem,” he would say. Double the load meant double the rice.
Not far away, a kampung boy at 16 had already learned the arithmetic of survival. His university was the roadside, his lecture hall the seat of a trusty old bicycle, from which he sold ice cream to pay exam fees.
Years later, that bicycle would be polished as a trophy of humble origins he had vaulted far beyond. He sailed through school, became a medical professional, and built a life of quiet dignity - a life in which he had never once set foot on an aeroplane.
On the East Coast, a third boy entered the world draped in lineage. A silver spoon was his birthright, and a boarding school in the United Kingdom his destiny. Academia’s “slow horses” bored him; the ledgers of economics were a foreign language.
His curriculum was privileged, his exams in entitlement. When his father died, he was anointed - not by choice, but by political patronage - as successor and head of the clan.
The coup de grâce
Fast forward. The caddy’s path was one of earth and roots. He dropped out of school, his shoulders familiar with the weight of oil palm fruit bunches before he rose to mandore (supervisor).
His authority grew not from title, but from trust: head of the Parent-Teacher Association, chief of the local party branch, chairperson of the temple. His rise was measured in community respect, not altitude.
The ice cream boy’s path shot upward. He entered politics, starting with being a diligent background figure for years, until a scandal thrust him into the forefront. Declared “clean”, he was handpicked to lead a state.
He learned the ropes with startling speed. But his administration developed leaks, noticed by an intrepid journalist. The facts mounted against him. His fall was swift. The man who had championed Pembangkang Sifar (Zero Opposition) watched his own government being zeroed out at the polls.
Then, the outrageous details emerged: a global gallivant, a parade of six-star hotels, luxury unabashed while his state festered in pockets of squalor. Official trips to Disneyland - in Orlando and Paris - were family holidays, complete with wife, children, and maid in tow.
The parable had found its perfect symbol: the ice cream boy had finally flown, only to land in a fantasy kingdom of corrupt illusion.
The coup de grâce was judicial. Conviction. Jail. Upon release, he found a new chapter, and a new love - a civil servant.
The silver spoon heir, now lord of the clan, found his learning curve vertical and slick with agendas. Advisers swarmed, a chorus of contrasting ambitions.
Yet his ascent was meteoric: from state to national stage, a new wife and an extended family in tow. It was not merely that greed has no bounds, but that its display becomes a fatal pride.
The expensive timepieces, the procession of handbags - first whispered in the corridors of power, then photographed, then circulated on social media for all to judge.
Even loyal civil servants grew uneasy at the wealth and power wielded by his wife. Then came the recordings of telephone conversations between husband and wife.
Warnings that she had become a liability were ignored. They were raising vulgar questions about who truly wore the pants in the house. The dynasty, it seemed, was now a combination of arrogance, pride, conceit, and overconfidence.
More than 50 years after his anointing, he joined the ice cream boy in the dock. Many rejoiced; others were dejected. But the final, unforgiving law of politics held true - when it involves the people’s money, the sympathisers will always be outnumbered. - Mkini
R NADESWARAN is a veteran journalist who strives to uphold the ethos of civil rights leader John Lewis: “When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.” Comments: citizen.nades22@gmail.com.
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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