Of Keropok and Kismis

         “Nak, beli nak. Keropok ikan satu 10 ringgit.” Pleaded the old woman clad in worn out baju kurung  , holding out 2 bags of fish crisps in front of me. She sat on the floor covered by old newspaper  at the corner of the petrol station barely covered from the scorching sun. Her eyes sought out to me as if searching for my soul, hoping I would have the empathy o understand her.Her eyes held a plethora of emotions, despair, anguish, hopelessness and exhaustions pooling deep behind her wrinkled lid. One of her eyes had a tinge of grayish layer that I was pretty sure would spread to her whole eyes if she didn’t receive any treatment soon. She could turn blind by then.  I hesitated and my thought went into an internal battle. Remembering my mum’s advice not to buy the keropok as they would only benefit the organization not the old woman.  And the keropok from Thailand aren’t that good anyway.They were more flour than fish  , really. I walked past her and headed into the petrol shop to pay for the fuel. My heart constricted at the thought of ignoring her but I had to as I didn’t want to help the cruel organizations benefit from easy money by oppressing  weak, old people.  I remembered it was already breakfasting time and wondered whether she had already eaten yet.  As soon as I stepped out of the shop, I walked contemplatively towards the old woman,  thinking whether I should give her this food or not, what people would think if they saw me talking to her, what if someone from the organization saw me conversing with her, would they do something to her? These people had eyes everywhere. I kneeled in front of her and kissed her hand as a form of respect. Her eyes pooled with tears  as I bombarded her with careful questions “ Makcik, where  are you from? Who sent you here? “.She told me she was from Southern Thailand , that she came here on her own accord.

           She was only one of the victims. There are still thousands, if not tens of thousands of other victims around our country, milling around asking for the sympathy of money literate people in cities to buy products that most people aren’t even interested in buying. They are forced to do this . Maybe some do it on their own wish but most are forced to out of poverty and threats. What hurts me the most is to see orphaned or poor children selling raisins or ridiculous pills under the blazing sun from dawn to nearly midnight  everyday  ,forced to neglect their education needs, safety and their precious social life as children that is important as memories when they grow up as adults are wretched out of their lives.  What human wants to reminisce their childhood only to have the memory of sitting on the pavement shamelessly asking for donations and money. Old men and women forced to carry heavy bags of keropok everywhere . They really have no human conscience. No empathy. How could they let these victims suffer while they just sit and wait for the money to fill their banks. Those hopeful gazes and the promising lights that shine from the children’s eyes make me pray for their bright future, for their sufferings to end. There is this one organization , a tahfiz which still runs incognito until today, I’m  not even sure if its  real tahfiz. It claims that the money collected would be used for the benefit of the tahfiz, but in reality the founder of it is basking in the money .With overflowing wealth from just having people selling things for him, I have no doubt that he won’t  dismiss the wrong act just yet despite the rising public awareness on such scams .And the tahfiz? Well God knows what happened to the children there that are mostly orphans. They are forced to sell pills and raisins.  Though, I know there are true organization with pure intentions but these types of people that abuse  the real intention and hide behind the masks of religion and ‘good cause’ tainted my perception. Ever since I was small ,I was instilled with compassion and selflessness, the instinctual urge to help others. In my opinion, it is appalling and heart-breaking how some people use and misuse unfortunate people.  These people lack the courage to speak up, but if they could, they would probably have protested against the injustice done to them. I could not comprehend how a human being could behave so callously and abuse weak people with no remorse.