18 January 2012

Today I am 61 years old. Health OK, with diabetes and with the Sensory Perception Neuropathy are my main issues. Though it does not give much cause for concern.
Today too I finished reading a book by Fatini Yaacob called NATRAH. So what is the connection?
When my mother was pregnant with me in her last month in  December 1950 there occurred a riot in Singapore which was known as the Maria Hertogh Riot involving about 18 death and over 173 fatalities..
It was traumatic times for people in Malaya and Singapore. You just have to type on Google, the words, maria hertogh, singapore riots, 1950 or even on to wikipedia and there is the background to the story.
Fatini Yacoob did some in depth research on the story and went on to interview Maria Hertogh herself, trailing her from The Netherlands to Lake Tahoe in the United States. It is a sad story.
I first came to hear about the riots sometime in 1967/68 when there was a hartal in Penang.
I think the hartal was over the depreciation of the new Malaysian currency.
I always tried to find out more about the background and this book published in 2011 more or else covers all that I wanted to know. I understand that this story was covered in a local Malay magazine in Malaysia in the 1990s. This is the only English translation. I found the book very enlightening and wrote a comment on the face book of the author.
Tonight I started reading Fergal Keane's memoir called All of these People. During these last two months I have read KIRBY, The Life and the Loves by Shaari Isa; SPILLING THE BEANS, the autobiography of Clarissa Dickson Wright; novel by Singapore writer Catherine Lim, FOLLOWING THE WRONG GOD HOME.
I went to Bolton today, had an Indian curry lunch.
I think I am OK with life. I have no worries to drag me down. I now know my strength and weaknesses. I know that I cannot change my thoughts and my behaviour because of my Learning Disability.
I accept it and feel that there was a purpose for me by the Creator.
In a way I am grateful that I have been brought this far in life and do not wish to have regrets and think of the negative past. The more you think about it the more the poison creeps into our body system and it ruins your life.
I have made my peace and only need the strength to sustain it.
We cannot change the past but we can go into the future learning from our past mistakes.
May the Creator give me the strength to face the future,  for every day  be grateful for what he has given me. Thank you.