The Heartbroken Nasi Lemak

A little boy with smudges of kuah kacang on his worn-off t-shirt served my so-called famous JB nasi lemak. The tantalizing smell of the pandan-scented rice made me and my friends scrambling for the cutleries. Shocked by our impulsive reaction, the little boy walked away, grinning in delight that he had served a group of famished ‘animals’. Paying no heed to public perception, we gorged ourselves with the nasi lemak, relentlessly alternating with the sweet ice-lemon tea. Having lived in Malaysia for years, I’ve never tasted a nasi lemak this good. Must be the ambiance, I thought. It was an old wooden stall built on tilts in Senibong facing the Tebrau Straits. A calm dinner by the straits, looking at the flickering lights from the factory chimneys along the Singapore’s shore was indeed not an everyday sight.

Then, I thought of my fellow friends on the other side. They would be enjoying the nasi lemak as much as I do. It’s a pity that we, at least in the past, have shared so many things in common as a nation in quest of independence from the British imperialist and only then are separated by political ideologies. No matter how much I wish to pacify myself that every cloud has a silver lining, the day where we decided to go our separate ways was the day world peace was wounded.