Wednesday, October 29, 2003

I have just watched without a doubt THE most disturbing episode of True Files yet. For the benefit of those who don't know what True Files is or didn't watch the episode i was referring to, True Files is a documentary series of some high profiles Singapore Criminal Cases. The episode i was more than disgusted by revolved around a mother who let a man rape her daughter for SIX years running.


Mother (mthr) tr.v.



  1. To give birth to; create and produce.

  2. To watch over, nourish, and protect maternally


For those who didn't watch the case, here are some details of the case. "Lucy" - her name was obviously changed in that episode  to protect their identities - had been brought up in a tumultuous childhood, an abusive mother, served in a girls' home for more than a few occasions, grew up to meet useless abusive men who fathered her 3 children. Pei, was a friend of Lucy's husband, and at a point of time employed Lucy. After a while their relationship got intimate, although Lucy never broke relations with her husband. Pei claims he originally felt no lust for "Cindy" (Lucy's daughter), but over time as Cindy treated Pei as a father figure and snuggled and had close proximity with him, his lust grew. He started with molest and fondling, then moved on to more disgusting acts. He pestered Lucy to allow him to see Cindy nude, and after some persuasion, Lucy agreed. As we can probably expect, after a while he progressed to sex. Lucy not only had full knowledge of this, she not only allowed it, but she at times forced it upon Cindy to please Pei. For six years, when Cindy was at the age of NINE, Pei engaged in this everyday except weekends and public holidays. On more than one occasion, Lucy was called to join the fray, and looked on as Pei engaged in sex with her very own flesh and blood. When Cindy was 15, she heard that Lucy was finally in the process of divorcing her husband, and sought custody for all her children. Cindy did not want to be with her mother, and decided to report to the police.


With just words, i do believe people who didn't watch the episode are already more than disgusted enough. With the sensationalization that the show does, and the graphical images of the perversion of Pei, the cruelty of Lucy and the hopelessness Cindy felt, i personally felt compelled to add a new post almost so soon after my first post.


I have been brought up in an environment where a mother is someone who nurtures, protects and is a role model to her children. I have heard of less fortunate people who do not have this privilege in life, be in in terms of a divorce, a early discovery of how Heaven looks like, or just that their mothers somehow didn't fit the picture i painted. I have heard of mothers who sold their children into slavery or prostitution, in most cases that departure is a terrible and sad act, and in all these cases, this sacrifice was made to benefit the family as a whole, or was perceived to benefit. Never have i heard of such a situation where the mother lets someone she hoped to be the father figure for her children do such an act, much less willingly, even less that this "sacrifice" was for her own selfish, personal gain. I agree with the Judge's verdict with every fibre of my body, "..... allowing such a forsaken act take place with revolting frequency in the sanctuary of Home..." Of course, True Files wanted to sway us into Cindy's favor and showed the innocent girl sitting and sobbing on the staircase all alone. Everyday she has to make the difficult decision to come home from school, everyday she forces herself to accept the fact that her mother is actually the one who wants her to "provide" for him. Everyday the truth that she is not a normal child dawns on her, everyday she looks on at other parents who dote on their children whole-heartedly, everyday she envies orphans who never known parental love and hence never needed to experience the agony of having parents but no love.


There are many previously naturally assumed fundamentals that have been broken over time. Cohabitation is no longer too much of an issue, Pre-marital sex although still a hotly debated issue, the debate over it is signaling that there is an impetus of change for this issue. I personally cannot foresee the day when a father having sex with his daughter becomes not only morally justified, but a well accepted fact of society. Personally, pornography pales in comparison to this. To hell with the people who think pornography is an art form, pornography is sexually explicit pictures, writing, or other material whose primary purpose is to cause sexual arousal, art form or not i take no stand, but this? To me this is a complete turn off, so it definitely misses the pornographic goal post by a mile. The portrayal of pedophilia is a a form of pornography, it is outlawed in many countries, but if the girl willingly does it with the older man (i will not bring in the fact that the Courts rule that a girl under the statutory age is not in a position to judge), i will not question the male's slightly off-the-beaten-path tendencies. But doing it with a girl who considers you as almost a father figure? And the girl happens to be your loved one's (not mentioned in detail in the case, by we'll assume it) daughter?


As you can see this case has caused some tremendous adverse reactions in me. The rest of my day has been spoilt because of this, not to mention the fact that i have an International Economics test tomorrow morning and i haven't studied for it due to my recent workload (refer to previous post), probably also because i felt the 36yr jail term and 24 cane strokes Pei received was leaning on leniency, and Lucy received 36yrs as well because the Courts viewed Lucy as a key figure and not an unwitting pawn. I hope what the living world and the Law made by mortal men cannot take into account would be fully attended to by the Powers that Be, regardless of whatever religion they follow or my readers honor. Its basically euphemism for "I hope you burn in Hell".


How will Cindy ever learn to trust anyone? Being Buddhist myself, doctrine would say that whatever she gets now she accumulated the bad Karma over her past lives, all i can pray is that that 6 years of endless torment has more than paid for it, and that she, more than anyone else, deserves a better ending to this story. I have not had a chance to discuss this with my mum as of yet, as my mum takes a keen interest in Law cases, and i like discussing many issues with her as we take radically different point of views many a time. A slightly similar example would be the case when this young woman was raped, killed and burnt after being abducted from a car park in KL. I had tremendous pity for her, but no, my mum didn't share my views, and thinks she must've pissed someone off real bad to get into this predicament and goes on to claim why would a rapist want to burn the body after he's done with it if he wasn't out for revenge. We obviously had a decent quarrel over this matter, but i'd like to see what my mum would say THIS time. Oh did Cindy, a NINE YEAR OLD GIRL had it coming? Maybe she pissed off a classmate or a teacher in school? And the teacher paid Pei to rape her, otherwise how could u explain his voracious energy to be able to sustain DAILY raping sessions? And the teacher satisfied Lucy's needs so she didn't need Pei all the time, and in return Lucy would stand by and watch Cindy? Screw off mum, you and ur train of logic... i'd LOVE to hear what you have to disagree about this. What hurt me even more was the fact that after all that Lucy had done to her, Cindy still loved her, and was worried for her when she made the police report. If that isn't good Karma, i don't know what is.


We may have seen much less wars, some argue bloodshed, these past decades compared to earlier last century. But the way the world's going, i don't think its wars that are going to kill us, heck, aliens waging war on us don't even get a percentage in our possibility pie, we ourselves may ultimately seal our own doom. An ironic twist to "Our fate is in our own hands" perhaps? Maybe those people we call wackos standing around with large placards saying "Repent now, the Apocalypse is coming!" are right after all? Or am I just delirious? We'll see.

Dr@n|xX at 1:30 AM

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Well this is my first proper post ever since i gave up on Blogger, almost 5 months and counting. Life hasn't been treating me too well of late actually. And some wrong decisions i made about my arrangement of modules, my choice of an internship 4 weeks before the finals, and lots of other stuff have compounded my problems, degrading my life into a step by step sonata of misery.


The new apartment my old posts have been raving? Yeah its coming along fine, i somehow miss the quieter days when everyone was back in India. And those cleaner days as well. If only i had a digital camera to show my readers how disgustingly revolting our house can become, then u'll know why my life has to be played cross-hand and blindfolded if on the piano. Dishes stacked from waist to neck level, the 8th wonder of the world as we all marvel at how this miraculous tower of plates, bowls, cutlery and what not seems to maintain its treacherous balance even with more plates added onto it. Somehow some of my housemates don't seem to notice that clean plates are becoming of a rarity, either that or they somehow stopped eating and never run into a need for plates it seems. Our dining table is a medley of dried sauces from last month's chicken curry, junk mail, old newspapers, nail varnish (don't even ask me why its even there), at one point of time a pair of soiled socks as well, at least until the owner realized it was missing and decided to reclaim ownership of it. Oh wait till u see the FLOOR. We have a dust and hair depository under the ironing board as dust-and-hair-balls magically congregate there after cleaning the rest of the house. The shared toilet is a wonder in itself, even with all the filth the house accumulates, the shared toilet somehow remains SQUEAKY clean. All thanks to our great Philip. Now that some of my housemates are accumulating complaints against him by the week, it makes me wonder how i survived him for one whole year when he was my room-mate back in hostel. Shivram claims he's changed, perhaps. Undi and Karthik are driven insane to no end when Philip goes into the bathroom and hogs it for the rest of the morning, comes out and dresses and leaves JUST in time for class, and THEN complains that they are slow with the toilet causing him to be late for classes. Undi goes around it by waking an HOUR early, bathes and does watever he has to do, then goes BACK TO SLEEP, so that when the bugger's finally done he can wake him up and go to school. Karthik's the most irritated, as when he tries to cajole Philip out of the toilet, all he gets is the "The Raja is sitting on his Throne and does not wish to be disturbed" treatment. And how does that tie in with the clean toilet? Simple, the Raja ensures his toilet remains bacteria-free by dumping like 3 caps worth of floor cleaner and disinfectant into half a pail of water during his weekly toilet overhauls. From the splashes going on during his weekly washes, i swear he must've have killed someone in the toilet and like Lady MacBeth, is trying to wash the blood off his hands and walls, and perhaps the ceiling as well.


I got a part-time job as a shop assistant at the Guerrilla Games PC game software shop near my place, 2 months after i asked if the owner Willie needed help, and one month into the school term. Hey i'm thankful, but i mean if only u could've decided that u wanted to employ someone EARLIER when i was free'er and was willing to accept an almost pitiful wage since i was bored and lived 50 steps away from ur shop. Well, at least i've got a little bit of a salary now to support my heart-attack inducing handphone bills (imagine "laleelaleela ooh my latest bill, i wonder how much it - !!!! WHAT THE @#$%&*?!?!?!?), AND to finally get my parents LONG-OVERDUE presents - refer to my previous post about presents (if still available in my archives) for those who somehow find this familiar, of coz, whatever's left goes to my unassuming darling. Salary aside, Willie can be the boss from hell, or a Godsend. He looks 23, is actually 31, acts 15, HATES kids, AND cohabitates with a woman who is NOT his girlfriend (for the sake of his privacy i will not reveal who his girlfriend is, but DAMN him, the lucky bugger has a celebrity for a significant other). He CLAIMS they sleep different rooms and that she's older than him, but he seems dodgy when we (we as in Undi and me coz he's my colleague, Willie hired him as well to fill in for slots i'm unable to take) ask if she's cute. We'll force him to swear on oath of truth, and ask him if he's still a virgin one of these days. Hell, we hope to get him piss drunk and maybe he'll spill the beans on how heavenly sex is, especially with his housemate rather than Carr - i mean his girlfriend. Otherwise he's a nice guy, but DAMN, he and his service standards. He leaves newspaper cuttings on good service tips during our shifts, hell, he leaves notes on how much we managed to collect in sales LAST week, and challenges us to beat his collections blah blah blah. So far i've spent about $200 in the shop, 80% of which are staff prices anyway. No the free shirts he gives me don't count as goodwill, he got them free and he dislikes them anyway.


Shivram my room-mate passed me when i was typing this blog, and asks if i updated my blog recently, and i told him i'm typing my latest one now. He requested that i write something nice about him for a change if it wasn't too much trouble for me. I gave him a wink as he left after having his fill of my Cheez Mania Cheez Curls munchies on my table. Sure Shiv, anything for room-mate :) You haven't mopped the floor since i told u to last week after i swept our room, but i still love you as my room-mate Shiv. You gave away and donated our lovely $50 sofa in our room to the hall without consulting me, but i still appreciate you as my room-mate. No, no trouble at all, my room-mate's the best in the world, and i want to praise him so that the world may come to know him and want him as their room-mate as well. I'm SO going to die when Shiv reads this heh :D But i still love my room-mate, Shivram.


As i mentioned earlier, the aria of sorrow that is my life hasn't even reached a climax, and the end is nowhere near, nor is a resolution anywhere in sight. Maybe when the pain that is of now has boiled over, maybe i'll post something more candid. Until then, exams here i come. And Shiv, you're still my best room-mate.

Dr@n|xX at 12:46 AM

Thursday, October 16, 2003

I'm giving Blogger one last chance. With all their big hoo-hahs about new changes and new changes like what got Koizumi installed into office in the first place, Japan's still where she is now as she was 13 years ago, good sign? Maybe considering she didn't fall to poverty, but that's Japan, its blogger i'm talking about. So freakin frustrated i couldn't even post a "Hi" on the damn blog, that i decided to try and start my OWN site, i did start and all, but didn't finish it, sometimes happens for some things i do. So sue me, i'm inconsistent, and like it or not that's me.
Wonder if anyone's even reading this considering how my previous batch of usual customers must've moved on to greener pastures and are hooked onto the gazillion more interesting people than me. Well, for those loyal people who CAN read this IF this post is successful, rest assured more will come, more ramblings and more delirious chants will come. Maybe not that often, but it WILL come.

Dr@n|xX at 2:38 AM