20- Truly, Madly, Deeply

I keep hearing the old Savage Garden song, "Truly, Madly, Deeply". It's beginning to get a bit weird. 

The song is all about someone who is williing to give everything to the person he loves. Typical talk, say I. It does make sense, though. Of course you'd say you'd like to stand on a mountain with the person you love, or, that you'd be willing to go skinny dipping off the coast of Palawan with them. Such declarations, honestly, make me laugh a little bit. I laugh because most times, all that mushy mumbo jumbo never really comes to fruition. Don't hate me for saying that, folks, It's just that, well, it's what goes down a lot of the time. 

So what does all that have to do with goofy old me and my picture in KL's Brickfields district from some months back? When we say we want to travel, we tend to declare very boldly that we want to do so, saying things like "I'll pack my bags now!" or, "There's no stopping me from going to the US this year!" We tend to work off of these statements especially when we know that the likelihood of us actually hopping on a plane to go to the destination of our dreams is close to nil. People like spewing out optimism to help soothe their weary souls- even in these kinds of situations. 

I hardly spent time in Kuala Lumpur's Brickfields district, but, one thing became very, very, clear to me upon arriving there- that the place was decidedly Indian, and that once you were there, doing an "about face" was simply not in the cards. That's something I can admire. For all the jokes, for all the crass racial comments that people like to throw around towards people such as those in the Indian community, being in a place like Brickfields made me think of all multicolored adornments on the streetlamps, the Bollywood music blaring off of streetcorner shops, and the smell of curry in the air, constitute one huge kick in the crotch to anyone who would dare insut the collective face of their culture, their identity. Residents of Brickfields don't really care if you mock them because of the color of their skin, the music that they listen to or produce, or the unique accent that accompanies the words they say. They're Indian. They're uniquely so. They're proud of it. It's a "Truly, Madly, Deeply" kind of proud. 

I may get flack for this, but, in a way, I wish Filipinos could consistently "be" Filipinos, or, could be absolutely proud of their culture. Sure, we have icons in our history whom we look up to, put on pedestals, revere, and so forth. We often are FIRST IN LINE, also, however, in terms of putting down the guy next to us for the shallowest of reasons. I have no problem with appreciating the heritage of other countries, and peoples, but we must not do so at the expense of our own collective nametag. No way. No nametag, no identity. No identity, and what you get is a man who might as well live in an airport (enter Mehran Karimi Nasseri reference). 

To appreciate, is to celebrate. 

So after everything, Darren Hayes did end up serving the music world well after all, beyond just coining the lyric, "chic a cherry cola". He gave us his all- in a "Truly, Madly, Deeply" sort of way. 

So, we've learned from good old Darren. At least, I have. 

I never thought I would say this, but, we should be more like Savage Garden, and Brickfields, and every bloke who ever wanted to stand on a moutain, and wait for the sky to fall down on him. 

It makes sense, it really does. 

MC