Where Have all the Indians Gone?

A kadir Jasin

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THERE are several versions to the English folk song “where have all the flowers gone”.

It had also been sung by many different performers including Joan Baez, Peter Seegar and Marlene Dietrich and the trio of Peter, Paul and Mary to name a few.

You have to be of a certain mature age or, in today’s bahasa Melayu parlance, warga emas, to remember the song and be identified with those performers.

So when the Prime minister, Mohd Najib Abdul Razak, recently told us that nearly 40,000 Indian citizens had gone “missing” in Malaysia after their visas expired, I am reminded of the part of the song that says:

“Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?”

Well, our graveyards are not gone. But they’re pretty full and due partly to the deceased foreigners. It’s a life and death crisis, nevertheless. Literally not a day passes without murder and mayhem involving them.

And have you noticed the amount of rice an expatriate Indian eats for lunch? Reminds me of Lat’s nasi daun pisang cartoon. Now you know why our rice consumption is rising.

But will we ever learn? I doubt.

Some are too lazy to think.
Others prefer not to think
Especially of unpleasant things.
The masses are just incapable
Of constructive thinking.
But the most damaging
Are those who think of nothing
But money and expensive things.

In the name of tourism and the services industry, we allow easy entry of the teeming masses from poor populous countries who are looking for loopholes in international travel to escape to richer countries.

Unfortunately, to many of these visitors, we are a rich country thought we are not.

Thanks to the advent of cheap flights and low-cost airlines, everyone can travel, including the 40,000 odd Indian Indians and as many Chinese, Bangladeshis, Indonesians and even Africans and South Americans.

And since no less that the Prime Minister himself had raised the mystery of the missing Indians days before he makes a trip to Bharat, allow me to ask a few silly questions.

Where have all the Indians gone?
Where have they gone?
Have they taken a boat?
And are Australian-bound?
Or are they somewhere about?
But nowhere to be found?
Oh, what a mystery
A cock and bull story.

Where have all the Chinese gone?
Where have they gone?
Have they left for lands far beyond?
Or they are somewhere around
But nowhere to be found?
Oh, what a mystery
A tall tale story.

They are here as students and tourists
To see our country so beautiful, so rich
And going to college to learn English
But disappeared into thin air
Neither here nor there.

But stories are told
Of them searching for foothold
In potbellied men young and old
Growing ginger illegally
And stealing timber occasionally.

Where have all the Indonesians gone?
Where have they gone?
Have they taken the boat?
Back to Java and Ambon
And to the isles far beyond?
Or are they somewhere about?
And yet nowhere to be found?
Because for a few lousy ringgit,
Things can be sorted out?

Where have all the Bangladeshis gone?
The Arabs, the Africans and
The South American too?
Where have they gone?
Not a trace to be found
Yet we all know, they around
Somewhere right here in Kuala Lumpur town.

When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

Perhaps never
We’re what we are
Can’t say we’re bums
But not very clever either.

So what’s there left for me to say?
But que sera sera
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.