“Emotion over logic. They didn't think. They just reacted, so they let me dictate. There are no victims. Only volunteers.”

– D (Chance, TV series)

COMMENT | Every time an election comes around the corner, we (and by “we” I mean Indians) get these hokey “pull yourself by your bootstraps” narratives meant to drive home the point that as an ethnic group we need to be independent of the system and stop playing the victim card.

This implies that successful communities or polities are independent of the system, which is complete horse manure.

Fa Abdul continues this tradition with her latest piece about a poor Indian gardener and the benevolent Aunty Devi, who was some sort of bourgeois guardian angel (from humble beginnings no less) and handmaiden to the happy ending of his familiar story.

Honestly, Indian gardeners' done good are the equivalent of the hooker with a heart of gold fables in the Western pop culture canon.

I do not have such stories. I have a story about the big brute of an Indian thug who worked as a bouncer, whose wife ran away leaving him with two kids (whom he loved) and a mother-in-law (who he could not stand) but had to look after.

He worked the club circuit in KL and moved...