I’ve been living Ipoh for all my youth - 23 years already and still counting. I still know the tales of the Toupee man from Sungai Siput - Samy Vellu. Incidentally, when I read a bit of Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, I came to understand that the story was based on the his own experience of his wife being a rape victim in Sungai Siput as well! Coincidence.
The newspaper man who would always come to our house to collect the monthly bill always shows his disdain of this guy. Not on the job thing but the fact that he remains the only big race leader to yet hand over the leadership to the younger generation. People have praised Ling Liong Sik, Lim Keng Yaik and even Mahathir for handing the mantle of leadership over to the younger leaders.
But not him.
My 85-year old man too had a disdain of him. Every moment when he sees Samy in the papers he kept saying to me…”That bloody bastard!” That phrase keeps ringing in my head whenever I see a paper article even from the mainstream media that features our guy
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