WHEN Obama set foot in Malaysia in 2014, I wrote a ‘song’ about America and me. Someone in Bangkok was enraged at what he read. He thought it was a paean, and this caused him great pain. To me he wrote a witheringly scornful missive.
“You will no doubt continue with your schoolgirly (unprintable word) adulation of Ameri-ca! but please refrain from inflicting it on your readers.”
I remember feeling aggrieved at his caustic words (of which there were many more) that rainy and gloomy evening. I remember sharing this thought with Vimala in her little room, which was ringed by furniture big and small, and shelves of books and gadgets.
And I vividly remember how she, nestled deep in a wheelchair right in the middle of the chamber, settled a piercing gaze on me and said, “Do you write only to seek man’s praise? You know very well what that leads to, don’t you?”
Vimala, her voice soft and lips trembling, was being honest and kind. I deserved far less.
Obama and she were lighthouses. Both, in the greatest storms, wielded great power. But Vimala was also terribly weak.
She was born 53 years ago, as delightful as any cherub could be. Eight months later, she fell into illness, and from that day never stood up or walked.
The little one was found to have muscular dystrophy, which is a disorder that deadens and destroys muscles. As she once put to me, “the victim becomes gradually weaker without functioning power and strength... and eventually dies”.
By the reckoning of those skilled in the art of healing in her day, she would not live long, and to her would not belong the greater sorrows of the world. In both conclusions they were in error. In truth, she marched on to become a student, a teacher and a writer.
Vimala and the president had a tremendous part in fashioning the person that I am. Obama did this with his oratory, his charisma and positivity. His words made me want to search for hope in a confounding and cruel world, and to understand contradictions in the modern soul.
Did you not hear him on Tuesday in Chicago when he picked from the beloved To Kill a Mockingbird, the words of Atticus Finch, that “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it”?
Every word intentional, every nuance striking, cadences melodic. He was telling me something immeasurably important; as was Vimala for the past 17 years.
She was a woman who had unconstrained and astounding faith in God. She was a woman who, though constantly walking “through the valley of the shadow of death, feared no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me”.
Her world was a maelstrom of troubles. But every time I sat at her bedside, or by her wheelchair, her refrain was this: “God is always faithful”. Yen Ching, another long-time friend, can attest to this.
Obama’s world, too, was and is filled with a great measure of distress. Not everyone is fond of him. Not everyone thinks he was good for America and the world. The Economist said he himself had “worried that he could not bear the weight of expectation he had inspired”, adding that even “a leader of rare talent, anointed with a nation’s dreams — can seem powerless to direct it”.
Vimala’s flaws were apparent to some. Yes, even to me. Some will be quick to judge. But I dare not be the first to cast a stone at her.
In the end, the strains on her frame, withered to 13kg, were too great. She slipped away from the restraints of mortality on Jan 1, leaving her mum and dad, sister and loyal Murni. All had endured and sacrificed much for her.
The irony is this. She is the weakest and most helpless person I have ever known. But I am convinced that because of her resoluteness and indomitable faith, she has done more for countless others than can possibly be imagined. Might not the same be said of Obama? Here, then, is a farewell song to these lighthouses:
The windless day doth sing a dirge,
Sombre souls, trees and creatures peer in silence,
The unhappy earth its sobs surge,
But be assured, memories and hope have not fallen.