Along the roadside in a street lined with houses of worship of different creeds and religions, the adherents of each religion were having teh tarik break at their usual hawker centre. They shared the roti canais, char kueh tiaw and apam balik ordered from the various stalls. This hawker centre is the usual hideout for these religionists to take a weekly break from their daily religious duties at their respective places of worship. It was an opportunity for them to discussed and shared many stories they heard from their devotees for the past one week. Everything under the sky can be raised in this weekly teh tarik session - except religion.
The main topic of this week was on the impact of the fuel hike on the numbers of devotees visiting their church, gurdwara, mosque, temple and vihara. Due to drastic increase of fuel price recently, many of people already cut down their visits to the shopping malls and sight seeing. Visits to these places of worship were affected too. The numbers of devotees to these places not only did not decreased but in contrary it had increased two folds or even more.
It may not be logical for a secular and atheist statistician but for people who has faith in their respective beliefs, they are left with one important facet of life - Hope . When people are faced with challenges which is not of their own doing and which policy makers and politicians unable to offer any viable solutions to alleviate their financial and social constraints, they seek out divine help. More had visited the places of worship to pray for solutions to the problems in confronting them. That's the reason behind the sudden increase of devotees thronging the place of worship.
In the meantime, on the next road from the places of worship, a row of shops also saw the increase of another type of devotees and also hap hazard parking. The sign boards on the shops reads - Magnum, Sports Toto and Da Ma Cai. The queues at these outlets are always snaking out to the main road at least thrice a week because the punters in these places are attracted by the offers which the other places of worship on the next road can't offer in writing - GUARANTEED return in Full.
Yes, all payments are guaranteed in full. That's a good bargain isn't it. Well, if only the punter place the bet on the number that strikes. How many punters actually strikes on each draw? My bet is for every 10,000 punters, there will be only ONE person that gain in each draw. The guarantee is therefore for only one person.
Back to the teh tarik session, after discussing the issue of the two fold increased of visitors, these religionists came to a conclusion - no matter what differences with each other respective religions, as long as it provides solace and peace in the devotees heart, religion is still relevant and helpful to human kind.
The unwritten guarantee provided is as long as you have faith and understanding of your own religion and practice it with wisdom, the guarantee will be there for everyone who strive to seeks peace within themselves in this life. Why leave life to one chance in ten thousands when we can decide to be or not to be the person we aspired to be. If is to be, it is all up to me. - Loka
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