MIB ( Malaysian Indians in Bangkok) – it all started during the pandemic years, late in 2021 – we realized so many people from Malaysia and in Thailand were asking for help in terms of money or clothes, food etc. This was at the peak of Covid -19. A few Malaysians with me started a group called ‘ Hands That Serve ‘ we collected funds from Malaysian Indians here in Bangkok and started off by serving food in Silom at Pan Street right by a vegetarian restaurant. As we went along giving away food to the poor, homeless, motorsai taxi’s we had a sudden demand to deliver food not only thru us but through other charitable groups. We also needed volunteers and there was a group of Tamils from the Thailand Tamil Sangam who were known to me asked to be volunteers, it took off with 85 to 100 meals every weekend till we stopped in 2022. The group then changed to be Malaysians and Indians in Bangkok. We had funds coming in and overall managed to gather close to 1.1million baht.
The reason to stop was that , everyone was back to work, they had money for food and we were having a hard time waiting to distribute packets of Phad Krapao Ghai or Chicken Rice. That was about the same time we decided to work on something bigger. As a first generation son of an immigrant from India brought in by the British , my Dad always spoke about the WWII and also how he was taken to Thailand.
The passion in me on the TBR415 KM has always been there and in my 28 years here in Thailand , I have been to visit the bridge over River Kwai like 30 over times. On this very special day when I represented Asian Forced Laborers to lay garlands at the war memorial, this was on the 11th of November 2021 prayer held by the British Legion – Dr JJ a Historian took us to see the Obelisk. I was introduced to him by Prof Andy Barraclough. The rest is explained below.