ASDEA

Growing Up Part XVIII

2010-07-10T19:40:00.006+08:00

10 Jul 2010 New Delhi.

When was it that I made my last posting? I am not proud to say that it was posted in early February of 2008. We are now in the 2^nd quarter of 2010. Many events had happened that signalled my father’s grandchildren have come of age. My daughter was married last November. My sister’s son too was married and her daughter will follow suit end of this month. The family’s 3G (3^rd generation) are increasing and growing up.

On the 2G front, the eldest of my family, i.e. my brother had officially retired. So would eventually my other siblings who are working. I being in Singapore should retire by age 62, which is quite a while still :) All this leads to the shift towards the 3G taking up where we the 2G would soon take a back seat. My prayers and best wishes to all of my children, nephews and nieces in that they will enjoy every success in what they do and lead a happy and prosperous life.

I am going to stop apologising for not writing in this blog as frequently as you would like. However, I do promise to try to finish my story of growing up soon. It is only about less than 10 years to go. As I said from the beginning that I will stop once the chapter of my story reached to point before I married your Aunty Sue.

Telok Anson episodes provided more stories to tell simply because that was the place where we stayed the longest at any one place. In this part I would like to tell you about the friends we made there, not so much of school friends, but those that spent time with us that had entrenched themselves in my memory forever.

Remember I told you earlier that our Quran reading teacher stayed very close by? Well she had a son of our age. He was very gentle and soft spoken but quite naïve in many ways. Mainly he was very timid. His name was Sharul.

The next one was Saw Swee Leong. He was my brother’s classmate. He eventually became our adopted brother. Let me tell you how this came about.

One day my brother invited him to our house after school. He spent time with us doing homework, playing outside the house and even helped us doing the chores of gardening and watering the plants. Came the evening, he stayed for dinner. After dinner, he didn’t make a move to go home until my father told him to stay the night with us. He happily slept on the floor in our room.

From that day onwards, during our years in Telok Anson, he stayed with us more than at his own home. As you should know Tok Ayah’s character by now, he had quietly met Swee Leong’s parents. What transpired he never did tell us except to mention that he had met them. But after that so called meeting, he was always concerned about Swee Leong as he was with us. If Swee Leong didn’t come home, you would ask us where he was or why was he late for dinner and so on.

You now try to imagine that our house had basically 4 boys most of the time, although Sharul very seldom stayed overnight, whilst Swee Leong did go home once in a while. With 4 boys in the house you would expect a lot of rowdiness, but in fact the only rowdiness that occurred were the times when my brother and I had arguments which at times we ended up fighting. Swee Leong was always the one that intervened to stop our fights while Sharul would be crying. Neither of them took sides in our altercation. Good of them.

As there were always 4 of us, we took up playing badminton more seriously. We made a court at the front lawn ourselves using used engine oil for the lines and two poles planted into the ground for the net. Mum didn't like it that much as we had to move some of her potter plants elsewhere.

We played badminton almost everyday and at times after lunch when Tok Ayah went back to his college, we followed him so we could play at a proper court there.

Now I going to reveal to you something about Tok Ayah that you may not know. When we started playing badminton at our own court, Tok Ayah while doing his gardening would at time glanced at us playing and made comments what we should do or pointing our the mistakes we made. We all knew that he was an ardent badminton fan especially during the Thomas Cup when he would not only be glued to the TV but was highly animated (jump ing up and down if Malaysia won a match, and showing deep concern if we lost). We never thought that he could play very well until one afternoon he stopped his gardening and came to our court and took my racket saying he would show us the right techniques.

Our jaws dropped almost reaching the floor when he showed the strokes like changing your grip for a backhand to give more power, slicing the shuttle to drop shot instead of gently pushing the shuttle like we did. Slight cuts for net play, proper way to lob and smash, he had all the techniques which we never had or knew because we were happy just to get the shuttle over the net.

Swee Leong asked about his badminton skills, and he said he used to play when younger. OK, we were not that impressed by that because in Malaysia almost 80% played badminton as it was the only game where we were world champions. But then he mentioned that he played together with Billy Ng and his sister Sylvia Ng, and also with Hashim Haron. You may too young to know who these people were, but Hashim Haron was the Johor singles champion and together with Billy Ng were Thomas Cup singles players. His sister, Sylvia, if you checked the records was the gold medal winner of the Commonwealth Games. He sheepishly said that he had at one time represented Johor. He thought we would not believe him, but we did because I had never know Tok Ayah to ever tell a lie.

From that day on, we always tried to get him to play with us. Sometimes he did but most of the time he preferred to do his gardening. But Swee Leong was the one who always went to him for advice on his strokes, why his slice didn’t cross over the net etc.

Eventually, the 4 of us got to quite good at the game and we started playing against teams that were willing. Sometimes we lost but we won more than we lost. The ranking then was my brother being the best, followed by Swee Leong, and then it was me and lastly Sharul. Sharul wasn’t that serious and also he was quite meek. Nonetheless, as a team, my brother would almost always win the first singles and Swee Leong the second singles. Sharul and I played at doubles, which I can say we lost most of the time, but because the 2 singles were won, we would win the match overall 2 to 1.

I tend to lose to my brother all the time. It was easier to lose than to win because he was such a sore loser. Swee Leong on the other hand could not accept if I won against him. He would insist on playing another game until he won. Again, I found it much easier to lose to those 2 guys.

It was really sad that we lost contact of each other after we left Telok Anson for some time. Many years later, we always saw the name Saw Swee Leong in the newspaper who was the number one player for Malaysia then. Until today I am still wondering whether he was the same person whom we grew up together. I am still interested to know but do not know how. That champion Saw Swee Leong, was also from Telok Anson, Perak which perhaps was not just a coincidence. If he were in fact the same person, then my brother and I could tell all of you, like your Tok Ayah told us, that we had played badminton together with the national champion…….

I had a classmate then, Ramakrishnan, who eventually became the national hockey team captain. This I could say that I played together with him :)

Eventually, before we left, Swee Leong told us about his family. His father worked as a mechanic for the town bus company staying in a small quarters at the bus depot. He had many siblings and his house was really crowded. I understood then why he preferred to stay with us. It was in fact my honour and privileged that he did so. He was not only a very good friend to my brother and I, he was also a good brother to my two sisters who were still quite young at that time. Also mostly he was a good adopted son to your Tok Ayah and my mum, humble, attentive, obedient and hard working. Not all the traits that my brother and I had together at those times.

Sharul on the other hand, was the creative one. Weak in his studies, but I had never seen anyone that could draw and paint as perfectly as he could. He was also into listening to music and could sing any current songs any time we asked him to. The problem was once wstarted, we found it difficult to get him to stop, especially during study time. He would stop when my mum shouted from her room to stop the singing and start the studying. We always laughed when that happened because not only that he stopped even at half a vowel, his facial expression of fear was something that really tickled us knowing how timid he was. But they were good times then when after our Isya prayers and dinner, we would sit outside at the balcony the 4 of us and sometimes joined Sharul in the songs he sang, even Swee Leong. But being a Quran teacher’s son, the whole family would sit quietly listening to him reciting the Quran with such accuracy and beautiful melody. Mum would always ask him to continue when he wanted to stop, Sharul being Sharul never disappointed her. Perhaps he was afraid to but I never told him so.

Although we did have many other friends during our time in Telok Anson, Swee Leong and Sharul were more than friends; they were in fact our brothers. If only the means of communication then were like today, we would never have lost touch with each other. Letter writing was the norm then, but over time, we stopped. I would say the fault was mainly mine, or that we all had new friends by then that although not forgetting the old ones, the priority was lesser for them. It was sad that it happened that way, so I would advice all you 2G & 3G, never ever to lose a friend. Keep in contact, which in today technology, distance and time are never a factor.

One more person that came into our lives during our time there was an uncle. He was my mum’s step brother. He resided further up north on the highway to Penang. Unfortunately, this uncle was mentally handicapped. How did he come into our lives? Well it was due to your Tok Ayah’s character of looking for his or my mum’s relatives nearby. On one of our trips to Penang where we had mum’s relatives, they mentioned where this uncle was staying. Naturally on the way back, Tok Ayah stopped by and met up with him. Not only that, he took him home with to Telok Anson.

Although I mentioned that he was mentally handicapped, he was in fact very street smart. I was tasked to bath him every day i.e really bathe, in soaping and wahing. All he did was stood there. I even had to dry him off otherwise he would just put on his clothes whilst still wet. If I didn’t do so, he would not bathe. He stayed with us for a couple of weeks. He would leave the house and we would not know where he went, but he always managed to come home. Over time, we came to know he had made many friends around our neighbourhood even with the toddy-drunkards (if you remember on my previous part, the drama I enjoy in the afternoons). They knew him by name and would ask me where he was if they didn’t see him around.

Sometimes Sharul teased him by asking him whether he had a girlfriend. Apparently he did, someone working at a petrol kiosk opposite his house. My brother and I didn't tease him as he was our uncle and mum would go into a rage if she found out we did so.

Tok Ayah planned to send him back after a month with us. But after two weeks, he went missing. The alarm bell went off when he didn’t come home that evening for dinner, which he never failed to do so before. We all went out in search for him wherever we knew he hung out. But no one had seen him that day. Tok Ayah eventually roped in the help of the district’s chief of police who was our neighbour. By midnight he was still missing. All of us had a sleepless night thinking where he could be, hoping that he was alright knowing his handicap.

When Tok Ayah came home for lunch the next day, he told us that our uncle was alright. He had gone home by himself. Apparently he hitched a ride on one of the many lorries that passed by the main road at the front of our house. As his house was also along the main road opposite a petrol kiosk, he somehow knew when to get off. That was why I mentioned earlier that he was street smart.

After that, we never needed to pick him up from his house (which was about 200km away) to bring him over to ours. He would just one day pop in the house and stayed with us as long as he felt like doing so. He did this again by hitch hiking lorries. And he would go home the same way when he wanted to without telling us. But his family members would call to ask Tok Ayah if he was with us or they would let us know when he was back home. So got used to his comings and goings.

A few years later after we had left Telok Anson, we received news that he was run over by a lorry and passed away. It happened when he was crossing the road from his house towards the petrol kiosk. I always wondered whether he met his end wanting to meet up with this girlfriend. May God bless him. Mum was rather distraught by the news of his accident. Perhaps although never close, he was in fact the last of her step-brothers.

On this sad part of the story, Tok Ayah eventually received a telegram saying that he was to be transferred to Tanjong Malim, where he was to be the principal of a teacher’s training college there.

But that will be another story to tell in the next part…..

Growing Up Part XVII

2008-07-02T02:28:00.001+08:00

To my dear family members, especially the third generation of Tok Ayah’s clan please accept my profound apologies for not updating this blog sooner. I’m sure that you have been waiting for this a long time and perhaps too long now that you may have given up.

The house where we stayed in Telok Anson was off the main road. Where the lane to our house met the main road, directly opposite was a toddy centre. In those days, the government set up toddy centres where the public can enjoy their toddy drinks duty free. They must however drink only within the centre. Basically, these centres were frequented mainly by local Indian who worked in the plantations. It was the cheapest means to get intoxicated.

It was a favourite past time for me to sit at the junction and watch the drama that occurred almost daily. What I meant was that when some of customers had too much toddy in them, the dramas were so entertaining. At times, there were quarrels, although I had never seen anyone hit or hurt one another. One day, a quarrel brewed up between two Indians. The shouting match lasted quite a while such that a crowd started forming around them. I guessed encouraged by the crowd, one of them took hold of a small tree branch and tried to break it off. I’m sure that he wanted to use that branch as a weapon to hit the other. The funny part was that he, with tongue hanging out, kept on tugging at the branch, but the branch refused to break off. With one desperate tug, instead of the branch breaking, he lost his grip and fell. It wasn’t a nasty fall, but when he hit the ground, he didn’t get up. Surprisingly, the other guy was the first to attend to him, trying to wake him up, even slapping his face a few times. Finally he stood up, turned to the crowd and with a smile on his face said that the guy was totally drunk. He then lay down beside the fallen guy, closed his eyes and until I left much later, both of them were still asleep. More entertaining than a Tamil movie....

Along the main road was a large monsoon drain. It’s contained muck, dark, dirty and smelled horrible. I used to laugh my head off whenever one of the drunks fell into the drain, which happened often. They would crawl out with the black slimy muck stuck to their bodies and hair, and they smelled like you can’t imagine. At one time, I laughed so loud and hard that a drunk who had just fallen in the drain, got up and started walking towards me with his hands out-stretched. Not wanting to wait for the outcome of that, I ran back as fast as I could, went into the house and sneaked a look thorugh a window to see if he was till following me. Bah asked me what I was up to and I told him a drunk was chasing me. Bah laughed at that but mum gave me a stern look. Mum always suspected I was up to something mischievous.

I always believe that life is fair.

One afternoon, instead of walking, I cycled to the junction looking forward to what comedy was to unfold that day. As I was to about stop the bike, I wanted to rest my left foot on the culvert’s wall whilst still on the bike. Somehow, not knowing even today why, I missed my footing, and together with my bike, fell into the monsoon drain. A few of the “drunks” came over to help me out. One pulled me out while another retrieved the bike. I wasn’t physically hurt, in fact not even a scratch. What hurt most was my ego and self esteem, especially as I was pushing the bike back home, I could hear their laughter ringing in my ears. Not only was I their afternoon’s comedic drama, I now had to find ways to get back into the house without mum being any wiser. So instead of going in, I went to the back of the house where there was a water pipe, which was used to water mum’s plants and orchids. I hosed myself clean, and then the bike. Musn't leave any tell tale evidence. Now I was clean but totally wet from head to toe in full clothing, and I suspected that the smell was still lingering. I couldn’t find any soap around to really get rid of the smell. Can’t be helped I told myself. Right, the next thing I had to think about was how to explain to mum, in case I got caught, as to why I was wet in full clothing on a sunny afternoon. I ame up with a good plan. I started to begin watering the plants around the house, which would normally be a chore done later in the evening when the sun was not so hot. I had to take that risk because mum would scold us if we water the plant when it was too hot. As the water hose got nearer to the main entrance, where mum would normally be sitting in the lounge, I pointed the water hose up towards a small tree so that the water will drop down onto me. Everything was working to plan. Smiling to myself thinking how clever I was, I kept on pointing the hose up to the tree. From the corner of my eyes, I could see mum looking at me, albeit with a certain bewilderment in her eyes. Just as I thought that it would be enough to convince her I got wet because of this, suddenly, a nest full of red ants fell on top of my head. My whole hair and face was crawling with red ants that started biting me like on every exposed skin I had on my body. I reacted by chucking the water hose and started flapping the red ants off. Of course I it made worse by antagonising the ants, hence more firece bites resulted. While being preoccupied flapping and jumping about like a gorilla, suddenly I felt a strong jet of water all over me. I opened my eyes slightly only to see mum was hosing me down. In fact, it helped to get rid of the ants from me. It was quite smart and quick thinking of her that. When it got to be tolerable, I took the hose from mum and hosed myself thoroughly, even down into my pants until I was sure that I was clear of the ants.

During all this, mum was looking at me with amusement, a slight smile on her face, but I suspected it was more snickering rather. Without fail she had to ask why I was watering the tree in the first place not to mention her plants. I couldn’t answer her nor did I want to less I had to unravel the whole sequence of events which I wanted to hide from her in the first place. I mumbled something incoherent, and said I need the bathroom. This was true because I not only wanted to clean myself, but more importantly to check in private for any more red ants crawling where they shouldn’t be.

Trying to be clever to hide the facts from mum, I ended up with spots all over my face and body from the red ants’ bites. What a sight I was the next day in school. I was the butt for jokes from my classmates since I was too embarrassed to tell them what actually happened. So they speculated the reasons themselves much to their amusement, laughter and snickers about. Dindn't make it better when even the teachers tried to hide their smiles. But to me, the best part of it all was that I actually managed to hide the fact from mum, although not exactly as planned. Another happy thought was that my brother wasn’t there to witness the incident, but since I couldn’t hide the bite marks that became more evident later, mum told everyone during dinner that night. Agonising…….

Life is fair. Where the "drunks" had given me much entertainment, I ended up entertaining them instead.

Did I stop going for my afternoon entertainment the next afternoon? Not really. I went there, and some of them although already intoxicated, could still remember me from the incident the day before. But they were puzzled as to the spots on my body and asked why. I answered with a straight face that the doctor told me the muck from the drain caused my skin to break out into spots. On hearing this, a commotion broke out, each telling the other whoever cared to listen, to be very careful not to fall into the drain less the break out with spots all over their bodies like the boy did….see, sometimes you can make your own drama……

Growing Up Part XVI

2007-09-26T19:18:00.000+08:00

The last episode gave you an idea how things were in the mid-sixties. Nowadays, getting circumcised is so easy and without much fuss and ado. That was also the era when television was launched. Bah bought a nice set, which was in black & white. There were no colour TV yet those days. Although the introduction of TV was something everyone was waiting for, particularly the novelty of TV itself. For us, it was not a big fuss because we were used to TV when we were in the UK.

In the evening, some of our neighbours from the village would drop by to watch. Bah was always very accommodating. He would always leave the doors open and they would come in and sit on the floor to watch the programmes. At anytime, there would be about eight to twelve of them, mostly kids. If any elderly neighbour came, Bah would invite them to sit with him. Although they came to watch TV with us, they were considerate enough to give us some privacy. They would not come too early nor leave too late. They normally come over to watch a drama or a movie when they are on.

The casualty due to the emergence of TV was our grand radio. This was not in total mind you because those early days, TV programmes started only in the evening. So our grand old radio still enjoyed our patronage during the day time. It still had a long life ahead because it followed us to our next move away from Telok Anson.

Life became a routine. I had to cycle about five miles each day during the week from our house to Bah’s college to practice my piano on the days that I had no lessons. It was quite tiring and I was getting to not like taking the lessons anymore. Furthermore, on certain evening, my brother and I had our violin lessons. Nonetheless, I still enjoyed my music.

When I completed my primary school and started secondary school, we had to choose a uniform body to join as an extra curricular activity. My brother, who entered secondary school earlier, was a Scout. This was in line with family tradition where Bah was already a King’s Scout. At times when he had invitations to a Scout’s activity, he would wear his uniform. He looked very nice in it except for his shorts. They were the fifties type, complete with pleats, large enough for two legs to get into on side of the pants, and the length ended just above the knee. It was starched so much that I think if you put on the floor, it would stand up! I think some of you would have seen him wearing the same shorts when he did his gardening many years later, but with the top button undone because he had gained weight.

The politically correct choice was for me to join the Scouts, but I felt more comfortable joining the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade. On the day of registration, I lined up together with the new recruits. I was standing near the end of the line with my classmate who was my best mate. He too had the same dilemma as me. When Brother Patrick (teacher in charge) was noting down the names towards the middle of the line, suddenly I had second thoughts and I ran out of the line towards the bicycle parking shed. I thought I was the only one who did that, but apparently my friend did the same too. When I asked him why he ran, he said that he was just following me. I told him I was not sure whether I should join SJAB because it might upset my dad. Funnily enough, he had the same thoughts too.

For several weeks I didn’t enrol in any uniform activity, until one day Brother Patrick summoned me to his quarters. I went to see him that same afternoon after school not certain what to expect. Brother Patrick was Irish was a top of red hair, and had a reputation of one blowing his top often. You wouldn’t want to be the brunt of his anger as whatever he was holding might fly to you. Our meeting was in fact very pleasant. He said that he wanted to start a band with SJAB. He had heard that I was keen in music and asked whether I would be interested to join the band as its Drum Major. I told him that I would be honoured to do so, but preferred to play an instrument rather than be a Drum Major. He agreed on condition that I would assist the person he selected as Drum Major.

I did join the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, but not before I told Bah of my meeting with Brother Patrick, crossing my fingers hoping that he would not be upset by breaking the family’s tradition. I was quite taken aback because he said he knew about it already. The principal of the school, Brother Damien, had asked him earlier. Actually, Bah told him it was up to me to decide, but he would not have a problem with it if I wished to. And so, I had a couple of years in the band, starting from scratch together with Brother Patrick. Our band had basic instruments, mainly clarinets, piccolos, trumpets and bugles. Of course the mandatory drums and cymbals was a must. The only drawback of being in the band was the time it took off you for practices. It was putting a lot of strain between the band, my gymnastic practices and not to forget my piano and violin.

Bah had a history of gastritis, which would graduate to an ulcer. It was during our time in Telok Anson that he had an ulcer. It was serious enough for him to be hospitalised, not in Telok Anson itself, but in Batu Gajah, which was about two hours journey by car from where we were. Mum would visit Bah daily, going in the morning and coming back in the evening. On alternate days, she would make my brother and I come along. These were in the afternoon after our school. I had visited Bah about three times already when mum insisted I had to go with heron the next trip. Alas, it was the same day where I had my band practice too. I told mum I couldn’t go because of it. Mum blew her top. There I was, getting the full force of mum’s fury and dreading the next day of Brother Patrick’s wrath. Throughout the journey and at the hospital I was quiet and Bah noticed it. When he asked whether anything was the matter with me, mum went into her tirade of how selfish I was in wanting to go for my band practice rather then visiting Bah. I was expecting Bah’s to concur with mum, but was taken aback when he told mum that I should have gone for my practice because the band depended on me. Mum pulled a long face at that but kept her peace. Because of what Bah said, I was really glad I came to visit him instead, that he understood the dilemma I was in. I was doubly glad that Brother Patrick wasn’t angry with me when I told him I visited my father and couldn’t come for the practice. He said it was alright and even asked how Bah was getting on. In the end, I had to give credit to mum (although reluctantly) for making me visit Bah instead, because of the important lessons learnt that day. One was that your family must always come first, especially in times of need. The second was that your parents do know what was best for you, and therefore we should listen to them more. The third was that if you practise the first and second lessons, others would respect you more for it.

Eventually Bah recovered and came back home. Life got back to its normalcy again. I learnt later from Bah’s colleague, that his illness was serious enough to be life-threatening. You may say that it was only an ulcer of the stomach, but with the medical facilities and skills we had in those days, it might as well be.

What about my brother during all these events you might ask? Well, being the first borne, he was always my mum’s favourite. He was a Scout which made Bah proud and also they had many things to talk about and for Bah to show him scouting skills. Not that I was envious of him, but I can say that during that time, he had his priorities right, and recalling them today, I can say that I was proud of him. He understood my dilemma but didn’t say anything, which I appreciated. He could have made it worse though, but he didn’t.

Those were times too when Bah and mum had serious quarrels, or rather it was mum’s quarrel with Bah. Bah was a gentle soul and I had all my life not seen him having a quarrel with anyone (except with some politicians that he was not fond off). It lasted almost a week where we heard mum shouting and crying in the middle of the night. My brother and I couldn’t sleep as it was something new for us that had us worried. My brother would stand at their bedroom door, come back to the room and told me to do the same. I didn’t want to actually, but he forced me to. I didn’t realise the wisdom of this until one night, amidst the sounds of mum crying and moaning, we heard Bah calling us loudly to come to him. As we were already at their door, we ran in quickly. What we saw was shocking to us both. Bah was holding mum’s hands. In her right hand was a kitchen knife! Bah told us to take it away from her, which we managed to do. I knew Bah could have easily dislodged or taken the knife away from mum, but I knew he didn’t want to hurt her in any way. After we took the knife away, mum started crying more and started hugging my brother. It was sad to see her that way but Bah told us to quietly go back to our room and to take the knife back to the kitchen. My brother and I discussed the incident and we concluded that mum wanted to use the knife on her rather than on Bah. The quarrels ended after that eventful night. For me, it remained in my sketched in memory forever, because it was the first and only quarrels that mum had with Bah.

It wasn’t due to anything much really, except that mum felt jealous unnecessarily. At that time, an American peace corp lecturer was attached to Bah’s college for a couple of weeks. She was a nice lady, neither really pretty nor attractive as most American Peace Corps were, but soft spoken and kind. The issue was that Bah had to take her to visit schools where his students were attached. These were only day trips. Because of this, Bah couldn’t come home in the afternoon for his usual power naps. This lead to mum having wild imaginations and hence her quarrelled with Bah. Her jealousy took the better of her good judgement, and accused Bah of wanting to leave her for the American lady. Of course Bah kept on stating that they were not true, but mum refused to believe him. Bah being an educationist, was also a master in psychology. He was very patient with mum despite mum’s vehement accusations. In the end, every thing turned out for the better.

The quarrels lasted a week as I said earlier. It ended as quickly as it started. Bah came home in the afternoons because later I found out that he had requested one of the other lecturers to accompany the American on her visits. That was the father I knew and loved. He loved his family very much, and they very important to him. All his life, without us realising it, he made sacrifices for us all, his wife, his children, his in-laws, parents and his siblings and their children. He did all those things without any expectation of return or of anyone knowing he doing it. If there were a better example of the left hand not knowing what the right hand did, I would Bah’s the best example of one of such magnanimity.

I had to think twice about writing this sad episode in growing up, but I had promised to let you know how it was with Bah and mum. The good, the bad and sometimes the ugly are parts of our lives. We can’t run away from it. What is important is that we learn from them and try to make our lives and those around us, a better place and time to live in…….

Growing Up Part XV

2007-09-20T18:32:00.000+08:00

Telok Anson was a turning point in the lives of my brother and me. It was a time when boys became men and with it came a different perspective of how we looked at our lives. It was the time when we were circumcised, an essential phase in the live of Muslim boys when they attained the age of 10 to 12 years old.

My grandma, Tok Bi, my aunts, Siti and Mak Chik, came to Telok Anson from JB for the occasion. Farid came too, but she was too small to remember any of these. It was wonderful with the house full of our family members, reunited once again after a long time. Sleeping arrangements were “as is where is”, but only the eldest and youngest got the beds.

Days before the event, I was getting more nervous and fretful. It was not something that I relished, having a part of my body cut-off…… doesn’t really matter which part really. Our friend Shamsul, had his done a year before and tried to tell us there was nothing to it. Although I had no reason to disbelieve him, still a concern lingered in my mind. The only guy who was smiling all the time was Swee Leong who of course didn’t have to do it! Teasing him to wipe the smile off his face, I told him that Bah had arranged the same for him too since he was more or else our adopted brother. That was the last we saw of him, on his bike cycling away as fast as he could. We only saw him the evening after our circumcision. He must have thought we were serious or if not, he didn’t want to chance it.

My unease didn’t get any lesser as the day approached nearer. The anxiety reached to a point where I risked speaking to Bah. I told him that as I was a year younger than my brother was, he should do it first and I could have mine done the next year (at least I got a year’s reprieve). If Bah had agreed to this, I would be in ectasy. Imagine that for one, my brother suffers. Two, I could taunt him and he couldn’t get back at me in his condition. I guess you all know Bah by now, nothing stops his plans……

The day finally came too soon for my liking. The house was full of guests, mostly neighbours and Bah’s colleagues. The hour came for my brother to be a man. I had to wait outside, although I would have loved to watch and see how they did it. At least it might lessen my concern (or heightened it maybe?). Less than 15 minutes he was out, smiling, wearing his sarong. He didn’t tie or folded the sarong at the waist as normally one would. He held top of it by one hand stretching as far out as possible. This was to ensure that the sarong would not touch the manhood, which must be sensitive then.

Thinking that as he went through the procedure without a hitch, I assumed that I would not have a problem too. However, as fate may have it, mine did not go smoothly as expected. Firstly, my brother whispered in my ear that it would hurt. That rattled my nerve futher, which was already like a highly-strung piano wire. Upon entering Bah’s room, they guided me to lie down on the bed. The Tok Kadim (profession of a person who specialises in circumcision) started checking me out. He started to shake his head, got up and spoke to Bah in a low voice. I cound'nt hear what they were discussing about. While he was discussing with Bah, those around them stole glances at me, trying to see what exactly Tok Kadim meant about predicament that I was supposed to have. In the meanwhile, I was freaking out of my mind. I tried to get up but someone held me gently down. Eventually with the nod from Bah, Tok Kadim proceeded with the task at hand. The procedure done to me took much longer time then it did my brother. Finally, Tok Kadim smiled and said I was done. The look on his face showed that he was more relieved that I was. Forgetting what the fuss was all about in the first place, I too sauntered out of the room with my new sarong fully extended out.

It was later that evening when I understood what the problem was. I overheard Bah talking to his guests about it. Not that I liked it much him discussing with strangers about my you know what… Anyway I don't have to tell more about it, right?

When all the guests had left that evening, my brother slept on a bed beside mine. In between the beds, was just enough room for a chair, where my grandma stationed herself like a sentinel. Bah had made a rig for us earlier that day. He screwed in hooks onto the ceiling above our beds. He then secured a small rope to the hook allowing the other end of the rope to dangle just above the bed. The purpose of this rig was when we lie down on our beds, we could to tie our sarongs to the small rope so that they would be hanging above our waist. The sarong would provide enough space by not touching our recovering yet sensitive body parts, but more importantly, it allowed us to retain our modesty, or what was left of it, after that day. The result looked liked two Red Indian tepees side by side, with torso and feet jutting out of them.

The one person I appreciated most during the first few nights was my grandma. She kept vigilant eye on both of us throughout the night. I must say that I was apprehensive about her being too close to me because she held on to a half coconut shell (tempurung) with her any time she was near us. I didn’t know what it was for and I eyed it with a slight trepidation as she kept beating her palm with it. Perhaps she was going through some old custom, which I wasn’t aware. My curiosity got the better of me and I asked her about it. With a twinkle in her eyes and a sweet smile, she said that it would be put to good use when the time came. Duh????

The time for the magical “tempurung” to be used eventually came early the next morning. Allow me to explain first a fact in a male’s biological make-up. It is normal that male manly part gets rigid in the wee hours of the morning. Don’t ask me why, it just does! Even I didn’t realise that fact until then. Whenever it happens during recovery from circumcision, the pain can be very excruciating and agonising because of the tenderness and the tight stitches. Hence Tok Bi’s “tempurung”. As soon as she sensed what was happening to me (didn’t take much for her to notice with my groaning loudly), she started to hit my knees continuously with it. Not gently mind you, but hard enough to hurt my knee cap. Miraculously, I felt comfortable once more. Such wisdom of the old.

It was rather funny when both my brother and I had the rising problem at the same time. Tok Bi handled the situation pretty well because sitting on her chair between our beds, she would knock my knee once and then moved her arms across her body and knocked on my brother’s knee. What it looked like to me then was like her playing the drums! Maybe she was, as it did sound like one too. She would alternate with a double knock on my knees instead of once. Tat-tat-tattat-tattat-tat-tat! Man I tell you she got rhythm! It was a wonder our kneecaps didn’t turn blue-black.

After several nights, we decided to use the “tempurung” ourselves. It was much easier that way. I imagined Tok Bi could had a mischievous streak in her bones because even after my loud groaning, I knew she pretended not to hear me, letting me bear the pain a little while before she started her “drumming” on my kneecap. Doing it ourselves was less traumatic. As usual with my brother and me, when there was only one item to share, we would fight over it (although not literally as our condition would not allow it). Eventually I found out by accident that it worked well with other than the magical “tempurung”. Seeing as my brother was already using the “tempurung” and I needed to use one too, I grabbed hold of an empty bowl lying near the bed and out of desperation and started knocking my kneecap with it. It worked! Then I wondered why the need to stick with a “tempurung”.

It was a week of walking about like zombies, taking each step slowly with our sarong fully extended, daily changes of bandages and setting up tepees at night. Bah helped to clean our wounds and changed the bandages. One day, he was busy at work and couldn’t help us. Mum volunteered but my brother and I refused saying we could do it ourselves. The reason actually was we were too shy to bare ourselves to the opposite sex, even though she was our mother. I believed mum felt slighted and upset because of that. I could still remember her saying that she had brought us up since we were babies and nothing that she had not seen that we should be shy of. Nonetheless, both of us were unwavering and insisted in doing it ourselves.

As the days passed, with some hiccups here and there we eventually recovered fully. During those times, Swee Leong was ever so helpful. He would bring us drinks or do whatever for us so that we didn’t have to move as much. I presumed he felt either guilty for running out on us or just that he was a very helpful and concerned friend. I never doubted it was the latter.

Now that we had fully recovered, something new in our lives happened. Mum gave us underwear for the first time. OK, now you know that before this, we were always in a “free & easy” mode. Well, what we got wasn’t exactly a Calvin Klein for sure, not even close to it. Mum sewed them. Not sure whether she was economising then. Our new underwear were of thin, white material with elastic band at the waist. When I held it up, I noticed that the length of one side was not the same as the other, although barely noticeable. It was more evident when you fold them. As mum sewed it, we assumed it done with love and we appreciated it…..then.

I couldn’t remember now how many pairs mum made us each, must have been not too many because if I recalled correctly, we could change only on alternate days. Because the size and colour were the same for all pairs, they became a source of contention between my brother and me. He was never particular of whose belonged to whom (remember that episode of my swimming trucks on the ocean liner – see Growing Up Part X). I, on the other hand, instinctively knew which were mine. However, it was a no win situation for me because if I saw him putting on “my” underwear and if I were to make an issue out of it, he would take it off and threw it to me and quick as lightning, put on a new pair, even before I could retrieve the one he threw. So he ended up using a clean pair while I ended up with the one that he had used. Problem was there weren’t anymore clean ones. Go figure what I did! It was either steeled myself and wore that or go free & easy for the day. The choice was simple actually…..

After time, the waistband lost it’s elasticity. There were two ways to overcome the problem. One was to tie a simple knot, as the underwear without the elastic band was broad enough to do that effectively. The other way was the fold it liked when you use a sarong normally. My brother preferred latter method. I tried it and found that it could come loose if you jump about rigorously. It can be very difficult to re-do it inconspicuously if other had not already noticed that your underwear was slipping down the sides of your trousers. I wonder how I survived so many embarrassing moments while growing up?

That was what happened to my brother :). I remembered our team were playing badminton with another team, and my brother played the first singles match. After about ten minutes into the match, I could see his underwear started to slip and hanging down the sides of his shorts. He would tug them up every opportunity he had, but I could see it was a losing battle, and especially on long rallies, he simply couldn’t cope at all :). I could hear the sniggers from the spectators.

My feelings were confused. I felt that he deserved to be embarassed after the hard times he gave me all this while, but at the same time, I felt choking on my throat feeling his embarrassment. I glared menacely at anyone that sniggered. No one should ever make fun of my brother! That’s siblings for you. We fight each other all the time, but we would fight together side by side against anyone who threatened the other’s safety, dignity or integrity. Funnily enough, throughout the match, his slipping underwear didn’t seem to bother him at all. Although I could say, he lost his battle against his underwear, but he won the hard fought match against a better player. Perhaps his opponent was too distracted. It seemed the most likely conclusion.

It was distressing that we had to wear that hand-made underwear when we knew there were proper ones sold. Noticing our underwear slipping down our legs one day, she asked why and we informed her about the non-functioning waistband. She told us not to use them anymore. We thought mum would at last buy us proper ones. It was not to be. After a couple of days of being “free & easy”, she returned us the old underwear with the elastic waistband duly replaced with new ones. So we ended up wearing them still :(…. In Malay, we have a term for this type of underwear, it’s called “seluar katok”……..

Growing Up Part IVX

2007-09-04T21:06:00.000+08:00

I have an hour window while waiting for my flight back to Singapore at Chennai airport. I thought maybe I can write a bit more of our family in Telok Anson when I was growing up.

During end of year school holidays, our family normally went back to JB to stay with Tok Bi and my aunts. Also there, we were reunited with our youngest sister, Farid. There was not much that I recall of Farid during those years as we were normally apart most of the time. By then, Farid was already walking and running about.

The house in Ngee Heng where Tok Bi lived was small. When all of us were there it was really crowded. Some slept in that one bedroom, and the rest will have to roll out mattresses and slept on the floor. Our Aunt Siti was a stickler for cleanliness and neatness. She’ll normally get quite riled up when we overslept or woke up late as it would disrupt her routine to sweep the whole house in the morning.

Facilities in that house left much to be desired. Only one small bathroom to share by all or us. Toilet was outdoors somewhere away from the houses, as it was still using the bucket system. This had to be shared with the rest of the neighbours. Although I was quite familiar with this from the younger days at Kampung Kubor, I wasn’t really comfortable with it. Unlike in Kampung Kubor, the outdoor toilet was ours alone. Here, we had to share with the neighbours. The peak period was normally in the morning. There would always be a queue. Funnily enough, those waiting their turn were patient. So far I had never seen anyone that was desperate. Small children like Farid for instance, need not do their business there. All they had to do was simply do it at the drain outside the house, and flush it with water after that. Most of the people there reared chickens. Therefore, hens and roosters run about the area looking for food. Their favourite was always when some kid did their business and would start pecking at “it” as soon as…..

When we were there in JB, sometimes I attended to Farid when she had to do her business at the drain. My job was simply to keep the chickens away from her. Farid is a smart girl. I noticed that she could fend for herself without my help. What I remember most about her those days was that she used to run around with only her panties on. Normal actually!!!

Sometimes late at night, my aunt would want to visit the out-house. She would then make either me or my brother to accompany her. It wasn’t that I didn’t like to accompany her, except that it was really boring waiting for her. While waiting in the dark, I would be eaten alive by mosquitoes. The smell I could live with. Furthermore, it was really dark and quite far away from the house. The trees would throw creepy shadows from the moonlight. Sometimes it would creep me out that I ran back home. My aunt would get angry when she found me missing from my post. I argued that if she could come back on her own, then why would she need me to accompany her? She didn’t answer me on this, but it was Bah who explained that it was not that she was frightened of ghosts, but rather being a young lady, she could be disturbed by rowdy boys. I understood the reason and from then onwards, I was never derelict my duty.

Besides the school holidays, we always came back to JB for Aidil Fitri. As far as I can remember, Bah never failed to come back to JB for the festivities. It was always a joyous occasion for us but can be very, very tiring too. The visits we made from house to house were never ending. But again, that was the way Bah was, he never failed to visit a family member as long as he was near them.

Those journeys back and forth JB and Telok Anson usually last the whole day and sometimes an extra day. The reason for this was that Bah would stop and visit our relatives almost every town that we came across. If we couldn’t do it on the way down, we would certainly did it on our way back. From Telok Anson our first stop would normally be Kuala Lumpur. Then it would be in Melaka where mum’s relatives were or we would visit our great and grand father’s grave at Trengkara. Next up would be Muar where his sister was there. Batu Pahat would be next where mum’s brother resided. Pontian where mum’s sister family could be found.

Those long trips although tiring for us, would have been very tiring for Bah too because he was the only one who drove. The only thing that he needed was a damped cloth to wipe his face from time to time. I think that kept him awake and fresh. If you knew Bah, you would know that he was fond of passing wind. We knew when it was coming when he shifted his backside. Each time he did that mum would always scold him, but Bah would always laugh it off. We kids knew that mum didn’t really mean it, as we guess that was one of the ways they teased each other. Fizah would always laugh loudly each time Bah let go. My brother and I tried to keep her quite because her laughing only encouraged Bah more as he could keep it coming. After a while all of us would go into a fit of laughter when mum couldn’t keep up with her pretence any longer. Although the journey was tiring it was nevertheless enjoyable, except the part when I had to ask Bah to stop from time to time for me to be sick!!

My flight is boarding now, so I'll post this as soon as I get back. Hope I can find more time to tell you from my perspective of growing up with my family.

Growing Up Part XIII

2007-08-31T18:04:00.000+08:00

My last part was written in Jakarta. Tonight I’m writing from Chennai (Madras) India. In typing this episode, sometimes I have to type with one hand because the other I have to place it on my left cheek to stop my head from shaking from side to side. Hey, it’s contagious!!!

Growing up in Telok Anson was a turning point in our family, especially my brother and I. It was here that we transformed from boys to manhood. Yes, you guess rightly that it was here that we were circumcised. But this event I will tell you in a later instalment.

My sister Fizah, like me, started to go to a school earlier in lieu of kindergarten. I did mention in my earlier story that during our time, there was no kindergarten. Normally Bah would send her and Noni to school. My brother and I at that time were already cycling to school on our own. One day, Bah couldn’t send Fizah to school. As she was in the afternoon session like me, I volunteered to send her. Of course, she had to sit on the frame of my bicycle, which was not probably very comfortable for her. The back of the bicycle was meant to carry our school bags. As we cycled along the busy roads, all was fine until I had to cross the road and turn into a perpendicular road. Seeing the opportunity to cross over, I did this as quickly as possible. Fizah didn’t like it at all and she started to shout warning me of on-coming bicycles (there were more bicycles than cars then). Of course being a good cyclist that I was, I managed to get across fine, but Fizah was fidgeting so much that the bicycle started to wobble. The next thing we knew, both of us were strewn on the roadside. Fizah was very young at time and of course started crying. I got up, picked her up and started collecting our school bags. By this time, there were a number of other cyclists that had stopped to help us. Although we were not hurt, the only thing that hurt was my pride. I was very embarrassed especially with the helpers telling me to be more careful carrying my sister. When Fizah had stopped crying, I asked her whether she wanted to go on to school on a trishaw or with me. Good thing about Fizah is that she is strong-willed. She said she wanted to go with me because it was more fun!!! It’s no wonder why men can never understand women!!!

By the time Fizah started proper schooling, Fuzi had started to grow up. She was probably 4 years old then if I can remember correctly. She was very cute and had very curly hair. You may not know this, but at that age, she could dance very well. Television was still unheard of then. So our main entertainment was still the radio. Remember that radio I was talking about during our time in JB and Melaka? It was the same one! Fuzi loved listening to the radio. If we wanted some fun, we’ll ask her to dance and she normally obliged without hesitation. I tell you that she could really dance!!! Wonder if she still does it nowadays.

Fizah had a memento from her days in Telok Anson. She had to have stitches on her forehead courtesy from yours truly. One afternoon, Fizah, Noni and I were fooling around having pillow fights. We were hitting each other with the pillows. Somehow, Fizah managed to hit me on the head from the back while I was concentrating on Noni. As soon as she hit me, she started to run out of the room. I turned around and threw the pillow I had on me at her. It flew straight and hit at the side of her head just as she reached the opened door. Then momentum of the pillow propelled her forehead to the corner of the door jamb. She fell of course and when she got up, we saw her forehead bleeding profusely. She started crying, which also got Noni going too. Knowing a bit of first-aid, I put pressure on the cut. Opposite our door was Bah’s and mum’s room. It was Bah’s power napping time.

With all the commotion, Bah’s door swung opened. I felt my heart drop knowing very well that I was going to get a beating of my life if the first face that emerged from that door was mum’s. You know, her style was to hit first and asked questions later!!! It was a temporary reprieve that Bah came out first. He went over to Fizah and asked what happened. After telling him, he went to the phone and called Dr. Sharma. He was our neighbour. After the call, he went inside to change and thereafter took Fizah to the hospital. Another temporary reprieve that I had was mum going with them.

The waiting for them to come back from the hospital was really agonizing especially for me. One was the anxiety that whether Fizah would be alright and the other was the canning I was to get from Mum when she came home. My brother didn’t help much though. He kept reminding me that I was going to get the beating of my life when mum came back. Worse still was the “smile” he had on his face when he said that. Finally, they came home. Fizah’s forehead had a plaster on it and it didn’t look so bad at all. Bah said that she was going to be fine. Dr. Sharma who was the hospital main surgeon, did very fine stitches on the cut so that a scare would not be visible. If you really look for it today, i.e. above he left eyebrow, you may be able to see a very fine scare. Ask her how she got that and I wonder whether she remembers.

As anticipated, I got my beating from mum but I think it was just a token. It was just a couple of clips to the ear telling me never to do that again. Of course I said sorry and regretted the incident but after all it was never intentional. But in my heart, I was really pleased that I didn’t get what I deserved and more importantly, Fizah was fine.

Remember I told you that Telok Anson was infested with snakes? The story behind this was that in Telok Anson, there was a large oil palm plantation. If I am not mistaken, it was the first such plantation in Malaysia as most other was rubber plantations. The storey goes that the plantation was infested with rats that ate up the young oil palm seedlings at the nursery. Eventually, the rats infested the growing trees too. Most of the workers there came directly from India who was experienced. The plantation was owned by a British conglomerate called Janrata Estate. A very initiative India worker went up to the English estate manager and suggested that he had a way to get rid of the rats. His solution was to bring in cobras from India, set them free in the plantation and the rat manifestation will be gone. I am sure that was what exactly happened. Unfortunately, that Indian worker didn’t tell his manager the whole picture which was that to get rid of the rats, the snakes had to multiply significantly. And so they did. Gone were the rats and now we had cobras instead. But I guess the Indians are more comfortable with cobras then rats anyway.

The compound of our house was large and covered with grass. I told you earlier that we never ventured more that 3 paces from the edge of our drive way fearing the dreaded cobras. Once a month, the gardener from Bah’s college would come to cut the grass with his motorised mowing machine. We loved to watch him do it because one, he had no fear of the snakes. But what we were actually waiting for was for him to bring over to us snakes that were cut up that didn’t escape his mowing machine in time. After the grasses were cut, he would start to rake the cut grasses and pile them up. Sometimes, when doing this, a couple of live cobras were found. He would chase them and hit them dead with his rake. The best was yet to come. After piling up the cut grasses, Bah would set them on fire. I don’t how he managed that when the grasses were still green. There was always more smoke than fire. But he said it would also drive away the mosquitoes. After got the fire going, what we used to do was to throw the dead snakes into it. Then we would stand back a bit and waited for the popping sound of the snake exploding when it burnt. Gross thinking of it now, but then again, we were young and growing up. Fun was fun which ever way we found them.

One afternoon, Bah came home with a male goose. He said geese are better than watch dogs because they make loud noises when strangers or animals come near the house. It is also believed that geese shits keep away snakes as they are adverse to them. Well everything that Bah said about the goose was right. It didn’t only make noises when strangers came over, it would do the same for us too. It was not really that friendly to us too. At times it would chase us away and pecked at our ankles. And the shit smelled. Bah told us not to wash them away because they were supposed to keep away the cobras from coming in. After some time, the goose become acustomed to my brother and I and it didn’t chase us anymore. It loved Bah’s car best. Each time when Bah came back, it would waddle quickly to the car. Bah didn’t like that much because sometimes it pecked at the car. I think being a male goose, it may have wanted a companion. The car provided a reflection of the goose and that was why it sometimes pecked at the car. Of course the car was scratched or slightly dented when it did that. Bah didn’t like that at all.

After some time, the goose was becoming to a pain in the neck for our family. It made too much noise especially at night, it really shitted a lot and Bah’s car suffered too. But I think Bah was too proud to say that it was a mistake to have the goose, and so we tolerated it. For some reason or another, the goose worse enemy was Fuzi. As soon as it saw Fuzi, he will start chasing her. It was fun for us to see Fuzi screaming and running away from the goose. Most of the time she managed to out run it until one day. We were about to go out for a drive one afternoon. Fuzi was excited and she dashed out to the garage where the car was parked. Unseen by her, our goose was on the other side of the car looking at its own reflection as usual. Sensing Fuzi was on the other side, it caught her unaware. Fuzi was trapped and she could run away because the car being too close to the front wall, blocked her only exit. The only other escape route for her was to go around the goose as quickly as she could. I think that was exactly what she did, but unfortunately, she fell. The goose climbed on top of her. Fuzi was smart enough to keep her face down on the floor and covered the back of her head with her hands. It was here screaming as well as the loud cackling of the goose that alerted us that she was in trouble. Bah was the first to reach them. What we saw was that the goose was pecking furiously at Fuzi head and back and all the while standing on top of her back. Bah caught hold of the goose by the neck and flung it away from Fuzi. The goose fell on its feet and came running back to Fuzi. My brother and I blocked its path, and I caught hold of a broom, gave it a couple of thumps and chased it away.

It was a traumatic experience for Fuzi. It also broke the camel’s back as Bah was concerned. He decided there and then to get rid of the goose. But being practical, he asked mum whether she wanted to cook it. We all shouted a definite no! The next day, Bah gave it away to one of villagers near our house. That was the last we saw or heard of the goose that terrorised our family in one way or another.

Growing Up Part XII

2007-08-26T13:59:00.000+08:00

I must apologise to you guys for not keeping up with my stories. Just noticed when going through my blog that I do have a number of anonymous readers. My sister, Farid and aunt Siti visited me a couple of days ago just before my I had to fly off to Jakarta. She didn’t know my blog existed and when Alann (my son) showed it to her, she was laughing her head off.
She asked questions of the time before she was born that in a way made me feel quite sad that we didn’t talk about it when we were kids. Anyway, again I’m writing this in a foreign city, Jakarta in the middle of the night. This part of the story is dedicated to my sis, Farid, as this was the time when she stepped in this world and made it a better place to live for us all.
So our family had settled in Telok Anson as it was called then. Now it’s called Teluk Intan. If you would remember that my mum was expecting Fuzi before we left for the UK. What I forgot to mention earlier, that she was expecting Farid before we went back home. So I had always teased my two sisters that one was made in Malaya, born in UK while the other was made in the UK, born in a new country called Malaysia. Remembering the two of them, Fuzi when she grew up starting speaking with a slang e.g. instead of say ikan (fish for Malay, pronounced as “ee-kan”) she always ended it with a “g” so it became “ikang”. We thought it was cute then that she spoke Malay in an English accent. Later, when we had moved around Malaysia more, only then that we realised, she spoke more like one from Kelantan or Trengganu!!! These are north eastern states of Malaysia where the accent of spoken Malay differs significantly to those from other states, like Scottish speaking English for example, not easy to understand, especially those from Glasgow.
Not long after being in Telok Anson, Mum went back to JB to give birth to Farid. Farid then stayed behind with my grandma Tok Bi and Aunt Siti. She stayed and grew up with them until we came back to JB after 4 years. So Farid, in reading, there isn’t much I can say during that time about you, except during the few occasions when the family came back for holidays to JB.
Life in Telok Intan was laid-back. Bah went to the college in the morning, came home for lunch, did his power nap and off to the office again for a couple of hours. As my school then was in the morning session, he would take me along to the college. There I had to practice my piano which was located on the stage in college hall. Of course in the afternoon there were no students, so I was free to practice without embarrassing myself. Violin lessons were at night, when Bah would send my brother and me to my music teacher’s house.
At the fringe of our house, there lived a lady who taught reading the Quran. She came almost daily in the afternoon for my brother and I to learn to read the Quran. Learning to read the Quran was difficult at first, but it got better after time. But till today, I still could not imagine how she could read the Quran from the opposite side. We would sit on the floor with the Quran facing us whilst she sat opposite us. She could spot our mistakes and explained the alphabets and how it should be read. All this done with the Quran facing opposite her. Amazing.
She was a lovely and gentle lady. Best part was that she had a son of our age. Naturally, we became very good friends and he was at our house practically every day. He was one of our best friends when we were in Telok Intan. The other was a Chinese boy who was my brother’s classmate. Let me tell a bit about him.
He came from a large family staying in a very small house. One day, my brother invited him to the house where they studied, ate and even slept over for the night. The funny thing was that he didn’t leave after that. He started bringing bit by bit his clothing, his books etc. Finally, he was a permanent fixture of our family there. He made himself useful though by helping to water the plants, a chore which I hated most. Mum and Bah were into plants especially orchids and it would take me at least an hour to water the plants around the house.
Bah made a badminton court in front of the house, and this was the game that the four of us would play daily after our chores. Of course my brother was the best between the four of us, followed by his classmate, then me and then Shamsul. Name of my brother’s friend? It was Saw Swee Leong. At one time he was Malaysia’s top badminton player. Just to let you know that once in a while I had beaten him!!!!
I am sure that you guys know (and I believe practice too) that our family likes to power nap in the afternoon. This was true of my brother and me too. One day while we were napping, our Quran teacher came. Mum would call from the living room announcing her arrival, which she actually meant for us to get up, get reading and start the lesson, or else!
What happened was that my brother turned over to me and told me to start my lesson first. This would mean that he would have an extra 20 minutes of napping while I had to get up. So, I told him no and that he should start first instead. The next thing I knew he was on top of me and we actually started brawling. Nothing new actually between us siblings, but our Quran teacher saw this and came over trying to stop us. She failed miserably not knowing what to do as we kept rolling on top of each other trying to gain the advantage. I stole a glance at her and saw her genuine anguish, but that didn’t stop us. What stopped us was Mum who came into the room with a cane and started lashing out at both of us. That was the time that I tried to be under my brother rather than to be on top so that he could bear the full force of Mum’s fury. So as quickly as we started our brawl, we stopped, did our cleansing, wore our sarong and songkok, took our Quran and sat down waiting for the Quran teacher as if nothing untoward had happened. I was very sure that our Quran teacher was absolutely puzzled with us and as she sat down I could see her shaking still. I looked at my brother and he gave a knowing smile.
The routine of Bah sending us to school was broken when one of us had to start school in the afternoon session. Telok Intan was a small town where almost everyone got around on a bicycle. My brother asked for one and Bah bought one for him. The whole family went to the shop selling bicycles. He chose one and the vendor prepared the bicycle for him. When all was done and paid for, Bah told my brother to ride it home. So he got on the bike and headed for home. The funny part was that all of us in the car followed behind him. Can you imagine the numerous blasts of horns from impatient drivers behind our car? Of course Bah was oblivious to all that and he just kept driving behind my brother who in fact cycled quite well and perhaps didn’t realise until we were near home that we were behind him all that time.
That one bicycle became a source for further brawls between us. Bah said we should share, but knowing my brother, what was his remained his! It was not that long later that Bah bought another one. I think he was quite fed-up being the arbitrator all the time. When we got a bike each, it was a time of much enjoyment. The four of us (Shamsul & Swee Leong always had theirs) would cycle to school, to the sports field and to the cinema together practically to almost anywhere we decided to venture too.
One night the four of us watched an evening show at the local cinema. On our way back, we decided to cycle through a less lighted road. The reason for this was that Swee Leong and Shamsul’s bike didn’t have lights. Cycling at night without lights was and still is an offence. So we thought that by taking a less lighted route we could escape being caught by the police. Not knowing any better, unfortunately, that was exactly where the police usually prey the law-breakers. When we saw the policeman, who at that time had already stopped a couple of offenders, it was too late for us to turn back to make our get-away. Shamsul and Swee Leong were stopped by the policeman. Although my brother’s and my bike had lights for some strange reason he stopped the both of us too. Shamsul started crying, he was the wimp amongst the four of us. Swee Leong kept a straight face and I suspected that he had gone through this a number of times before. The policeman threatened to bring us to the Police Station after shouting at us how we broke the law. On hearing this, I said to the policeman that if he wanted to bring us to the station, it was fine, provided I can inform my dad first. He asked who my dad was and I told him. It was then that he told us to wait while he took care of the other two offenders which he had stopped earlier. Then he came back to us and told us to get the lights fixed later and asked us to go straight home. But before we started, he came over again and asked us to give his regards to my dad. That was Bah for you, he made so many friends easily in such a short time, and it didn't matter if they were the Chief Police Officer of the District (who happened to be our good neighbour) or ordinary policemen.
I will have to tell you more of our time in Telok Intan as we stayed there a good long four years. I think that was the longest place that we stayed at one place.

Growing Up Part XI

2006-11-23T17:10:00.000+08:00

I am in Ho CHi Mihn City this week. No not for the APEC meeting! So while waiting for my flight back to Singapore, I posted this Part 11 for you guys. This part just tells you, as a prelude of our family growing up in Telok Anson. Many a stories there to tell later as we stayed 4 long years there. The longest that we ever stayed in one place. So here goes....

When we got back to Malaysia from UK, we stayed with our Grandma Tok Bi at their Wadi Hassan house in JB. It was cramped but comfortable. I am sure you remember the house that I mentioned earlier.
Meanwhile, before Bah got his new posting, he was attached temporarily at the Teachers’ College in JB. The following week Bah came back home with a new car. It was a Peugeot 403, quite a big and comfortable car. I loved that car because many years later, I took my driving test with it.
Bah put us i.e. my brother and I back to the same school, i.e. Ngee Heng Primary. It was a funny feeling coming back to the same school that I started with on my first year of schooling. Then everything looked huge or large. Now that we were that much older, i.e. Primary 6 & 5 respectively, everything looked small. The playing field that I thought then was so large, was no bigger than the garden at Bah’s Stulang Darat’s house. The primary 1 boys looked so small…..
Anyway, lessons were ok as the medium of instruction in those days were in English. When it came to the Malay language class, I was totally flabbergasted because I realised I couldn’t read Malay! When I was asked to read aloud, I was like an illiterate who had just started to learn to read. I had to spell it out in my mind as quickly as I could, literally word for word. Of course all that while, my classmates were snickering behind me. It took me many months later of intensive reading that at last I could read Malay without faltering.
Bah received his posting about a month later. It was to Telok Anson (now called Teluk Intan) in Perak. Bah went earlier himself to get settled and ready for us to come. After a couple of week, he came back and we had to start loading our stuffs into 2 or 3 train boxes. After that was done, we were ready to leave JB.
On the day we were to leave, very early in the morning, we had to load the car with whatever stuffs were had to bring. The boot was fully loaded to the brim, but Bah had installed a roof rack, and we stacked the rest of the stuff on top of the car, covered them with canvas in case it rained, and tied them down. When I stepped back to look, the car looked quite funny, more like a commercial lorry than a car.
Inside it was full. Bah was driving. Mum sat in front with Fuzi who was a year or two old by then. At the back was my brother, Fizah, Noni and myself. Being elder, my brother and I got seats by the window. I wasn’t keen on the journey as I was prone to motion sickness. In those days, such a journey lasted more than 8 hours. 6 hours to KL and another 2 to 3 to Telok Anson.
As a note, you would have noticed that Noni came with us. She had stayed back with Tok Bi and Mak Siti while we were in the UK. I guessed Bah and mum wanted the whole family to be together now.
The journey to Telok Anson was not memorable except that we stopped quite often along the way for toilet break and coffee, lunch and late tea. Also, I must confess, we had to stopped several times for me (I mentioned that I was prone to motion sickness right!).
When we arrived, it was already dark. Our house was a typical large government bungalow, with 2 main bedroom, large sitting hall, and huge dinning area with dinning table for 12. The kitchen was big and annexed to the house were 3 more rooms possibly for the maids.
Bah warned us before we started exploring that we were not to go onto the garden area, which was very huge. He said that this town was infested with cobra snakes and they are there even in our garden. I hate snakes!!!
The week was taken for us to settle in. Our train load of stuffs arrived. Of course during this time, mum was like a tough general, telling us what to do with the stuff, where to put them etc. It was very trying not to mention tiring.
Bah, mum and Fuzi had the master bedroom while my brother, Noni, Fizah and I had the room opposite them. Our room was like a dormitory, with 4 single beds lined up side by side.
School came next. My brother and I were enrolled in St. Anthony’s School (boys only) while Noni was enrolled at the HIJ Convent. These schools were directly opposite each other. Fizah was not of schooling age yet then during our first year there.
The routine was taking place. Bah took us to school in the morning and picked us up after. He found a piano teacher for me and a violin teacher for my brother and I. The violin teacher was actually my music and arts teacher in school.
So life continued in its own way for us, in a new place, new school and new friends………

Growing Up Part X

2006-11-09T22:27:00.000+08:00

I know it’s been a looooong time since I posted my next instalment of Growing Up. Better late than never…..
It was that time after 2 wonderful years in Wolverhampton, UK that we now had to head back home to Malaysia. It felt strange then because when we left for the UK, home was Malaya, and now we were headed home to what it’s called now, Malaysia. Guess you guys out there must be smirking at me telling my age!
About a month before we were to leave, my late Uncle Daud came to visit us because he was had to bring home our naval patrol boats. Uncle Daud was in the Navy. We had the opportunity go to the docks and visited his ship, and whilst inside, I saw a cabin door that was labelled “Magazine.” Being young and naïve, I smiled at Uncle Daud and asked why must all the “Playboy” magazines be kept in a locked cabinet? You probably guessed right that he laughed his head off.
Anyway, he sailed off the next day and we went back to our hotel in Southampton. What were we doing there? Well actually all of us were going back home by the cruise liner P&O. Can you imagine that!
My brother and shared a cabin whilst Bah and mom & Fizah in another. We were in the First Class. It was really luxury to the extreme. My Aunt had a berth in the economy class as Bah had to pay for her personally.
That night we went up on deck as the ship lifted its anchor and sailed out of the harbour. It was a sad feeling watching the country you stayed for sometime getting further and further away as the ship sailed away. I hadto wipe a tear away.
We slept nicely in our bunk beds but were rudely awakened with the ship’s rocking left to right & bow to stern. We were in the Bay of Biscay, the open sea out of the English Channel. It was terrible. I was sea-sick the whole time. I couldn’t understand why Bah and my brother didn't have a problem. It was infuriating but I didn’t have the energy to be angry with my brother, too sick to do that.
Everything became heavenly as soon as we nosed into the Mediterranean Sea. It was calm and the weather nice and warm. There were many things to do on board the ship. We could go swimming, watch movies, play table tennis and also made a few friend along the way.
What I liked about the trip home was that the ship stopped in many harbours. The first was Aden before we cross the Suez Canal. We were allowed go down and tour the towns too. Crossing the Suez Canal was an amzing experience. The ship was so slow that along the bank where we were watching from the deck, an Arab boy was cycling along with the ship. You know what, he was faster than we were!
As we got into the Arabian Sea, our next stop was Bombay. Bah was so excited about visiting Bombay. I didn’t know why at that time. When we got down into Bombay, Bah brought us along as if he knew the place. He was mentioning it was just like back home. He pointed out to the “kacang putih” seller (this is a person who sell different types of nuts). As the norm, he carried his goods on top of his head. Bah stopped him and he put down his tray. What surprised me was that Bah bought some speaking in Malay! What was more astonishing was that the Indian kacang putih man seemed to understand him! Nowadays, I frequent Bombay (now called Mumbai) a lot in my line of work, I do think of Bah at times especially when I see a kacang putih seller.
Colombo in Ceylon was the next port of call. After that, we crossedthe Indian Ocean and next port was Penang. Home at last!
Of course Bah had to bring us to meet some relatives in Penang. We even went to the Botanical Garden. Fizah had the worst experience in Penang. A monkey snatched the fruit from her hand and that frightened her a lot. Later, Bah bought bunch of rambutans. While we were eating them, Fizah suddenly started screaming her head off. We didn’t know what as wrong until she showed an ant crawling up her arm. Can you imaging that she had not seen an ant before!
Back on board, just one more night and we were to disembark in Singapore the next day. As it was the last day, I thought I might as swim at the pool while I could. My brother had beaten me to it. He had left earlier in the morning for the pool. As I was about to get into the swimming trunk, I noticed it wasn’t mine. It was my brother’s because the string that tightens the trunk was missing. OK, as it was the last day I didn’t want to spoil it. So I used it, a bit loose, but it was alright. Went to the pool and started swimming. Saw my brother there and gave me the dirtiest look I could. The pool was nice but crowded. I had to keep pulling up the trunk from time to time, but it was alright, until I step out of the pool, and a group of boys jumped in dragging in with them. I was caught by surprise. Not being the best of swimmers, my first priority was to get much needed air into my lungs. I kicked the bottom as hard as I could to surface and managed grabbed the side wall.
Coughing out water and gasping for air, I was oblivious to those around me. All I knew was that I had to hang for dear life onto the side of the pool. Until I started to hear laughter around me and my brother swimming frantically towards me. He said in a serious tone, that my trunk was covering my ankles……..
I will not comment any further on this issue nor tell you how I overcame that embarrassing situation nor the conclusion of it. I just like to say that life is not fair to the second born.
We harboured in Singapore. My Pak Long Dang (Bah's eldest sibling) was there to meet us with an entourage of family members. I can’t recall how all of us got into the small cars or where our large amount of baggage went. All I knew and wanted then was to cross the Causeway and back home, sweet home.

Growing Up Part IX

2006-06-24T23:23:00.000+08:00

Let see what else did we do while in the UK.

The family went to an outing to London. It was sometime in autumn where the weather was cool enough for us to need our overcoats. Bah was in a good holiday mood. He bought us a matchbox car each. I chose a Ferrari, red colour of course. I can’t remember what my brother chose. Anyway, very excited and happy with it, that I refused mum to put it together in her shopping bag. I wanted to carry it myself and put in my overcoat pocket.

From time to time I took off my coat whenever I felt warm. When not wearing it, I carried it across my arm. Whilst following mum with her shopping, I would find a place to sit and wait for her. A while later, after going passed a number of outlets, mum asked me where my overcoat was? I looked around hoping that either my brother or Bah was carrying it. Unfortunately neither of them was. So we had to back track to search for it. You can guess that it was gone and truly lost. Mum was grumbling saying how careless I was and how expensive it was. We still have the coming winter to contend with and she did not want to waste money unnecessarily to buy me a new one.

All this while, I felt very guilty and quite sad because of my carelessness. While having tea at a restaurant before heading home, Dad said to me not to worry about it anymore. Perhaps we could ask Mr. Badar to hand us down his son’s coat before they leave home for Malaysia in a month’s time. Well it didn’t actually cheer me up because I did like that coat as it kept me warm and dry during winter, especially walking to and from school. I guessed my sad facial expression showed. Mum looked at me and commented that I was not sad because of losing the coat, but because I had lost the matchbox car! It wasn’t true but that was not the time to argue with her. I could feel her dying to clip my ears or something, but she can’t, being in a public area. So going home was a drag as I was expecting her to let herself loose on me. Such a wonderful start to the day’s outing spoilt by my own carelessness!!

What happened when we reached home? Nothing because I pretended to sleep all the way until we reached home. Smart you may thing, but you do not want to be at the wrong end of mum’s wrath. Must be the Dutch blood in her. Anyway, to make up, I was very attentive to her that whole week and was at my best behaviour, most of the time.

A tragedy happened at the college one night. One of the student girls' hostel caught fire. I remembered that 3 girls died that night. The reason I brought this up was to remind you of Bah. He took the lead in almost everything. He had to identify the girls at the morgue, he telegrammed their parents, and he made all the necessary arrangement to prepare the bodies to be flown home. Bah had this natural leadership quality which he seldom showed, but it usually goes into overdrive in events of adversity. It was a sad tragedy for us all at the college and it took quite a while to get over it. The girls that escaped the fire came over to our house frequently. I didn’t understand why then, but now I would guess that they were there as a form of therapy from Bah to get them to over the trauma they went through. Don’t forget that Bah being an educationist is also quite a psychologist. I can tell you later of cases where I succumbed to his psychology.

Each morning in school, all students and teachers had to assemble in the hall for morning prayers. This was done before lessons began. I was exempted and usually spent the time alone in the class. My teacher was quite strict. He confiscates anything that did not belong in class, like marbles, toys, comics etc. He would take from you and put in his desk drawer. I never saw him returning anything that he confiscated.

One day during my time alone in class, curiosity got the better of me. I went over to his desk and opened the drawer where he kept the items. It was full of so many things that belonged to my classmates. I saw a Dandy comic that belonged to Andrew, confiscated the week before. I took it out of the drawer and hid it in my coat. When school ended, as we were walking home, I called out to Andrew, and looked behind my shoulders to check that no one was looking, I handed the comic book to him. He looked surprised, but before he could say anything, I walked away as fast as I could towards home. I wasn’t sure whether he appreciated it. If he didn't, then I would know the next day in school.

I felt rather guilty about what I did and dreaded going to school the next morning. Since I couldn’t find any good excuse not to go, I started off with my brother, although he kept calling to me to catch up with him. I was really dragging myself. At the school gate, Andrew was waiting for me with Paul, another of my classmate. He pulled me aside and with a smile he said thank you. The comic actually belonged to his elder brother and he couldn’t afford to buy a new one to replace it. So he said I had saved him from a good beating from his brother.

He asked me how I did it and I told him. Paul suddenly grabbed my arm pulling me towards him. Excitedly he asked me whether I could try to get back a whistle which the teacher took away from him the month before. I asked him for some detailed description of it. He said it was silver with the letters TG engraved. He said it was given to him by his grandfather before he died. His grandfather was a referee in the English football league. Actually, I didn’t want to do it anymore, but I said I would, but only just this once for him. I felt sorry for him losing something to remind him of his grandfather. I didn’t have anything from my late grandfather except for the memories.

Keeping it short, I passed the whistle back to Paul when school ended. I didn’t want to give it to him during school lest he took it out and the teacher would notice it, then I would definitely be in trouble if he found out that it was me who took it out from his desk. Paul appreciated the help from me. After that Andrew and Paul became my closest friends.

I didn’t look into the teacher’s drawer after returning Paul’s whistle, afraid that I might be caught. Anyway on the last day of school before the summer holidays, the teacher took all the stuffs he had confiscated during the year and laid it out on his desk. He told us to take back what was ours. I could have kicked myself then. I realised that the teacher didn’t know to whom the stuffs belonged to, nor could he remember what he had taken! I was kicking myself for losing the opportunity to be the most popular guy in class!!! If Andrew and Paul were that appreciative, I wondered how the girls would have reacted if I helped return to them their stuffs. Janet in particular, the farmer’s daughter whom I had a crush the whole year but dared not even speak to her!!!

Growing Up Part VIII

2006-06-21T22:25:00.002+08:00

Fuzi was born at Wolverhampton hospital. As Fizah was still small then, hence the reason why Bah took Aunty Cha along. The task of taking care of 2 small girls was divided. Aunty Cha looked after Fuzi and Bah looked after Fizah. Mum helped Aunty Cha. Not a lot though I noticed.

That’s why if you know my family well, Fizah was always much closer to Bah and Fuzi was to mum. Anyway, the house was quite noisy with baby Fuzi as well as Fizah blaring all the time. The house adjoining us was meant for lecturers of the college who were without their families.

There were not totally happy with the noises coming from our house. It made matter worse because I used to bowl a rubber ball on to the wall continuously for hours at a time. Yes, I was into cricket then. Mind you, with all that practice, I was good in that game. One day, one of the lecturers next door complained to Bah. All of us knew that this guy was a very typical prudish English gentleman. My brother and I didn’t like him very much because he never ever returned our greetings when we passed by him.

We knew which particular room he was in. When we played at the backyard which adjoined theirs, we could see through the windows to which each room belonged to. I in particular was exceptionally unhappy after that complaint. It meant that I was grounded from practicing my bowling in the house. One afternoon we noticed that the window of his room was opened. I climbed a tree to see whether he was in. Giving the all clear sign to my brother, we collected any moveable rubbish that we could find at the backyard and started throwing them through his window. Satisfied with our “revenge,” we cleared out of the area as fast as we could and quickly went home. We stayed with mum all the time. This was to create and ensure we had a fool-proof alibi. But she started getting suspicious as we never use to hang about with her.

As expected, all hell broke loose when he came back to his room. We could hear from our bedroom him shouting and swearing. We tried to stifle our giggling afraid that he would hear us. Not long thereafter, there was only silence. That was when I started to worry. Was he coming over to our house? I broke into cold sweat contemplating the punishment mum would lash out on me should the truth unfolded. I couldn’t trust my brother because he would act dumb. With my track record, I would always be perceived guilty even though I was innocent.

The waiting was taking its toll on me and I could feel my heart beating rapidly. The knocking on the front door made my heart stopped and I felt faint. I heared mum opening the door only to let in Aunty Cha who just came back from the clinic. The relief was exhilarating like a being reprieved from execution at the last hour. In fact, I did fell like a 'dead-man walking'. To end this part of the story, Mr. Jones never confronted us nor did we hear of any complains from him as to the subject matter. We noticed that he was more approachable after that incident as he would nod his head in acknowledgment of our greetings. About a month later, he even began talking to us and we realised that he was actually a nice person. Lesson learnt here was that we should have been more proactive in our relationship rather than reacting to his prim behaviour.

Bah planned a holiday for the coming summer to Dublin in Ireland. Before the trip we had a lot of fun playing with friends as it was the start of summer holidays. The college where we were, had a very big gym. We were allowed to play there most of the time. Most of the students would encourage us to use whatever equipment that we there.

One day, we saw a rope tied parallel to the floor about five feet above the ground. I came up with a wonderful idea of placing a trampoline and we would run and jumped on the trampoline. The idea was to catch hold of the rope. It was quite easy and most of us could do it. We increased the difficulty factor by moving the trampoline further away from the rope after each successful attempt. At a certain distance, all that tried before me couldn’t make it. I was determined that I should be the one to make a successful attempt. Taking a longer running length, full of concentration, I started for the jump. I could really feel that I had made a very high jump because I saw the rope was below my chest level. Although I got the height, I didn’t manage the distance. I fell awkwardly on the floor and felt excruciating pain on my left elbow. A student who was there at the time came over to help, but each time he touched my elbow it hurt a lot. He took me to the college clinic where the doctor after examining me, put a sling for the injured arm. He brought me home and told Bah that I would need to be taken to the hospital.

You should know Bah’s character by now. He was calm and very collected. Told me to change my clothes and then took me to the hospital in Wolverhampton, about an hour away by bus. Skipping the details, end result was that I had a chipped elbow. Serious enough for it to be on a sling for at 2 months but didn’t require to be casted.

Remember that planned trip to Dublin? Everyone went for the trip except me. I was left behind as I had to be checked by the college doctor every other day. That’s Bah for you. Nothing stopped his plans. I was left with a neighbour while they were away. What was worse than being left behind was that I had to be on my best behaviour all the time when staying with the neighbour. How I questioned the fairness of life!!!

Growing Up Part VII

2006-02-17T03:59:00.000+08:00

The time spent in the UK, to me was absolutely wonderful. English culture dictates that proper etiquette is a must at all time.

It’s not the done thing to dig your nose, especially in public. My brother used to have that “disgusting” habit. I gave up telling him this because whenever I did so, he would chase me with one finger up his nose and would wipe that same finger on my face if he ever managed catch me. I don’t have to say how many times he succeeded in doing just that! How he could run so fast with a finger up his nose was still something that amazed me till today. I was glad that he stopped the habit after he was made to see how disgusting it was. Our friends would mimic him each time we saw him doing just that. The four of us would stop doing whatever we were doing, and dug our noses whenever he did. I was apprehensive at first knowing what he was capable of doing to me. But I acquired the courage with strength in numbers. I am proud to have contributed in making him into one of the most respectable and distinguished gentleman in the country today :)

My dad had a young English friend by the name of Michael who visited us each time when he came over from London. One afternoon, mum had poured both of them a cup of piping hot tea, dad’s favourite, stirred with condensed milk. Michael commented that the best way to drink hot tea was to blow on the tea to cool it. Now my dad, not one who would forgo an opportunity to enlighten the uninitiated of our Malay culture, told Michael that he had a much better and more effective way, and proceeded to demonstrate. He lifted his cup from the saucer, poured his tea onto the saucer with such grace, not a single drop spilt because he dragged the bottom of the cup across the edge of the saucer, and with one hand holding on to the cup and the saucer filled with tea delicately balanced with his other, started slurping it. As I was there watching my dad with pride at his expertise, I could see the smile on Michael’s face turned into disgust. Of course my dad thought nothing of it and neither did I as I had seen him doing that many a times especially when he was in a hurry. So this young brain of mine started to analyse what it was that Michael found repugnant. Was it the use of the saucer to drink from or slurping loudly? I deduced that it must have been drinking the tea from the saucer! What a genius I was with that analytical mind of mine. So from that day on, I have never poured my drinks onto a saucer to drink, but I have been known to slurp now and then, particularly when the drink was piping hot!

Michael was quite a disciplinarian. One afternoon, Bah told me to take my bath. As I was watching a TV programme half way, I ignored him. Seeing this, Michael told me to do as what my dad told me to. I didn’t reply but instead gave him one of my infamous look that meant “mind your own business”. How was I to know that Michael was an expert interpreter of facial expressions? Without saying a word, he picked me up bodily and all, carried me out of the house and placed me right in the middle of our backyard. You may ask what was the big deal, right? The big deal was that the whole of our backyard was full of nettle weeds. If any part of exposed skin happens to come in contact with it, it stings like being bitten by insects. That part of your skin would swell, became sore and itched. It was quite a painful experience. At that age, I was always in my short pants and the weeds were so tall that it reached up to my thighs. Michael had no problem as he was wearing long pants.

I was hurting badly, but I didn’t want Michael to have the pleasure of seeing me cry or asking for help. Without further due consideration to the pain I was experiencing, I bravely (although stupidly) walked toward the high fencing at the back of the yard, ignoring the agony as I waded through the nettles. I climbed up the wire fence until such height that I was free from those nasty weeds. Thereon, I slowly edged laterally with the aim of climbing down at the border of our backyard where the nettle field ended. All the while, my back was facing our house. I knew Michael was watching me from inside the house, and I smirked to myself knowing that I had beaten him at his game. Just as I was about to jump down from the fence in triumph and glory, Michael, out of nowhere, grabbed me and plunked me down right to where I was before. I was absolutely furious, but with grit and determination, I did the same thing again. This time I was more watchful, looking around me to make sure he wasn’t around to snatch me again. I succeeded this time, and with a smile head held up high, walked back towards the house, with my legs swollen and the pain unbearable.

As soon as I opened the door, Michael was there standing tall, blocking my entrance. He asked whether I had learned my lesson and was willing to apologise. I have always been a person with very few words and suffer no fools. I just glared at him. After about a minute of this mexican standoff, he decided then that I wasn’t about to relent, and the next thing I knew, I was dangling from his shoulder and again ended up right in the middle of recent acquaintance, the dreaded nettle field. I knew that this time, I wasn’t going to win this battle with him. But I was adamant not to concede victory to him. I remained standing there. This was strategically sound as each time I moved, my new found friends would strike with vengeance.

I remained standing there for about more than an hour I guessed because it had started to get dark. Besides not yielding defeat to Michael, I had another sore issue to content with that didn't make my situation any better. It was my brother. Every now and then, he would stick his head out of the window from inside the house and grinned stupidly at me. I know that grin very well after living with him my entire life! It was the same grin wrapping his face every time that I was scolded, or caned by mum for one reason or another. Same grin when I fell and landed in a puddle of mud on the way to school. Yes, that same stupid, sickly and annoying grin when both of us were one day jumping on the bed pretending it was a trampoline. When it came to my turn, after only one jump, the bed broke with a loud cracking sound! I was still crumpled on the broken bed when in came mum into the room with a bewildered look on her face. My face on the other hand, blended nicely like a chameleon against the backdrop of the white bed sheet. My brother somehow, and until today I can’t imagine how he did it, was sitting on his own unbroken bed, reading a book just before mum entered the room! That grin simply meant, “better you than me!”

Sorry for digressing. Where was I? Oh, right, I was standing in the middle of the nettle field in sheer agony not only from the pain but also from that grin……OK lets not get into that grin business again else I start rambling on more examples when that grin materialised on his face! Eventually, as the sky got darker, I saw Michael walking toward me. Without saying a word, he picked me up, gently this time, and carried me across his arms just like a baby, back inside the house. He told to sit down on the sofa and not to move. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.

He came back shortly with a few green leaves from a tree he plucked outside our house. He folded one into a quarter, brought it up to his lips and spat on it. Then he started to wipe it on parts of my legs which were swollen most. I gaped at him in utter disgust and disbelief. This was the same gentleman who had looked revoltingly when my dad slurped his tea from the saucer with such grace and balance, but had thought nothing of swabbing his gross saliva all over my legs! Although I must admit the pain eased a bit when he did that.

When he was done, I stood up, still without a single word spoken, went to the bathroom and bathed. I had to! I wasn’t going to bed that night with all that saliva drying up on my legs. In the bathtub, I mused over the event of the whole afternoon. What a waste! It all started with me not taking my bath when Bah told me to, and here I was doing exactly just that with vigour, to get rid of Michael’s foul spit!

I must say that after that day, Michael and I became the very best of friends. He would come over or phoned to know how I was doing. Twice, he took just me to visit London where I stayed overnight at his flat after an enjoyable day. We both enjoyed classical music where he had a good collection in pad. I guessed that he respected me for showing grit and courage in adversity, and I too learnt to respect him for his sincerity, kindness and friendship.

So all ended up well and the episode closed on a much brighter note…..except for that grin……grrr!!!!

Growing Up Part VI

2006-02-16T10:10:00.000+08:00

At night in Karachi, Pakistan but did not have time to post this until I was back home.

We stayed in Malacca less than a year. Bah was transferred to the UK, in a village-town called Featherstone, near Wolverhampton.

By this time, Fizah was barely 2 or 3 years old. Mum was expecting again. Bah brought along my late aunt Hafzah, who was Bah’s younger sister. This aunt of mine was slightly sickly She was diabetic actually.

We flew by plane to the UK. Those days the planes were not able to fly non-stop. Our first stop was in Delhi, the second being Jeddah and only then did we arrived at Heathrow, London. It was a lovely autumn day when we touched down. There were no aero bridges in those day, so as we stepped down the plane, smoke seemed to come out with every breadth that I exhaled. I said casually that I was smoking, and mum upon hearing it, clipped my ears.

We were met at the airport by Bah's colleague and we took a train to Wolverhampton where a car brought us right up to Featherstone, where Brinsford College was located. It was one of the college where Malaysian to be teachers were trained. The other was Kirby Teachers Training College.

Our quarters was within the college compound. It was built with soft material walls liked temporary buildings. My brother and I shared a room with Aunty Cha while Fizah slept with Bah and mum.

Both Mail and I were enrolled in a school in the village. It would take us 20 minutes of walking through a farm to get there. As my last class was Standard 2, I was put in the 3rd year. Those days, my English vocabulary was not extensive. I didn’t do much reading then because it wasn’t called for back home.

One day, I was summoned to the Headmaster’s office where we talked. I think the sole purpose of that meeting was to gauge the extent of my vocabulary. He started to ask me a lot of questions like what I did at night, who my friends were etc. He asked me whether I liked cats. When I said yes, he asked whether I knew how a cat purrs. I thought purring was when cat sat and scratches behind their ears with their hind legs, like I’ve seen many a times. As I found it difficult to express my answer, he asked me to show it.

So I squatted with both hand resting in front of me on the floor. Then I tried to scratch my ear with my right foot. Naturally, I couldn’t actually do it, but as he was just looking at me without saying a word, I had to keep trying. As I was doing this, in came one of my classmate, a girl. Seeing me squatting on the floor, she stopped in her track, with a look of absolute astonishment. I stopped what I was doing feeling totally embarrassed, but was relieved when the Headmaster told me to sit back on the chair. He turned to the girl and asked her the same question. She immediately made a purring sound. My face reddened thinking not only how stupid I was but also how stupid I had looked in that position. I dreaded going back to class as I was very sure that my classmate would tell the whole class what she saw me doing.

The Headmaster gave me a couple of books and told me to read. As soon as I finished reading them, after returning them, he gave me more. I promised myself after that incident that I would never ever again be humiliated for not understanding simple English. I took up reading aggressively and with passion. My passion for reading has never diminished until today. My brother too started reading then and similarly like me, enjoys reading a lot.

There was another Malay family at the college, Mr. Badar, who had 2 boys and a girl. We became very close friends. As they were already there a year before, they the ones to show us the ropes. There were other English children as well there. It became like West Side Storey, 2 gangs of different races. We didn’t fight, but we were competitive, trying to out-do them in every way we can, in games, sports etc. Nevertheless we did get along fine together and in fact were good friends. Actually, I started learning the piano from one of their mother.

My brother started taking up the violin lessons taught by the music lecturer at the college. As I too wanted to learn to play the violin, Bah enrolled me as well. I was then learning both the violin and piano at the same time. After a year, the highlight of both our musical career was to play in the college orchestra. We played our violins in that 60 strong orchestra.

Practices were intimidating to me as any slight mistake made, the whole orchestra was stopped and we had to start from the beginning. I was the main culprit most of the time. With a lot of practices and determination, the day of our debut was finally at hand. Dressed smartly in a 3-piece suit, we all played flawlessly to a large and appreciative audience. I was sure that Bah was proud of us and he kept on taking pictures of us.

Being in the UK for 2 years was a wonderful and enriching experience. But I shall say more about it the next time.

Growing Up Part V

2006-02-05T17:21:00.000+08:00

One more night in Mumbai then I’m off to Karachi.

I started schooling at Ngee Heng Primary where my brother was already there a year earlier. My cousin Noh was also schooling there but he was already in Standard 6, last year of primary school. After only a year there, our family had to move to Malacca. Only this time, my Tok Bee and my aunts had to remain behind where a house was rented for them in Wadi Hassan.

They stayed in a small quarter with a living room, kitchen and a bedroom only. I didn't understand then why they couldn't come with us to Malacca, but I guessed it was because my aunts had to finish their schooling there. Comparatively, it was a notch lower than where we were before because the latrines were back to the bucket type and worsed still, you had to walk a distance to get there. Furthermore, it was a shared and common one for the people living around there.

Before Bah found a house for us in Malacca, we stayed in rented a room temporarily in a village house. It was a cultural shock for me because there were no running water. All the water that you would need, you have to get from a well. The well was in the bathroom, and it was deep and the water cold. I hated having to bath because the water was so cold no matter what time of day. There is a bucket tied to a rope. All you have to do is throw the bucket down the well, let it sink, and then you haul it up with the rope. Viola...you now have a bucket full clean icy cold water. I was always afraid that I might throw the bucket and rope together, then I would really be in trouble.

Apparently, unknown to us, we found out that the landlord (an elderly lady), was rumoured to be keeping a “polong”. This is an evil spirit that would do to all her bidding. Mum was especially frightened. So all of us kept to our best behaviour so as not to make the landlady displeased with us in any way, lest she did something to us with he "polong"…..

To all our relief, we eventually moved to a house near the town. It was nice and big for the 5 of us then.

New school meant new friends. Moving from one school to another can be such an emotional experience to someone as young as I was then. Losing old friends that you thought might never be met again, and joining a new class where each and everyone was a total stranger, can be quite daunting. Nonetheless, with time, you tend forget to miss the friends you had left when you now have new ones.

In Malacca, Bah usually travelled a lot visiting his students at schools around the state. During those times, we normally huddled together in the evening listening to our radio. Those days the radio was our main form of entertainment. Some times, there was a radio drama about ghosts. After that, all of us slept together in one room.

While we were in Malacca we had news that my grandfather, Tok Ali passed away. It was a sad news as it meant that I now only had grandmothers. (We never met our other grandfather as he passed away when my mum was still very young). We drove back in time before the burial. It was there that I noticed the large number of uncles, aunts and cousins. A lot of them I barely knew. Back home in Malacca, Bah would sit in his chair and just sat staring into space. At times, I noticed tears running down his cheeks. It made me sad to see him like that. I too started missing my late grandfather.

During one of Bah’s work away from home, our former landlady came and visited at the house. I knew mum was apprehensive but I think all of us kept our cool and pretence of acting normally without showing any signs of fear. She actually stayed quite a long while and when she eventually left, we felt relieved although still frightened. That same night, as I was lying in bed, I kept seeing flashing shadows moving quickly along the walls. I was too terrified to shout or move. Mum came into the room to check on us and saw me starring at the wall. She kept on saying something to me but I couldn’t hear nor understand what she was saying. Suddenly there was a loud knock at the front door. That made everyone jumped out of our skins. It also managed to wake me up from my stupor.

Nobody wanted to see who was at the door as it was the middle of the night. The knocking continued and we thought we heard Bah’s voice calling out to mum. Still we didn’t open the door because Bah was supposed to come home only tomorrow. The knocking stopped as suddenly as it started. We then heard footsteps coming closer to the openned window of my room where all of us were huddled together, shivering with fear. Suddenly, we saw Bah’s face sticking in from the window and we all screamed! Bah’s confused face was evident and asked why we were not opening the door for him. He said he came home as he had finished his work early. We ran to the door to open it. All of us were clinging to him and it made him confused. When mum told him who came earlier that day and what happened earlier to me just before he came home, he just smiled and said everything is ok. That's was Bah's way, always keeping a cool head.

My brother and I were enrolled in "madrasah" (a religious school), which we had to attend each afternoon after normal school. Our class consisted of students of varying age. I was the youngest and the oldest was maybe about sixteen. When classes were over, we had to wait for Bah to pick us up. Where we waited was a well. Now that we didn't have to use well water anymore, it nevertheless managed to capture my curiosity. One time, as I was looking down the well seeing my reflection, the "songkok" (headgear) that I was wearing felt down the well. I was too slow to catch it and saw it splashed in the water. It didn't sink but floated. One of the older classmate saw what happened. He had a quick look into the well, picked up the bucket with rope tied to it, threw it down, had another look before hauling up the bucket. Out came the bucket full of water but more importantly my songkok too. I thanked my classmate and tried to dry my songkok. Bah came and as soon as we got into the car, the first thing he asked was why I wasn't wearing my songkok. Before I could answer, my brother told him what happened. Bah told us to be careful around wells. I should lucky that the songkok fell instead of me! I was just dreading what mum was going to do to me when we got home.....

Growing Up Part IV

2006-02-05T16:33:00.000+08:00

Another night in Mumbai.

Back to 77 Jalan Storey, at the front there was a beautiful rock garden with a swing. Nearly all of us spent late afternoon there.

During our stay there, Bah had to go to Hawaii, where he was posted for a few months at the university. During that time mum started to learn to drive. By the way, Bah had changed his car to a “Hillman". Gone was my favourite indicator. One of Bah’s students, Ayob by name, was mum's driving instructor. She normally goes off for a couple of hours every alternate day for her lessons. My brother and I always checked the car for scratches after her lessons. Although we couldn’t find any, but it used to rile mum up when we did this.

My time in the early fifties, had no such thing as kindergartens. As Bah had many good friends in the education department, he managed to enrolled me in a normal school one year before I was supposed too. As the norm, being in a school environment the first day was daunting, but I got by that day ok except for one thing. While waiting for Bah to pick me up, I had the urge to pee, but I didn’t know where the toilet was. Naturally, I just peed in my pants! Mum found out when she took my school uniform. It was embarrassing especially when my brother made a big deal out of it.

It was at this house that a new addition to the family came about. Fizah was born on the morning of Eidil Fitri. Everyone was very happy that we now have another baby sister. Bah also mentioned that the 3 of us actually were borne on significant dates of the Muslim calendar, my brother on 1st Muharam, I on Maulud Nabi and Fizah on Eidil Fitri.

I remembered a number of incidents in that house, none were pleasant to say. One evening, I saw mum and Bah were getting ready to go out. So I went up to mum at her dressing table where she was combing her hair and asked where they were going. They were getting ready to go to a wedding dinner. Of course, I felt like wanting to go too, but they said no. I started whining wanting to go. Somehow mum lost her temper and hit me on the head with her brush that she was combing with. It was one of those types that had metal spikes sticking to it like porcupines. Although it didn't hurt, I was stunned. Then I saw the look of horror on mum’s face. She looked at her brush and I too saw that at least 4 of those spikes were missing. Feeling my head where I was hit, I felt the missing spike there stuck in my head! Mum started to cry that brought Bah came over to have a look. After checking my head he casually told me to get dress as I am going with them.

Now I was quite confused. We were going to a wedding dinner and me with metal spikes sticking out of my hair. During dinner at the wedding, I noticed the guests sitting opposite us stole glances at me oddly. I think they were too polite to ask Bah why I had metal spikes sticking out of may head. Bah & mum didn't offer any explanation too. I just kept up my head up trying to reduce the sight of the spikes. After dinner was over, we left and Bah brought me to the hospital where my Uncle Kadir was already waiting. Uncle Kadir is a serious man, and he just looked at me and started pulling the spikes one by one. Then he gave me a jab, which I presumed was a tetanus shot. I kept a brave and courageous front, not whining or even crying all that time. In actual fact, I was terrified that mum would hit me on the head again!

Another time, the whole family went for an outing to Kota Tinggi waterfalls. In those days, to get to the waterfalls, we had to walk a distance along stone and pebble paths. Being too excited, I accidently tripped and felled onto the pebble path right on my chin. It bled quite badly enough that Bah applied a bandage from chin to my head. He did this so tightly that I could not open my mouth. I think I looked really weird then, but nevertheless thereafter, all of us merrily continued our progress to the waterfalls. We spent the whole afternoon there with everyone swimming, climbing and eating, having a great time. Poor me just kept sitting watching everyone else having fun. I was afraid the water would increase the pain to my injured chin. Besides that pain, I was also suffering form acute hunger pain. This was because of the bandage! I couldn't open my mouth because of the bandage. Bah offerred to remove it so that I could eat, but I was afraid it might start bleeding again. All in all, it was really a disastrous outing for me. We all walked back to the car later that evening. On the way back, Bah stopped at the polyclinic where I had to have 6 stitches, as well as another tetanus shot. Today, if you looked carefully, you can still see the scare under my chin.

I learnt from these 2 incidences that Bah was always cool and never one prone to panic. More importantly, I learnt that he would not let anything, like spikes on my head or torn chin, to postpone or cancel his planned activities. So growing up with him can be so wonderful if he had anything planned, provided you are not involved in any untoward incidences like I did. This would not be the last time though, but I will tell you about them in later episodes.....

Growing Up Part III

2006-02-05T15:41:00.000+08:00

Sorry. It’s been more than a month now since I last posted. Anyway, I'm writing this in middle of the night in Mumbai.

Now where was I? Our family moved to a large government bungalow, where my late grandma and aunts moved in with us as well. I still remembered the address as 77 Jalan Storey, because years later, when TV was available, there was an American detective series call 77 Sunset Strip. Today that house is now part of a highway. I had many good memories of that place, although that was the last time we stayed together as a large family.

The house was very much larger than the one before, with long corridors running along both sides of the house. Ok, maybe it wasn’t that big, but as a 5 year old, it seemed huge to me. The compound was surrounded with big trees and one of those trees grew “buah susu”, I don’t actually know other names it goes by. But this tree was infested with tiny ants. The only person who would ever climb it was Subramaniam. He stayed at a small quarter to the back of our house with his family. Each time when he climbed back down, I could see his body was full of ants crawling all over and even running about his face. It used to freak me out then because he would pretend wanting to hug me!

At night if you were to look out, it was quite scary because of the huge trees around it. Right across the road was a rubber estate, not anymore today. So letting your imagination run….. Now whenever I was being punished by my aunt, she would carry me to the end of the corridor at night in the dark and left me there. It always freaked me out because it was dark with creepy shadows dancing along the walls made by moving branches of trees under moonlight. The only reason that I didn’t pee in my pants was because my brother would run up to get me. It was one of those times that we would have some form of understanding. Perhaps he was expecting me to do the same if he were ever in that situation.

We had a “grand” radio then in house. It is a radio as large as a cabinet with two large speakers at its sides and a record player. It was a very technologically advanced set for that period. You can actually stacked 45rpm vinyle records on top of the other on the shaft. Then one would automatically slide down onto the turntable, and the needle would swing on to it to play. The wonder of technology! Why do I remember this? Quite some time back (this was perhaps maybe 10 years ago) my colleagues and I were in a hotel lounge where the music playing were oldies. An instrumental song came up next, and my colleague turned to me and asked whether I know the number. I answered without hesitation that it was “Apache” by the Shadows. He looked at me in such a funny way that I asked what’s wrong. He said “Ahmad, you must be very old!! That song was either late 50's or early 60's.

How I would know was simple. I had my aunts with me who were teenagers then. They had bought and played those records by The Shadows, Cliff Richards, and Elvis Presley and so on. Those artists were the IN thing those days (hey, late 50s to early sixties ok!). Even today, if you want me to belt out Its Now Or Never, or The Young Ones, I could do that, no problem at all.

At the back of the house there were 3 rooms. These were sub-let to Bah’s students. One was Syed, another Ismail and the last was Sharum. Syed as a joker, very articulate and easy going. It was from him that my brother and started learning to read the Quran.

Ismail was quiet and artistic. In his room were many different types of instruments. Guitar, bongo, accordion, flutes etc. Yes, he was a musician. Sharum was studious. He ended up as the political secretary to Hussein Onn the former Prime Minister.

The students of the college where Bah was Principal, wanted to put up a drama to be staged to the public. It was called”Si Bongkok Tanjung Puteri” a true legend in South Johore. Syed was the main actor. They had their rehearsals at the house almost every alternate night until the show was staged. The show was a tremendous success. Attending the premier, I knew exactly who would die and when etc. It was great!!

Sometime later I attended another stage show staged by a girl's school. I remembered that show because during the fighting scenes when someone was stabbed with the "kris", I actually thought that it was real! I had nightmares thereafter for quite some time. Reason being that the show staged by Bah’s students, I knew that it was just play acting, because they get up every time after getting “killed.” The other show, I didn’t know that it was a play acting…imagination of a 5 year old!

Growing Up Part II

2005-12-10T15:34:00.000+08:00

My grandmother whom we called Tok Bee, was of Dutch parentage. She was came to this country from Indonesia when she was 9 years old and married my grandfather when she was 12. Blessed with 3 daughters, eldest being my mom, and the others are 2 lovely and beautiful aunts. She also had an adopted daughter, whom my grandfather adopted to look after her.

Tok Bee and my 3 aunts stayed withing walking distance from our house. My brother and I sometimes stayed there overnight there. Where they lived, a large monsoon drain ran along the main road. Eac time when there was a heavy downpour, the whole area were flooded. I used to love it when it flooded, because it was fun to see everyone hoping about trying to retrieve whatever their belongings that floated away.

The latrines back then used the bucket system. Night soil workers would come in the dead of night to take the loaded buckets and replaced with empty ones. They would do this late in the night because I think that they would be very unwelcomed otherwise. You can imagine the stench that followed the workers and the lorries were too unbearable for us mortals. But I had a feeling that the main reason was that they didn't want to be caught replacing the buckets when someone was still using the latrine. That kind of shower, they can do without!

Coming back to the flooding. When the water level started to rise, you could see people chasing and securing those buckets. Some even floated away quite fast and you have to very quick, in calf-deep water, to catch it. The thing that puzzled me until today was how in the world could they recognise their own buckets, loaded or unloaded? Anyway, I can safely rationalise the reason for their anxiety. One was that if the bucket was lost, they have to replace it. The problem with this was how to use the latrines in the meantime. Secondly, was more of being good neighbours. I was very sure no one wanted a fully loaded bucket drifting quitely into their living room or kitchen!

Using wooden clogs were the norm in those days. In the floods, these clogs were like fast patrol boats floating along, twisting and turning as the water took them. I think I wasn't the only one who enjoyed the flooding. I noticed the Chinese shop down the road did roaring business selling those wooden clogs after each flooding.

Growing Up

2005-12-10T11:09:00.000+08:00

Asdea is actually the first alphabets of the names of my family, i.e. Ahmad, Sue (my wife), Diarna & Elinn (my daughters) and Alann (my son).

My father passed away peacefully on the 1st December 2005, about a year after my mother's demised. It's when someone who was an important part of your life is gone that you start to recall the times we had together. Such is the case now for me. Perhaps, in reading this, my children can relate to the experiences of my growing up. As to my siblings, what I write is basically the way as I saw it.

I grew up with my siblings, my brother Ismail, who is 11 month older than I am. We all called him Mail (pronounced as Maa-ale). I knew that he was my parents blue-eyed boy being the eldest. Perhaps when I came along too soon for them,where instead of relishing the joys of parenthood with your first-born, another one came along. I can imagine that joy turning into a nightmare, double the nappy changes, one crying after the other at night.....

Nevertheless, as far as I can recall, both my brother and I constantly fought (sometimes literally) for our parents' attention. Actually it was more me than him. Where normally parents make the elder sibling give way to the younger, with my brother and I, it was normally the other way round.

How far back can I remember? Well, perhaps as a 4 year-old, living close by to my late grandmother (on my mum's side) and my paternal grandparents. At that time, my father (whom we all affectionaltely called him "Bah", short for Abah) was driving a Moris Minor, you know the type where the indicator props up simulating actual hand signals. It was a very popular car then, this being in the late 50s.

I loved getting around in that car. My favourite position was sitting at either window side so that I can see the indicator propped up. If it didn't, on my father's cue, I just give a slight knock and it would flick up. If it didn't go down, then I would push it back in. How joyful it was until one day, anticipating that it would not go down, I gave it a hearty push. It came together with a sickening cracking sound. My dad asked what was the sound and with my face white as sheet, answered meekly that it was the right indicator. He tried the indicator switch, but it didn't work, not even with a hard knock at it. Alas, it had gone limped. Of course my brother, never one who missed opportunities, started to tease me, which made me cry. My dad said sternly that since I broke it, then I must use my hand to make the turn signal upon his instruction. I guessed Bah being an educator, knew child-psychology because it was a task that I delighted in very much. So each time that he had to drive the car, I was made to go with him as the right-hand side indicator. You can imagine how sad I was when he got that broken indicator repaired.

Bah grew up with siblings, which you would need more than 2 hands to count. It was a very large family. Each time we visited my grandfather, the first thing that he did was to take me and my brother to the shop down the road. There he would buy whatever we wanted. We were in fact his favourite grandchildren. If he got into Bah's car, he would sit in the front passenger seat, a place of honour. I would be in the front with him as well, not sitting on his lap but standing in between the seat and the door. Either I was really small then or the cars were made differently then.

Welcome to my blog

2005-12-03T14:38:00.000+08:00

Hi,
I'm just starting up this blog.

I would basically like to reminisce of the life when growing up. The persons that I remember and love, my parents, grandparents, siblings and family members.

I shall start soon.

Asdea