Growing Up Part V

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.....