Growing Up Part VI

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.