Growing Up Part XIII

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

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.