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.