Growing Up Part XV

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”……..