To my dear family members, especially the third generation of Tok Ayah’s clan please accept my profound apologies for not updating this blog sooner. I’m sure that you have been waiting for this a long time and perhaps too long now that you may have given up.
The house where we stayed in Telok Anson was off the main road. Where the lane to our house met the main road, directly opposite was a toddy centre. In those days, the government set up toddy centres where the public can enjoy their toddy drinks duty free. They must however drink only within the centre. Basically, these centres were frequented mainly by local Indian who worked in the plantations. It was the cheapest means to get intoxicated.
It was a favourite past time for me to sit at the junction and watch the drama that occurred almost daily. What I meant was that when some of customers had too much toddy in them, the dramas were so entertaining. At times, there were quarrels, although I had never seen anyone hit or hurt one another. One day, a quarrel brewed up between two Indians. The shouting match lasted quite a while such that a crowd started forming around them. I guessed encouraged by the crowd, one of them took hold of a small tree branch and tried to break it off. I’m sure that he wanted to use that branch as a weapon to hit the other. The funny part was that he, with tongue hanging out, kept on tugging at the branch, but the branch refused to break off. With one desperate tug, instead of the branch breaking, he lost his grip and fell. It wasn’t a nasty fall, but when he hit the ground, he didn’t get up. Surprisingly, the other guy was the first to attend to him, trying to wake him up, even slapping his face a few times. Finally he stood up, turned to the crowd and with a smile on his face said that the guy was totally drunk. He then lay down beside the fallen guy, closed his eyes and until I left much later, both of them were still asleep. More entertaining than a Tamil movie....
Along the main road was a large monsoon drain. It’s contained muck, dark, dirty and smelled horrible. I used to laugh my head off whenever one of the drunks fell into the drain, which happened often. They would crawl out with the black slimy muck stuck to their bodies and hair, and they smelled like you can’t imagine. At one time, I laughed so loud and hard that a drunk who had just fallen in the drain, got up and started walking towards me with his hands out-stretched. Not wanting to wait for the outcome of that, I ran back as fast as I could, went into the house and sneaked a look thorugh a window to see if he was till following me. Bah asked me what I was up to and I told him a drunk was chasing me. Bah laughed at that but mum gave me a stern look. Mum always suspected I was up to something mischievous.
I always believe that life is fair.
One afternoon, instead of walking, I cycled to the junction looking forward to what comedy was to unfold that day. As I was to about stop the bike, I wanted to rest my left foot on the culvert’s wall whilst still on the bike. Somehow, not knowing even today why, I missed my footing, and together with my bike, fell into the monsoon drain. A few of the “drunks” came over to help me out. One pulled me out while another retrieved the bike. I wasn’t physically hurt, in fact not even a scratch. What hurt most was my ego and self esteem, especially as I was pushing the bike back home, I could hear their laughter ringing in my ears. Not only was I their afternoon’s comedic drama, I now had to find ways to get back into the house without mum being any wiser. So instead of going in, I went to the back of the house where there was a water pipe, which was used to water mum’s plants and orchids. I hosed myself clean, and then the bike. Musn't leave any tell tale evidence. Now I was clean but totally wet from head to toe in full clothing, and I suspected that the smell was still lingering. I couldn’t find any soap around to really get rid of the smell. Can’t be helped I told myself. Right, the next thing I had to think about was how to explain to mum, in case I got caught, as to why I was wet in full clothing on a sunny afternoon. I ame up with a good plan. I started to begin watering the plants around the house, which would normally be a chore done later in the evening when the sun was not so hot. I had to take that risk because mum would scold us if we water the plant when it was too hot. As the water hose got nearer to the main entrance, where mum would normally be sitting in the lounge, I pointed the water hose up towards a small tree so that the water will drop down onto me. Everything was working to plan. Smiling to myself thinking how clever I was, I kept on pointing the hose up to the tree. From the corner of my eyes, I could see mum looking at me, albeit with a certain bewilderment in her eyes. Just as I thought that it would be enough to convince her I got wet because of this, suddenly, a nest full of red ants fell on top of my head. My whole hair and face was crawling with red ants that started biting me like on every exposed skin I had on my body. I reacted by chucking the water hose and started flapping the red ants off. Of course I it made worse by antagonising the ants, hence more firece bites resulted. While being preoccupied flapping and jumping about like a gorilla, suddenly I felt a strong jet of water all over me. I opened my eyes slightly only to see mum was hosing me down. In fact, it helped to get rid of the ants from me. It was quite smart and quick thinking of her that. When it got to be tolerable, I took the hose from mum and hosed myself thoroughly, even down into my pants until I was sure that I was clear of the ants.
During all this, mum was looking at me with amusement, a slight smile on her face, but I suspected it was more snickering rather. Without fail she had to ask why I was watering the tree in the first place not to mention her plants. I couldn’t answer her nor did I want to less I had to unravel the whole sequence of events which I wanted to hide from her in the first place. I mumbled something incoherent, and said I need the bathroom. This was true because I not only wanted to clean myself, but more importantly to check in private for any more red ants crawling where they shouldn’t be.
Trying to be clever to hide the facts from mum, I ended up with spots all over my face and body from the red ants’ bites. What a sight I was the next day in school. I was the butt for jokes from my classmates since I was too embarrassed to tell them what actually happened. So they speculated the reasons themselves much to their amusement, laughter and snickers about. Dindn't make it better when even the teachers tried to hide their smiles. But to me, the best part of it all was that I actually managed to hide the fact from mum, although not exactly as planned. Another happy thought was that my brother wasn’t there to witness the incident, but since I couldn’t hide the bite marks that became more evident later, mum told everyone during dinner that night. Agonising…….
Life is fair. Where the "drunks" had given me much entertainment, I ended up entertaining them instead.
Did I stop going for my afternoon entertainment the next afternoon? Not really. I went there, and some of them although already intoxicated, could still remember me from the incident the day before. But they were puzzled as to the spots on my body and asked why. I answered with a straight face that the doctor told me the muck from the drain caused my skin to break out into spots. On hearing this, a commotion broke out, each telling the other whoever cared to listen, to be very careful not to fall into the drain less the break out with spots all over their bodies like the boy did….see, sometimes you can make your own drama……
