Growing Up Part XIX

 Assalamualaikum. My last story was in 2010. That was 12 years ago. If I kept procrastinating, may be someone will start writing about me!

Finally after four long years in Telok Anson (Teluk Intan now), Bah received his transfer notice to move to Tanjong Malim as Principal of Maktab Perguruan Sultan Idris. Today it is known as Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris (UPSI).

Tanjong Malim is not that far from Teluk Anson. As the norm when we have to move, my mom became the chief in getting things organised. Like a general, she put us mere soldiers to hard work. 

All glass wares were to be wrapped in newspapers and arranged in boxes carefully. What I don't understand was that each time we moved, it seemed that we had more items than before. Bah's task was to organised the orchids that he wanted to bring along.

Finally we were ready. All the stuffs were boxed up. It took 2 large train box carriages filled to the brim to be transported to Tanjong Malim.

It was decided that my brother and I were to stay and continue our schooling in Teluk Anson. Bah arranged this with the headmaster who provided us with a boarding facility near the school. My brother had completed the LCE and would continue to Form 4 there, whilst I would be in Form 3. So what was needed for us both was to be put at the hostel.

Both my brother and I were excited to be away from home on our own for the first time. Although we were free of my mum's firm and fierce supervision, we were also not looking forward to be under the care of Brother Damien, our headmaster, who was known to be a hard task-master. Such was life for us. Out of the frying pan and into the fire!

Bah promised to get us over the weekends to Tanjung Malim. Guessed that would helped us with the laundries and home cooked meals.

The house allocated to Bah was a huge double storey bungalow. We moved to Tanjong Malim but had to stay at the Guest House (a hotel mainly for government employees, in those days). Our stuffs arrived by train and were transported to the house. We couldn't move into the house yet as it was being renovated and painted. So we had to stay in the Guest House for at least a week.

An unhappy incident occurred to me whilst we were there. Before this, as a present to my brother and I, Bah bought for my brother a new watch. I however was given the watch that my brother had. Such is the fate of the second borned! But I was over the moon because I never had a watch before. It was a good one, a Seiko. I loved it, wearing it all the time and wind it up when needed. Those days watches were manual if you guys and imagine.

One morning, my brother and I with Bah's gardener from Teluk Anson (Bah brought him along to help us with the moving) went to our new house to have a look. It was our first time to see it. During our visit, there were three other workers from JKR, (Public Works Department) inspecting the place too.

It so happened that I needed to use the toilet. The first thing I did was to remove my precious  watch and placed it on the sink while I did my business. When done, coming out of the toilet, the 3 JKR guys were outside. They wanted to inspect the toilet. So I left to join my brother.

All three of us went outside to look at the huge garden. We were so thrilled that beside our garden was a beautiful stream. The water was clear and clean. It was not shallow nor too deep. My brother and I knew that we could swim there any time when we were here. After that we left to go back to the Guest House.

Upon arriving at the Guest House, I realised that I had left my watch at the toilet. Without much hassle I asked the gardener to take me back to the house to get my watch. My brother was already shaking his head.

When we got there, the 3 JKR workers were still there. I rushed up to the toilet to get my watch. To my horror it was not there. Even after searching the toilet thoroughly, I still couldn't find it. I ran to the gardener and told him that it was missing. The only possibility was that one of the 3 JKR worker had taken it. So I asked the gardener to inquire with the 3 guys as to whether they had seen my watch and kept it for me. The gardener told me that the guys said they had not seen my watch. I was horrified. It meant that they had stolen it. I told the gardener to search them,. But he didn't want to. He told me we should go back. Reluctantly we went back to the Guest House.

I was in a state of melancholy, but more that that I was in state of trepidation. What was I going to tell my mom and Bah? It was an expensive watch. My mind went wild with anticipation of the disaster that was to befall on me. 

Upon reaching the Guest House my brother was there waiting for us. So I had to tell him what transpired with the backing of the gardener. Surprisingly, my brother was sympathetic, a bit out of character, but well appreciated by me. It was he that suggested that I should tell Bah first when he came back from the College.

Waiting for Bah to come home, the time passed agonisingly slowly. I still remembered the time I lost my overcoat in England. That was bad, but this could be worse.

Finally, Bah came back, and I gathered whatever courage I had left to approach him. I had to do this before he went to the room. If he had done so, then I had to face both him and mom. The latter was whom terrified me most.

Together with the gardener and my brother I told him what happened. After listening to me, he talked a bit with the gardener. He then went to the room without saying another word. I was downcast. Bah must be angry with me and disappointed. I felt very sad in letting him down.

That evening we met was for dinner. Immediately upon sitting down mom started berating how careless I was, how expensive the watch was and of course she brought up all the similar old events emphasising my carelessness. However I noticed that her tone was more admonishing than angry. I realised that it must have been Bah that had told mom about the theft and it was probably due to theft rather than my carelessness. That's my Bah. He did not want to escalate the situation to put blame on others. He could have had made a police report, but he let it go, not wanting the thief to get into big trouble. After all it was only a watch. No one was injured or hurt in this matter. I know for a fact that it that were to be the case, he would be the first to take the most sternness action possible to protect his family. I thank Allah that night that I was let off, but most of all to that Allah for having such wonderful parents. However, on the downside, my parents never bought me a watch ever again!!!

So I never wore one until many years later when my brother gave me his Omega Seamaster watch. He was already in the army for quite sometime then. But the watch strap couldn't latch. He told me to get repaired. When he bought the watch it would have cost him about RM 3000. By the time he gave to me, a new one would cost about RM 13,000. Wow! So I went to an Omega service centre and enquired about replacing the strap. It would cost me RM 500 to replace it. Not wanting to pay an amount that would have gotten me a new good watch, I went to a local watch shop and had a cheap strap put on it.

I used it for a year or so. Happy to finally have a watch. But during one of my sister's wedding, after the event the next day, I was helping to put the rented chairs onto a lorry. When it was done and the lorry drove away, while sitting down having coffee with my cousin Abang Noh, I realised my watch was missing from my wrist. I searched the whole place thoroughly on the ground where I had been before. Alas without any positive result. I concluded that while I was passing the chairs onto the lorry, the strap could have gotten loose and the watch flew up the lorry together with the chairs. I had to accept the fact that that watch was gone for ever. So until today whatever watches that I had and wore, never cost me more than RM 50. I always bought counterfeits. It'll last me about 2 or 3 years. When it stopped working, I'll get another cheap one.

Now back to the time in Tanjong Malim.

A day after the incident, my brother told mom about the river behind our new house and asked whether we could go for a swim. Surprisingly she agreed. She brought along food and stuff. There she laid a towel to sit under a shaded tree and watch us swim. We had a great time. Like a picnic, we ate when we got hungry. After a long while mom told us we had to get back to the Guest House. I guessed mom wanted to give a treat before we went back to Teluk Anson.

Another two more days the house will be ready and we could move in. Unpacking was to be as tiring as packing. Once all had settled down, my brother and I would have to go back to Teluk Anson. We both had mixed feelings by then. Being in Tanjong Malim with a big house, a place to swim, a huge garden we could make use of (which we couldn't in Teluk Anson due to the cobras) could be a joy to us. On the other hand, being on our own in Teluk Anson was also an experience we didn't have. Events were to unfold that we would neither experience being in Tanjung Malim nor be on our own at the hostel.

That evening, Bah came back with a smile on his face. Patted us on the head as he headed to his bedroom, without saying a word. During dinner, we saw both Bah and mom were in a good mood. Finally Bah said he had good news for us all.

He had received a telegram earlier that day (for those of you who don't know what a telegram is, it is an urgent message sent to someone via the post office. Telegrams would be delivered to the receiver directly by a postman any time of day or night. Sometimes even policemen would deliver the telegram. Normally people dread to receive one because it would usually be to inform someone of bad news). In our case it was good news. Bah's transfer to Maktab Perguruan Sultan Idris was changed to the Day Training Centre for teachers as Principal in Johor Bahru.

It was a dream transfer for both Bah and mom. Finally they are back to JB where we can all be together with our Tok Bee and aunts as well as my beloved little sister Faridah.

The next few days were hectic. We had to reload all the stuffs in the house to the train. But before that Bah brought my brother and I back to Teluk Anson to get the stuffs we left at the hostel. Also it was an opportunity for us to finally say our good byes to our teachers and friends.

Bah's car, his Peogeot 403 was also put into the train. We were to go to JB by train, First Class compartments.

So that ends our episodes in Perak. We were finally back in JB. No more long Hari Raya trips to go back there.

Bah found a house in Jalan Haron, Kampung Bahru, not far away from 24 Jalan Dapat where he grew up in. My brother and were enrolled in English College, Bah's former school and also where he used to teach. My sisters went the the Convent School at Jalan Yahya Awal, close by the house where Tok Bee used to stay (remember the house that during a flood we had to ensure our trompahs and toilet bin didn't float away).

Once school started, where we could walk to school, I found that there were some of my old classmate from Ngee Heng where I had attended Primary 1.

Our life in Jalan Haron will be the next topic for me to talk about. Until then.

Wassalam.

Growing Up Part XVIII

10 Jul 2010 New Delhi.

When was it that I made my last posting? I am not proud to say that it was posted in early February of 2008. We are now in the 2^nd quarter of 2010. Many events had happened that signalled my father’s grandchildren have come of age. My daughter was married last November. My sister’s son too was married and her daughter will follow suit end of this month. The family’s 3G (3^rd generation) are increasing and growing up.

On the 2G front, the eldest of my family, i.e. my brother had officially retired. So would eventually my other siblings who are working. I being in Singapore should retire by age 62, which is quite a while still :) All this leads to the shift towards the 3G taking up where we the 2G would soon take a back seat. My prayers and best wishes to all of my children, nephews and nieces in that they will enjoy every success in what they do and lead a happy and prosperous life.

I am going to stop apologising for not writing in this blog as frequently as you would like. However, I do promise to try to finish my story of growing up soon. It is only about less than 10 years to go. As I said from the beginning that I will stop once the chapter of my story reached to point before I married your Aunty Sue.

Telok Anson episodes provided more stories to tell simply because that was the place where we stayed the longest at any one place. In this part I would like to tell you about the friends we made there, not so much of school friends, but those that spent time with us that had entrenched themselves in my memory forever.

Remember I told you earlier that our Quran reading teacher stayed very close by? Well she had a son of our age. He was very gentle and soft spoken but quite naïve in many ways. Mainly he was very timid. His name was Sharul.

The next one was Saw Swee Leong. He was my brother’s classmate. He eventually became our adopted brother. Let me tell you how this came about.

One day my brother invited him to our house after school. He spent time with us doing homework, playing outside the house and even helped us doing the chores of gardening and watering the plants. Came the evening, he stayed for dinner. After dinner, he didn’t make a move to go home until my father told him to stay the night with us. He happily slept on the floor in our room.

From that day onwards, during our years in Telok Anson, he stayed with us more than at his own home. As you should know Tok Ayah’s character by now, he had quietly met Swee Leong’s parents. What transpired he never did tell us except to mention that he had met them. But after that so called meeting, he was always concerned about Swee Leong as he was with us. If Swee Leong didn’t come home, you would ask us where he was or why was he late for dinner and so on.

You now try to imagine that our house had basically 4 boys most of the time, although Sharul very seldom stayed overnight, whilst Swee Leong did go home once in a while. With 4 boys in the house you would expect a lot of rowdiness, but in fact the only rowdiness that occurred were the times when my brother and I had arguments which at times we ended up fighting. Swee Leong was always the one that intervened to stop our fights while Sharul would be crying. Neither of them took sides in our altercation. Good of them.

As there were always 4 of us, we took up playing badminton more seriously. We made a court at the front lawn ourselves using used engine oil for the lines and two poles planted into the ground for the net. Mum didn't like it that much as we had to move some of her potter plants elsewhere.

We played badminton almost everyday and at times after lunch when Tok Ayah went back to his college, we followed him so we could play at a proper court there.

Now I going to reveal to you something about Tok Ayah that you may not know. When we started playing badminton at our own court, Tok Ayah while doing his gardening would at time glanced at us playing and made comments what we should do or pointing our the mistakes we made. We all knew that he was an ardent badminton fan especially during the Thomas Cup when he would not only be glued to the TV but was highly animated (jump ing up and down if Malaysia won a match, and showing deep concern if we lost). We never thought that he could play very well until one afternoon he stopped his gardening and came to our court and took my racket saying he would show us the right techniques.

Our jaws dropped almost reaching the floor when he showed the strokes like changing your grip for a backhand to give more power, slicing the shuttle to drop shot instead of gently pushing the shuttle like we did. Slight cuts for net play, proper way to lob and smash, he had all the techniques which we never had or knew because we were happy just to get the shuttle over the net.

Swee Leong asked about his badminton skills, and he said he used to play when younger. OK, we were not that impressed by that because in Malaysia almost 80% played badminton as it was the only game where we were world champions. But then he mentioned that he played together with Billy Ng and his sister Sylvia Ng, and also with Hashim Haron. You may too young to know who these people were, but Hashim Haron was the Johor singles champion and together with Billy Ng were Thomas Cup singles players. His sister, Sylvia, if you checked the records was the gold medal winner of the Commonwealth Games. He sheepishly said that he had at one time represented Johor. He thought we would not believe him, but we did because I had never know Tok Ayah to ever tell a lie.

From that day on, we always tried to get him to play with us. Sometimes he did but most of the time he preferred to do his gardening. But Swee Leong was the one who always went to him for advice on his strokes, why his slice didn’t cross over the net etc.

Eventually, the 4 of us got to quite good at the game and we started playing against teams that were willing. Sometimes we lost but we won more than we lost. The ranking then was my brother being the best, followed by Swee Leong, and then it was me and lastly Sharul. Sharul wasn’t that serious and also he was quite meek. Nonetheless, as a team, my brother would almost always win the first singles and Swee Leong the second singles. Sharul and I played at doubles, which I can say we lost most of the time, but because the 2 singles were won, we would win the match overall 2 to 1.

I tend to lose to my brother all the time. It was easier to lose than to win because he was such a sore loser. Swee Leong on the other hand could not accept if I won against him. He would insist on playing another game until he won. Again, I found it much easier to lose to those 2 guys.

It was really sad that we lost contact of each other after we left Telok Anson for some time. Many years later, we always saw the name Saw Swee Leong in the newspaper who was the number one player for Malaysia then. Until today I am still wondering whether he was the same person whom we grew up together. I am still interested to know but do not know how. That champion Saw Swee Leong, was also from Telok Anson, Perak which perhaps was not just a coincidence. If he were in fact the same person, then my brother and I could tell all of you, like your Tok Ayah told us, that we had played badminton together with the national champion…….

I had a classmate then, Ramakrishnan, who eventually became the national hockey team captain. This I could say that I played together with him :)

Eventually, before we left, Swee Leong told us about his family. His father worked as a mechanic for the town bus company staying in a small quarters at the bus depot. He had many siblings and his house was really crowded. I understood then why he preferred to stay with us. It was in fact my honour and privileged that he did so. He was not only a very good friend to my brother and I, he was also a good brother to my two sisters who were still quite young at that time. Also mostly he was a good adopted son to your Tok Ayah and my mum, humble, attentive, obedient and hard working. Not all the traits that my brother and I had together at those times.

Sharul on the other hand, was the creative one. Weak in his studies, but I had never seen anyone that could draw and paint as perfectly as he could. He was also into listening to music and could sing any current songs any time we asked him to. The problem was once wstarted, we found it difficult to get him to stop, especially during study time. He would stop when my mum shouted from her room to stop the singing and start the studying. We always laughed when that happened because not only that he stopped even at half a vowel, his facial expression of fear was something that really tickled us knowing how timid he was. But they were good times then when after our Isya prayers and dinner, we would sit outside at the balcony the 4 of us and sometimes joined Sharul in the songs he sang, even Swee Leong. But being a Quran teacher’s son, the whole family would sit quietly listening to him reciting the Quran with such accuracy and beautiful melody. Mum would always ask him to continue when he wanted to stop, Sharul being Sharul never disappointed her. Perhaps he was afraid to but I never told him so.

Although we did have many other friends during our time in Telok Anson, Swee Leong and Sharul were more than friends; they were in fact our brothers. If only the means of communication then were like today, we would never have lost touch with each other. Letter writing was the norm then, but over time, we stopped. I would say the fault was mainly mine, or that we all had new friends by then that although not forgetting the old ones, the priority was lesser for them. It was sad that it happened that way, so I would advice all you 2G & 3G, never ever to lose a friend. Keep in contact, which in today technology, distance and time are never a factor.

One more person that came into our lives during our time there was an uncle. He was my mum’s step brother. He resided further up north on the highway to Penang. Unfortunately, this uncle was mentally handicapped. How did he come into our lives? Well it was due to your Tok Ayah’s character of looking for his or my mum’s relatives nearby. On one of our trips to Penang where we had mum’s relatives, they mentioned where this uncle was staying. Naturally on the way back, Tok Ayah stopped by and met up with him. Not only that, he took him home with to Telok Anson.

Although I mentioned that he was mentally handicapped, he was in fact very street smart. I was tasked to bath him every day i.e really bathe, in soaping and wahing. All he did was stood there. I even had to dry him off otherwise he would just put on his clothes whilst still wet. If I didn’t do so, he would not bathe. He stayed with us for a couple of weeks. He would leave the house and we would not know where he went, but he always managed to come home. Over time, we came to know he had made many friends around our neighbourhood even with the toddy-drunkards (if you remember on my previous part, the drama I enjoy in the afternoons). They knew him by name and would ask me where he was if they didn’t see him around.

Sometimes Sharul teased him by asking him whether he had a girlfriend. Apparently he did, someone working at a petrol kiosk opposite his house. My brother and I didn't tease him as he was our uncle and mum would go into a rage if she found out we did so.

Tok Ayah planned to send him back after a month with us. But after two weeks, he went missing. The alarm bell went off when he didn’t come home that evening for dinner, which he never failed to do so before. We all went out in search for him wherever we knew he hung out. But no one had seen him that day. Tok Ayah eventually roped in the help of the district’s chief of police who was our neighbour. By midnight he was still missing. All of us had a sleepless night thinking where he could be, hoping that he was alright knowing his handicap.

When Tok Ayah came home for lunch the next day, he told us that our uncle was alright. He had gone home by himself. Apparently he hitched a ride on one of the many lorries that passed by the main road at the front of our house. As his house was also along the main road opposite a petrol kiosk, he somehow knew when to get off. That was why I mentioned earlier that he was street smart.

After that, we never needed to pick him up from his house (which was about 200km away) to bring him over to ours. He would just one day pop in the house and stayed with us as long as he felt like doing so. He did this again by hitch hiking lorries. And he would go home the same way when he wanted to without telling us. But his family members would call to ask Tok Ayah if he was with us or they would let us know when he was back home. So got used to his comings and goings.

A few years later after we had left Telok Anson, we received news that he was run over by a lorry and passed away. It happened when he was crossing the road from his house towards the petrol kiosk. I always wondered whether he met his end wanting to meet up with this girlfriend. May God bless him. Mum was rather distraught by the news of his accident. Perhaps although never close, he was in fact the last of her step-brothers.

On this sad part of the story, Tok Ayah eventually received a telegram saying that he was to be transferred to Tanjong Malim, where he was to be the principal of a teacher’s training college there.

But that will be another story to tell in the next part…..