Expression
is a privilege when I was growing up. Looking back now I realized that the role
of fatherhood is passed down from a generation to the other, to the next, to
the next, until that untimely demise of that Malay bloodline vanquished from
Malaysia; either from random godless acts of homosexuality, the impending
semitic apocalypse or the rise of the Matrix - enslaving the fate of all men,
including all branch of Polynesians (South East Asians included).
My
grandfather was a foreman in the TNB. Actually I can’t really say what
occupation he had, save for few minor details from a vague childhood. I
remember I was told that he used to work in a coal generator silo in Klang,
working at odd hours in a day.
When
I was but a child at the back passenger seat, my dad used to take the family
for a trip down in Port Klang to enjoy the seaside at dusk, and later we would
have a seafood dinner on a boat. He used to have my hand grasped tightly into
his, as we strolled along the stony banks with waves crashing into stones.
Because he was a disciplinary teacher, he wore a moustache in the 1980s. And
bellbottom pants. I think.
As
the golden red sun set into the shimmering sea, my mother caressed my hair and
told me to “Read books, and learn your maths. When you grow up, you’ll be a
Malay doctor and you can help sick people”.
My
mother was a tutor in Universiti Malaya then, in the 1980s. She was teaching Malayan
History and from the nights in front of the television during Prime News (Auto
Berita they called it, till now I still couldn’t find the reference to it),
I could see that she felt strongly of what she preached to her students. Being
her lifelong student , I was often told of tales of an ancient people wielding
the keris and spears, taxing outlandish European ships that dropped sail in
their glorious ports; a prosperous kingdom in their name.
So
anyway, during these trips we would pass by a colossal brown brick structure by
the Klang river, and my father would tell us the story of our grandfather. “Atuk
used to work in that building, for the TNB. When he got home, parts of his
clothes and face would be black from the charcoal and his temper would be edgy
from the burner’s heat”.
As
my father rambled on, a five year old me looked upon the stout brick walls of
the 20 foot structure. To a seven year old it looked a lot like a castle, with
brown brick walls and vast chimneys sticking out of the roof with clouds of
black smoke not disappearing into the sky. They would always have security
guards at the gate. Walking along the gates and fences, brandishing night
sticks and torch lights in their shorts. I also remember the occasional trains
making their way into the empty grey courtyard, and later into the mouth of the
castle – disappearing into the interior darkness.
“In
those days, atuk used to tell us to study hard. Just like what I’m telling you
and your brothers now”, my
father said then. “He made us study late into the night, and make us take
care of our own belongings. We had to wash our school clothes, school shoes and
socks. When I got into a rough fight, I had to sew the tears on my own. You
should be grateful, these days you have washing machines and such to help you.
That’s why you don’t get to play petulant”.
My
father yelled a lot when I was growing up. Over the slightest thing I tell you.
There was a time me and my brother got tied to a pinang tree because we didn’t
want to come into the house and bathe come Maghrib. I remembered crying
hysterically into the dusk as red ants crawled into my shorts, in the
background the call of prayer echoed throughout the kampong. Sobbing, I turned
to my five year old little brother beside me, bound to the same rope as I was.
Tears were rolling down his supple cheeks, his expression stern without a
sound. I suppressed my sobs, booger run down my nose into my trembling
mouth.
Me
and my dad do not speak much now that I’m an adult. Whenever I call him, he’ll
ask me comically “How’s your girlfriend??”, laughs away and passes the
call to my mother. I don’t really know much about the man, honestly speaking.
He doesn’t speak much to me about things. Nothing of his glories or failures.
No stories of how he met my mother. No stories of late night night Pop Yeh Yeh
parties.
Nothing
save from generic racist comments like “the Chinese will do your taxes well”
and “you’d want the Indian lawyers on your side in the court”. All I
know about him is his conversations with long lost friends from the Maktab
Perguruan, and from black & pictures of him in sharp suites and government
parties.
He’s
a man from a different age. An age where action is deed and words are just
pretty things. We do not speak long into the night over coffee and cigars out
in the porch. We toil in the kebun with parangs and cangkuls under
the burning sun. We sit silently against the surau wall as the ustaz is
giving his sermons. We drive to the pasar tani for fresh ingredients for
lunch, while Ahmad Jais songs fill the yellow 1974 RX3 Mazda and
spilled along the road home.
My
marriage is scheduled this year. I fancy the idea of what my son would remember
of me.
Play
Station 6? Corporate lackey? Comic reader?
Sad.But
then again, that's is my son's story. Not mine.
Sol Mokhtar
(Also published in solmokhtar.blogspot.com )
