Life and Times

In loving memory of my grandfather.

When I was little, my grand father used to tell me stories using poetic versus or “Syair”. I was very familiar with listening, singing and reciting beautiful verses from him. He will tell me stories of “Siti Zubaidah”, “Selindang Delima” and “Puteri Bunga Mawar”. They were all stories about beautiful princesses and handsome princes. I never grew tired of listening to them, because these stories always had a happy-ending. My grandfather would tell me, again and again, until these stories seemed to come alive and I could imagine how beautiful the princesses and the princes were.

My grandfather had a wonderful voice and I loved him very much. I would sit on his lap or sleep by his side, while he tells me stories. Sometimes he would sing praises to Allah and asked me to join him. We would sing together until I fell asleep.

We were such a close-knit-family. There would be between six and eight children in the house. The latest addition was when my uncle took another wife after his first wife died. The woman was from a kampong and was very young. She was only sixteen when she married my uncle who was already in his forties. After she married him, she also brought along her two sisters to stay with us. We would play, dance and sing together, especially when my uncle switched on his radio. We were all very scared of him though. We would not dare touch the radio.

Radio in those days was an exclusive item. Not many people could afford it then. My uncle also owned a Mini Minor. It was black in color. He would drive it to work. He was a civil servant and would only be home in the evening. We would eagerly wait for him to come home so that we can listen to the radio.

I do not recall anything very nice about my uncle, because he was not very friendly towards me. I do not know the reason, but he seemed to love his adopted daughter very much, and would bring back food for her, but always seemed to forget me. My uncle commands respect from the kampong people, because of his position in the government. He was the chief clerk in the District and Land office in my hometown. People with problem relating to land and property would usually come to see him. He would usually not entertain them.

My grandfather would normally see and deal with them. He was very friendly and would do his best to help them. I was told, it was during one this session that he met his fourth wife.
My grandfather was a very handsome man. He was married four times. But I only remembered three of his wives. He fathered eight children; one by his first wife, three by his second, three by his third and one by his fourth wife.

My grandmother was his second wife while his fourth wife stayed with us in my grandmother’s house. But as far as I know my grandmother was the first wife, because none of us remembered his first wife. But we knew that, he had another wife by the fact there is daughter from that marriage whom my mother referred to as ‘Kak Wan’ or elder sister. She came to the house quite often, because her grandchildren were schooling in our hometown and staying with us. She was not staying in this country then. She was staying across the Thai border and was already married to a Thai national when we knew her. But we used to visit her. She had one daughter and five grandchildren when I knew her.

My grandmother’s house is quite big. It could accommodate eleven of us quite easily at any one time. Apart from my grandfather, grandmother and his other wife, we also had other close relatives staying with us. This included my uncle; his wife and two children; two of my grandfather’s great grandchildren (the grandchildren of my auntie who was staying in Thailand) and of course my mother and me. We had great time in the house. Full of laughter and all of us were very close to each other.

My mother was a wonderful women and a great cook too. She looked after all of us. My mother loves all of us. She never complained.

Sometime my grandfather did not come home. He stayed at his other wife’s house nearby. I thought this woman was very strange. She wanted to kill my grandmother’s youngest wife. She used to come charging into the house, with a knife shouting abusive words at my grandfather’s young wife. At that time I did not understand why she was behaving like that. It was not until my husband took a second wife after being married to him for twenty-five years. Only then did I understand her feelings and the reason why she was behaving like that. Luckily nobody was hurt, killed or harmed by her action.

My grandfather died when my youngest auntie was only six years old. Then the house became quieter and quieter as the years went by. My uncle moved to his own house after he had his third child by his latest wife. Then as we grew older; one by one left the house.

I was the one who got married first. Then it was my cousin’s turn to get married. Then the rest of us had to leave the house after my grandmother died and my husband took a job outside the state. My mother followed me everywhere we go, as she had nobody else except me. I was her only child.My grandmother’s house remained standing, until it was demolished in 2005 to make way for a commercial development project