JB - Nostalgia

We had a free morning in JB and decided to casually drive around and view those ‘nooks’ and ‘corners’ in the areas we used to live in and grew up. I am reminiscing on the time period of half a century ago.

Our first visit was to an area called Kampong Ngee Heng. When I was about 2 or 3 years old, we lived in a small government quarters. We lived in that house for about three years when we moved into the house next door. (The house on the left in the picture was our first house and later moved into the one on the right) I do not know why my dad decided to move into that house (and I believe he had to make a request for the house from the authorities) as it is exactly identical to the house we were living in. It was in the corner of the street and has slightly bigger compound though.

When we vacated the first house, Ram’s late eldest sister (of the same mother), late brother-in-law and their two sons, toddlers then, moved into the house. His nephew known by the nickname of Anom also stayed with him. I had just started primary school then while Anom, about one or two years older than me was senior to me in school. I became his good friend. He was my playmate, study mate, and close buddy. Ram and her parents, living not too far away and within walking distance from our house, came to visit my neighbour very often. That was when I started knowing Ram. We, sort of, grew up together too, although she went to an all girls school and I an all boys school, but being immediate neighbours our families, and the two of us, became quite close.

Our next visit was to see the house that Ram was born and grew up in at a place called Kampong Kubor. (See picture. It is the white house with ‘bay’ design frontage. The low building in front of the house is a restaurant operated by one of Ram’s nieces). It is a double storey house of mixed concrete and wooden structure which her late father designed and built. A standard pre-war Malay house design. A while after her father passed away in that house (Ram was about fourteen years old then) her mum decided to move in with Ram’s eldest sister and brother-in-law bringing her and her two sisters along, leaving Ram’s elder brother (same father but different mother) and his family to continue living in the main house. Her brother-in-law had by then moved away from the Kampong Ngee Heng neighbourhood but since our family had become quite close we maintained contacts, or rather Ram and I maintained contacts.

From Kampong Kubor we moved on to view Ram’s late 2nd brother’s original house which we were earlier told had burned down (see picture). Apparently no one was in the house when it was razed, as the occupants (tenants) were away at work then. This house was also a pre-war house that the brother built on his land. He also built a couple of houses nearby which had been rented out to this day. After the late brother and wife passed away, their only son, a prominent gynecologist, rented out the main house as well. Ram has many pleasant memories of this house as she used to spend a lot of time there when she was young and still in school. The brother was a school teacher in the all boys’ school that I was studying in. He was much older than Ram, more than twenty years older. She looked up to him, just as she looked up to her other elder brothers and sisters, for guidance and reference after her father passed away. We viewed the razed house and stayed for a while. I could see that look of sadness and dismay on Ram when viewing the remnants of the house. At one point she just stood at one location and stared at what’s left of the house, not moving for quite a while, blank look on her face. I can imagine her thoughts racing back to more than forty or fifty years ago. I gave her a slight nudge and urged her that we have to move on… I had good memories of the house too. After we got married we often visit the house to see Ram’s brother and sister-in-law.

We moved on from the razed house to other areas and viewed many other houses that had been transformed from their original pre-war designs to modern structures and facades. Some had been removed totally to allow the passage of development, new roads and highways, and so on. The town has developed so much since we were kids and many new buildings, low rise as well as high rise, sprouting all over. Preservation of heritage is something that the authorities should take note of for the benefit of future generations. Hence development should be balanced for the benefit of the people. But then, politicians and like minded people are the ones making the decisions and I notice that self interest, more often than not, colours their decisions such that developments seem to be more profit driven than heritage preservation. Give it another twenty, thirty years, what will be left of the heritage? …… I wonder….

MKI Ramblings Unlimited,
Petaling Jaya