Mother 3 - The Old Malaya Days Cont'd

Sometime in 1957, we moved from the small government quarters to a bigger one not too far away from the old house. This new house has four bedrooms, two bath, kitchen and dining hall with a reasonably large lounge area. It was just as well as there were then six of us kids and the old house was a wee bit too small for all of us to mess up, ha ha. we had a lot of space in this new house, as it came with a large compound. We planted some fruit trees around the house and Mum, although busy in her political activists activities, could find time to plant vegetables at the back of the house. It was all of us, siblings, that had to look after the plants, watering them and tending to them. Later, four more siblings, two boys and two girls, came to join us in messing up the house. There were four of us boys and six girls altogether.

I was already in my lower secondary school, the English College, now known as Maktab Sultan Abu Bakar, when we moved into this new house. I walked to school daily and it would take me more than half an hour to reach school. I attended the religious school, Sekolah Agama Ayer Molek, in the afternoon. Afternoon school session were from 3pm to 5pm. Sometimes I have to rush to English College for sports, games and extra-curricular activities in the evenings. I indulged in most of the outdoor field games and did a lot of jogging, while indoor I participated in the debating and literary society.

Mum and Dad were always busy with their own activities and away from home often. When at home they will also be busy with their paperwork while we kids have to be 'busy' with our school work. There was no TV at that time and the radio/gramophone set was where we got local news, at specific news times, and also local entertainment programmes. The 45rpm and 33.33 rpm extended play records were our additional source of music. I vaguely remember our first set of manual gramophone. One had to wind the player up before setting the needle on the turning record to get the music to come on. One wind up would be good for one song. For other entertainment we were left with our own devices. TV was introduced in late 1963 early 1964 and in black and white. I was already in college then and away in Kuala Lumpur.

Mum, apart from being the treasurer of the Women's wing of the ruling political party, was also involved with another body, the WI or Womens' Institute, and together with some friends formed a cooperative which she headed for many years. She stepped down from running the cooperative a couple of years before she turned 90. At the same time she and several other friends started a kindergarten, which is still operating until today. Some of the early students of the kindergarten are now parents! Mum stood for the local council general elections sometime in 1958 on her own political party ticket and was opposed by a candidate from the labour party. I remember following her on her campaign trail into the villages and even some remote areas that was part of the constituency
she was to represent. We went house to house, meeting the occupants with Mum introducing herself as the candidate and the promises of what she can deliver when elected, bla bla bla........ She won the election but she stayed for only one term.

Mum also tried her hands at food business. She bid and won a contract to run a school canteen and she operated it for a couple of years. I think she stopped when she could not get good helpers to run the operation and also that the canteen was taking her away from her political activities. Basically, she is a politician first, a community activist second and business woman last. Following her closely had taught me a lot of life-lessons. The first issue I realised then was that life can be tough when you have to juggle between your various levels of responsibilities but it is how you manage your time in carrying out your responsibilities is key to achieving a good balance. Then what was tough becomes easy. Time management therefore is one criteria for life skills. There are many more life skills that I learned from Mum and Dad. I will share them here as I go on in my coming postings. May Allah be pleased......

MKI Ramblings Unlimited
Petaling Jaya