Kesah . Intro [Draft]
It was a time when pictures were in black and white. It was a nation colonised. It was a faraway place I know only by name: Sabak Bernam.
He was a man whose personality I know little of, but whose name will follow me for the rest of my life. From the tiny pieces of jigsaws I’ve accumulated over the years, I unfold this introduction …
A clerk. They said he was a quiet man, a simple man. I would tell you about his youth if I had any knowledge of it. But I do know a little story about him. He married and lived in that faraway place I could only imagine as rural. The woman, she was from the wrong family. Their marriage did not fit the time and place they belonged to.
* * *
She was Chinese. I knew this woman. She was remarkably independent, and to the best of my memory, extremely stubborn. She was strict, but loving. She loved her cigarettes, and kept to herself. I wonder if anyone really knew her at all. What was it like for her to have chosen a Malay man, and married him, in that distant rural town? How did society treat her? I cannot begin to imagine what it was like for her to discover she could not conceive.
Another tragedy. Nearby there was a family of Indian labourers I can only assume was poor. Poorer, at least, than the other folk in the rural town. Were they really a family of labourers? National history suggests so. Poverty? Death? Nobody will ever know what tragedy had befallen the family that their little baby suddenly found himself motherless and homeless.
I believe in predestination. I believe there is a blessing behind every misfortune. I believe there is a lesson to learn from all good stories. There was an odd couple who could not have children. And this was a baby who did not have parents. When hearts and minds open, and the soul is filled with compassion, there could be no place in a person’s life for prejudice. It was a match made in heaven.
This baby turned a barren marriage into a family. This baby made it a truly Malaysian family.
This baby was my father.
