25.3.2010
Memories of RRF – neighbours and beyond…
Besides occupants of the 15th floor, there were a few interesting characters who emerged in our childhood. Most of the end units were occupied by personnel of Royal Malaysian Army and the families. Their children were usually brats who behave like monkeys without tails. They would be jumping here and jumping there, destroying public properties (like the lift and defacing the whitewashed wall with graffiti) while the father supposedly protect the sovereignty of the country and her property, i.e. its citizens! Most of them study at SRK Padang Tembak, some of use the military truck to ferry them to other schools and all of them perform dismally at school. Invariably all their names will be “Man” and all their mothers can say is lamely, “Man, janganlah Man!” but Man will just continue doing his thing. The wives will be sleeping of the time or at least appear so when they occasionally come out to sweep their homes which were incidentally near the dustbin chutes. Even minus the rubbish smell, the household had the characteristic belacan (shrimp paste) and petai (twisted cluster beans @ stinky beans) smells. But life went on and on... like Proud Mary going round and round on the Mississippi.
Actually, we never really got acquainted with most of the occupants of the block but a few who left an impression or two.
E14-10 was initially occupied by Anantha and his parents. Actually, we (my siblings and I) never got to know him at all. He was like Remington Steele (the 70’s TV series where everybody has heard of but none have actually seen him in person). He rarely appears at his unit except late nights and leaves in the morning. He follows his parents in the morning to their electrical shop in Chulia Street and spends the afternoon after school. His father was working as a barber, speaking only a smattering of the Malay Language. I remember once he and the carpenter (of E16-14) who was also could not converse in Malay having a conversation in our home. It was like a canine-feline conversation…. “itu messai semua adaaah..” and both the speakers were nodding their heads in unison! I wonder if each of them understood each other.
Anantha was a kind of a braggart, I did not really like him but all the Indian housewives there admired him for his gift of the gap. You know me, I believe that action speaks louder than words and I do not say niceties about people easily. A person who tells the whole world that he is committing suicide will not die and a politician or a holy man who promises his voters or followers the world will not keep his promise. Only still water runs deep!
Some time later, the unit was occupied by Anantha’s brother (Subramaniam), his wife (Kamalaveni, Chinese adopted by Indian) and her parents – an ailing bed-ridden father with betel leave chewing mother. Kamalaveni’s fashionable lady friend (?Kalpana, we called her Seensatti due to her hairstyle!). After marriage, Balan and Kamalaveni had to wait a long time before they had a boy – Siva Kumar who won a brand new car on a dancing competition on Astro!
E14-16 here lived a widowed lady with 2 children. Mdm. Thilaga had an unenviable reputation of being a “fighter cock” and a “carry tale”. People generally avoided crossing her path due to infamous reputation. Just like many ladies in RRF or maybe Penang generally, Thilaga used to come to the house and try to engage Amma in conversation. It was more of derogatory gossip, what happened where, in whose house and they give their 2 cents worth of advice. I do not think that Amma particularly enjoyed these conversations as she would still be engrossed in her sewing with an occasional "oh?' and "aahs?"while the ladies went on yakking and blabbing… Two other ladies who used to the same were H Block Indra and Raja Ammah.
There was a time when I had to teach her ‘not-so-bright” daughter Mathematics. I do not think I managed to teach her much as my explanations never really made it to her thick skull. maybe Iwas a bad teacher rather than she being a bad student! It takes two to tango. These tuition sessions helped me to decide never to be in the teaching profession.
E16-14 lived a carpenter with penchant for making Lion Dance paraphernalia. The carpenter had no furniture in his unit. He only had a fabric lazy chair and drums for the dance. Basically nothing happens in the house. Once a year in Chinese New Year, they all become alive and perform the Lion Dance all around RRF. The carpenter’s boys and their friends/relatives will be playing the musical instruments and the characters in the performances. After CNY, it will be back to their snail paced life.
E16-11A lived the tall mutton chop side burned Mr Paul and his Chinese wife.
E11-1 was the home to Mr & Mrs Manohar. Mr Manohar was an army officer who got transferred to Penang around 1976. I came to know Ramess through the Bhajans group that my sisters and I attended. He was one of the few of them in RRF who could converse in English. Before coming to Penang, he was in Kuala Lumpur. The friendship extended beyond RRF, we kept in touch via mail even after he left for Kuala Lumpur again after 4 or 5 years staying in RRF.
He did not really do well in his studies (SPM) and ventured into spiritualism and meditation. He even spent a good 2 years in the mountains of India in search of the elusive truth. Reality hit back when he returned to Malaysia and he had to take over his ailing father’s daytime vocation of a cab driver. He married a priest’s daughter who was a good 10 years younger than him. I attended his wedding to in Jalan Ipoh Vinayakar Temple. On and off I kept in touch with him. I met him again when I was working at Klang Hospital to examine and follow up his wife’s pregnancy. When I left Government service, his wife continued her follow-up and delivered under my care. Ramess and his family (including the children) were full time vegans. By mid 2005, he was a single man again when his wife allegedly left him and his family for a younger man!
E8-18 was occupied by a distant relative on my father’s side. It is not surprising as he grew up with 15 other siblings! We called her puttu as she was selling puttu in the market.
E7-12 occupants were a childless couple who used to frequent our house. I wonder why people actually liked coming to see us. We never really went out of our way to entertain people. In fact Amma will continue her sewing in spite of visitors and Appa is not much of a conversationalist. I guess people then did not expect much other than friendship or they had too much time! The husband (Mr Subramaniam) was hard of hearing (even with the hearing aid!) and the wife (the Hornet) was a carbon copy of Ms Olive Oyl (of Popeye fame). To me, she looks more like a turkey as she had long ear lobes further accentuated by the dangling earrings that she always wore!
Looking across the balcony we could see D block. After a hard session with the books and Mathematics, people watching, like bird watching, can be therapeutic and relaxing. On the hand, of course…
D16-14 was more of a nuisance. It was occupied by a City Council bus driver who would come back from work without fail every day just to listen to his gramophone record player belt out his favourite Hindi songs at full blast. Lyrics from songs of Bobby, Aag Gale Laag Jaa, Julie, Yaadon Ki Bharat, Aradhana still appears to be reverberating in my mind!
D15-12 was occupied by an Indian family. The couple had 2 kids but will be forever at logger heads. This would sometime happen way past midnight when the wife can be heard to be chasing the husband away from the bed at the top of her voice, much to the embarrassment of those who understood the language!
D17-8 was where many children used to congregate on Saturday evenings for Bhajans. It was occupied by a Mr & Mrs Rayan. Mrs Rayan was barred by her husband to come out of the flat without his accompaniment as she was too good looking in his eyes. Vendors and peddlers in the market place would apparently stop their business just to be mesmerized by her beauty, so the talk around the flats goes! True she was fair and did look a wee bit like Jayalalitha (South Indian movie star in her heydays) but probably 3 or 4 sizes bigger, not that Jayalalitha was small by any means! My sister and I used to run back after the Bhajans so that we would be in time for Six Million Dollar Man!
D4-2 lived a little devilish of a girl with the name Sheela who borrowed my Fairy Tales book and never returned until we literally begged at her door step only to receive a debilitated worn out book.
Memories of RRF – neighbours and beyond…
Besides occupants of the 15th floor, there were a few interesting characters who emerged in our childhood. Most of the end units were occupied by personnel of Royal Malaysian Army and the families. Their children were usually brats who behave like monkeys without tails. They would be jumping here and jumping there, destroying public properties (like the lift and defacing the whitewashed wall with graffiti) while the father supposedly protect the sovereignty of the country and her property, i.e. its citizens! Most of them study at SRK Padang Tembak, some of use the military truck to ferry them to other schools and all of them perform dismally at school. Invariably all their names will be “Man” and all their mothers can say is lamely, “Man, janganlah Man!” but Man will just continue doing his thing. The wives will be sleeping of the time or at least appear so when they occasionally come out to sweep their homes which were incidentally near the dustbin chutes. Even minus the rubbish smell, the household had the characteristic belacan (shrimp paste) and petai (twisted cluster beans @ stinky beans) smells. But life went on and on... like Proud Mary going round and round on the Mississippi.
Actually, we never really got acquainted with most of the occupants of the block but a few who left an impression or two.
E14-10 was initially occupied by Anantha and his parents. Actually, we (my siblings and I) never got to know him at all. He was like Remington Steele (the 70’s TV series where everybody has heard of but none have actually seen him in person). He rarely appears at his unit except late nights and leaves in the morning. He follows his parents in the morning to their electrical shop in Chulia Street and spends the afternoon after school. His father was working as a barber, speaking only a smattering of the Malay Language. I remember once he and the carpenter (of E16-14) who was also could not converse in Malay having a conversation in our home. It was like a canine-feline conversation…. “itu messai semua adaaah..” and both the speakers were nodding their heads in unison! I wonder if each of them understood each other.
Anantha was a kind of a braggart, I did not really like him but all the Indian housewives there admired him for his gift of the gap. You know me, I believe that action speaks louder than words and I do not say niceties about people easily. A person who tells the whole world that he is committing suicide will not die and a politician or a holy man who promises his voters or followers the world will not keep his promise. Only still water runs deep!
Some time later, the unit was occupied by Anantha’s brother (Subramaniam), his wife (Kamalaveni, Chinese adopted by Indian) and her parents – an ailing bed-ridden father with betel leave chewing mother. Kamalaveni’s fashionable lady friend (?Kalpana, we called her Seensatti due to her hairstyle!). After marriage, Balan and Kamalaveni had to wait a long time before they had a boy – Siva Kumar who won a brand new car on a dancing competition on Astro!
E14-16 here lived a widowed lady with 2 children. Mdm. Thilaga had an unenviable reputation of being a “fighter cock” and a “carry tale”. People generally avoided crossing her path due to infamous reputation. Just like many ladies in RRF or maybe Penang generally, Thilaga used to come to the house and try to engage Amma in conversation. It was more of derogatory gossip, what happened where, in whose house and they give their 2 cents worth of advice. I do not think that Amma particularly enjoyed these conversations as she would still be engrossed in her sewing with an occasional "oh?' and "aahs?"while the ladies went on yakking and blabbing… Two other ladies who used to the same were H Block Indra and Raja Ammah.
There was a time when I had to teach her ‘not-so-bright” daughter Mathematics. I do not think I managed to teach her much as my explanations never really made it to her thick skull. maybe Iwas a bad teacher rather than she being a bad student! It takes two to tango. These tuition sessions helped me to decide never to be in the teaching profession.
E16-14 lived a carpenter with penchant for making Lion Dance paraphernalia. The carpenter had no furniture in his unit. He only had a fabric lazy chair and drums for the dance. Basically nothing happens in the house. Once a year in Chinese New Year, they all become alive and perform the Lion Dance all around RRF. The carpenter’s boys and their friends/relatives will be playing the musical instruments and the characters in the performances. After CNY, it will be back to their snail paced life.
E16-11A lived the tall mutton chop side burned Mr Paul and his Chinese wife.
E11-1 was the home to Mr & Mrs Manohar. Mr Manohar was an army officer who got transferred to Penang around 1976. I came to know Ramess through the Bhajans group that my sisters and I attended. He was one of the few of them in RRF who could converse in English. Before coming to Penang, he was in Kuala Lumpur. The friendship extended beyond RRF, we kept in touch via mail even after he left for Kuala Lumpur again after 4 or 5 years staying in RRF.
He did not really do well in his studies (SPM) and ventured into spiritualism and meditation. He even spent a good 2 years in the mountains of India in search of the elusive truth. Reality hit back when he returned to Malaysia and he had to take over his ailing father’s daytime vocation of a cab driver. He married a priest’s daughter who was a good 10 years younger than him. I attended his wedding to in Jalan Ipoh Vinayakar Temple. On and off I kept in touch with him. I met him again when I was working at Klang Hospital to examine and follow up his wife’s pregnancy. When I left Government service, his wife continued her follow-up and delivered under my care. Ramess and his family (including the children) were full time vegans. By mid 2005, he was a single man again when his wife allegedly left him and his family for a younger man!
E8-18 was occupied by a distant relative on my father’s side. It is not surprising as he grew up with 15 other siblings! We called her puttu as she was selling puttu in the market.
E7-12 occupants were a childless couple who used to frequent our house. I wonder why people actually liked coming to see us. We never really went out of our way to entertain people. In fact Amma will continue her sewing in spite of visitors and Appa is not much of a conversationalist. I guess people then did not expect much other than friendship or they had too much time! The husband (Mr Subramaniam) was hard of hearing (even with the hearing aid!) and the wife (the Hornet) was a carbon copy of Ms Olive Oyl (of Popeye fame). To me, she looks more like a turkey as she had long ear lobes further accentuated by the dangling earrings that she always wore!
Looking across the balcony we could see D block. After a hard session with the books and Mathematics, people watching, like bird watching, can be therapeutic and relaxing. On the hand, of course…
D16-14 was more of a nuisance. It was occupied by a City Council bus driver who would come back from work without fail every day just to listen to his gramophone record player belt out his favourite Hindi songs at full blast. Lyrics from songs of Bobby, Aag Gale Laag Jaa, Julie, Yaadon Ki Bharat, Aradhana still appears to be reverberating in my mind!
D15-12 was occupied by an Indian family. The couple had 2 kids but will be forever at logger heads. This would sometime happen way past midnight when the wife can be heard to be chasing the husband away from the bed at the top of her voice, much to the embarrassment of those who understood the language!
D17-8 was where many children used to congregate on Saturday evenings for Bhajans. It was occupied by a Mr & Mrs Rayan. Mrs Rayan was barred by her husband to come out of the flat without his accompaniment as she was too good looking in his eyes. Vendors and peddlers in the market place would apparently stop their business just to be mesmerized by her beauty, so the talk around the flats goes! True she was fair and did look a wee bit like Jayalalitha (South Indian movie star in her heydays) but probably 3 or 4 sizes bigger, not that Jayalalitha was small by any means! My sister and I used to run back after the Bhajans so that we would be in time for Six Million Dollar Man!
D4-2 lived a little devilish of a girl with the name Sheela who borrowed my Fairy Tales book and never returned until we literally begged at her door step only to receive a debilitated worn out book.
D13-8 lived a Chinese girl who attended the same kindie school as Sheila by the name Ruby. She never really learnt Sheila's real name. She used to call Sheila "Gila" and the worse thing was she used to lung her name from across the block from Blocks D to E!
DG-4 was like the house in the nursery rhyme about the lady who lived in a shoe. So many children lived here and they walked in and out of the house at their whims and fancies as they had opened up the bars at the balcony for easier access.
Addentum:
D4-22 housed the family of Mr & Mrs Sundram. Mr Sundram was constantly borrowing money from people and used to overindulge in alcoholic beverages. He was also employed with the bank like father. The family actually did not see any living daylight until Mr Sundram succumbed to heart attack at the age of 54 years. With his gratuity monies and after his eldest daughter was employed as a bank employee in her father place the family actually prospred. Coincidentally, she was our tuition teacher for a few months before she got a job.
Anneh,
ReplyDeleteActually I lend the story book to Sheela without your knowledge.
One more thing you can add is how people use to borrow money from mum and we have to case after them. A5-15, kacang women, Ramu J block and thai-thai tata too.
Anatha brother is Subramaniam , that right but his wife is Thavamani and her son Astro dancer is Siva kumar. During an interview he told that singing at bajans helped him pick up his singing skill.
I have just covered block E and D only so far. the rest will come in due time. Thanks for corrections.
ReplyDelete