RIFLE RANGE BOY

@AryamanBodh One of the regular feature during my childhood days was the visits by lonely housewives to engage in a prolonged banter with my mother. In RRF, my childhood home, a new neighbour had just moved to our oft-emptied next door flat. In came a seemingly perfect family, the head of the family, a tall, lean man donning dark glasses in the midst of the dimly lit corridors of the neighbourhood. He would walk as if he had a severe case of cervical spondylosis, straight-backed, walking straight ahead without tilting his heads even for a moment as if he had a mission in life like a racing horse prancing on with blinkers. The wife, a slim lady with long wavy hair and polyester floral sari with a faced stained in turmeric powder, an Indian natural skin whitener and scar-blemisher, would follow suit, well aware of the roving eyes around her. To complement this seemingly perfect couple was a pair of children of every dream of a middle-class family of the 70s - a daughter and a son....

A coincidence happened a few days ago to convince me that all things will pass and not to get upset about things. And it also convinced me to look at the other side of things. Somehow, wearing the other person's shoes, the problem does not look like a problem anymore!  A few days ago, my neighbour's puppy started barking incessantly. Prior to that, nobody in the neighbourhood even knew of the existence of  a dog in their backyard until the eventful day. Calls after calls rang of the  hook of my neighbour's phone complaining about the nuisance so much so that he became phobic receiving calls and stopped answering them. Almost like magic, during a casual conversation with my sister living 300km away a few days later, she was complaining that her neighbours were unhappy with their loss of sleep over the continual barking of her dog. She was at wit's end trying to get to the root of the problem with no avail. Back in my neighbourhood, the barking ceased. I...

Indra (H Block) used to look like this in her heydays (the 1970s)  7.5.2010 Memories of RRF: Here, there and everywhere…* There are a few loose ends for me to tie to rekindle old memories of RRF. We started going to Bhajan class around 1975 after Mr Rajagopal (aka Kojak) requested Appa to send us. The main base of the Bhajan class was at D17-8 at Mr & Mrs Rayan’s place. Sometimes the classes would be held at different venues upon request. Mr Rajagopal was a member of the active Shiva family in Penang which was affiliated to the late saffron-robed Swami Shantananda who initiated the Temple of Fine Arts in Kuala Lumpur. So there we were all us religiously learning the Bhajan songs. In fact, I think Lats, who naturally enjoyed singing perfected her singing skills. Once a week we used to look forward to attending it and rush back to see ‘The Six Million Dollar Man’. We got acquainted with people like A. Rajasegaran (we later took tuition classes from his sister, Veni), Rag...

12.4.2010 Memories of RRF – and the hits keep on coming*… Continuing with our juicy gossip, let us look at Block C. This block was occupied much later than Block E and was much cleaner; thanks to the absence of the Royal Malaysia Army’s monkey children. We did not have many contacts with occupants here, except for the Chinese tailor at the ground floor and a Chetty teacher who later committed suicide many years later. Oh, yes! I guess I forgot mentioning about the various people who chose RRF to free themselves from the constricting tentacles of life on earth and jump off the balcony! In fact, these suicides were common occurrences in Blocks A and B. Block E had also played host to these events. The Shams have all witnessed the gruesome aftermath of the jump but not once in our entire life did we visualize any form of apparition or ghost to haunt us in spite of having a Chinese cemetery nearby. In fact, just out of curiosity, I had once sat under a shady tree studying at height of noo...

7.4.2010 Memories of RRF – more neighbours… Continuing our worthless gossip of matters surrounding RRF, we will continue with Block B. Talking about RRF and its surroundings, RRF is basically situated at the foothill of the main range of hill which forms the spine of Penang island (or Pooloo Pinang as it was named in 1786 by a maverick conniving seaman by the name of Francis Light who literally hoodwinked the Sultan of Kedah by promising to protect Quedah from the Siamese attack which the knighted one did not uphold). Of course the History books do not tell this because it His (the Victor’s) story! On most days, one can catch a good glimpse of Penang Hill from RRF. B16-3 was the home to Mr & Mrs Velu. They were formerly occupants of a room in our house in Brown Garden before the 70s. I remember Mrs Velu ( Puthu Atthei as we called her) was very fond of us, the children. We enjoyed her stories, mostly fables told in a very dramatic way in a smiling manner. She also took care of us...

3.4.10 Memories of RRF – beyond the neighbours’ scandals Let me continue with my repertoire of thought logorrheic expressions in verbatim of people with whom we generally grew up with. Starting with A block… A16-14 lived Gobi Attah who speaks in a very unique way emphasizing on the consonants when she speaks! This Gobi Attah character was a bubbly lady who was my parents’ landlady when they rented a room in the house that she lived soon after they were married. I remember going to this house in Lorong Seratus Tahun when I was about 5 or 6 years old. I remember the chequered tiles at the entrance and the stout Chinese pillars at outside. Little did I know that my good friend, Sasi was running around the same street at that time. It is indeed a small world after all! In the mid 70’s hard times hit Gobi Attah and she subsequently moved in to RRF. She had a son (L. Ganeson) who lived in A15-16 who was working in a bank. He had two sons (Gajendra and Sailendra). I remember the elder son h...

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 ...

23.3.2010 Memories of RRF – neighbours E15-11 was situated behind the lift near the electrical meter board. The frontage was not overlooking into the open space like other units but was kind of dark and was a place where children would gather and play their games like “S”, photos, cops and robbers, chiabak etc. etc. All of us have bitter and sweet memories with the lift. At one time or another, we all had the bad experience of being trapped in the lift, no big deal actually, only if you are in a hurry. Actually the lifts were used and abused again by its occupants. In the later years, I even took my mini bicycle up the lift for safety reasons. If only it was not German made, it would have given up long ago. The day to day running of the lift was done by Council appointed handicapped individuals who were supposed to be manning the lift by being inside the lift but they seemed to find joy by playing the fool among each other, talking like they know everything and basically ...