Did many of you have any pets in childhood?
Did many children grow up with chicken, duck, fish, birds, mice, rabbits, ants, dogs and cats in the home? I am thankful to have experienced all these, of course not all at the same time. I believe it is very good therapy for every adult and child to have a pet. Loving and caring for the pet not only instills responsibility and caring but also helps relax us after a long day . Children especially will benefit most.
During childhood
Perhaps still in my early primary school years, 7 or 8, I remembered my mom and the cook kept around 10 ducks. We lived by the riverside and mom asked the carpenter to build a large elevated duck home on stilts at the end of the backlane, next to the river. It was a quiet and private area, with lush bushes and trees.
The cook was in charge of feeding them and at nightfall, she would call out "dee dee dee dee" (I have no idea why, perhaps just duck talk). All the ducks would return from their foraging or play and line up. When the cook opened the wooden door of their shed, they would waddle up the plank leading up to their home one by one.
Food not Toys
We had no idea that the chicken and ducks were destined to end up in the cooking pot. I refused to eat any of them and got real upset when I knew one of them was going to meets its grisly end.
Perhaps I had eaten some, but without knowing.
Budgerigars
Besides large gold fish and oscar tanks on the ground, my brother had a very large budgerigar cage in the garden. It was quite an experience because we saw and learnt how the the tiny eggs hatched and we ended with so many baby birds. They multiplied and they were beautiful.
They wanted so much to flap their wings and soar, to really stretch their wings. Birds are not meant to be locked up to be admired for our pleasure. One day we released them all.
Singing Merboks
My father somehow got the idea of rearing merboks, the small brownish plain looking birds. They look so ordinary but when they start to warble, they became beautiful song birds. He would put them up on high poles and feed them, water them daily. It provided him some sense of interaction, not with us but with birds. Alhamdulillah he gave up this hobby. Sometimes we forgot all the animals are Allah's creation. They too need to be free .
Sunning birds during curfew
I seem to always recall the riots of May whenever I remember the merboks and playing badminton. The incidents may seem very unrelated but they all happened at the same time and left an impact in my mind.
I still remember it was a few days after May 13, 1969 when we were still playing badminton and hanging birds on poles outside the home during the curfew. One day a man on a motorcycle identified himself as a police detective and ordered us to stay in our homes. He was shocked to see us all in the garden oblivious to the massive riots in the country.
Hilltop Home
We lived right on top of a hill, a small Chinese community of about less than 40 people and all along the way towards the hill top were Malay kampung houses interspersed with a few Chinese homes. The road was Hillview Road, very steep and narrow.
Sweet and wormy cikus
We had a ciku tree in the backyard. Someone told us not to climb the ciku tree to get the fruits. The ciku may be nutritious and certainly succulent and sweet when fresh from the tree. We were told that there a many worms in the fruit. True enough we found fresh wrigglies when we cut the fruit open.
Perhaps that's because even worms know good healthy food and they will avoid those with pesticides. Its us humans who sometimes do not know the difference or do not bother.
A very interesting place to live and many events occurred during our stay. Those incidents deserve a separate entry.
Gangster's Pledge of Honour
I do not know how true, but we were all told that there was no killing and violence in Setapak and Gombak because of a pact between the triads. Gangsters in Gombak made a deal with the Chinese triad not to disturb or harm each other. They probably gave out news of their pact to protect each other. Maybe this was a romaticised version of the agreement but I would like to remember it this way. At least some act of humanity in a crazy time.
Suspicion and Bad Feelings
Worse things happened but I do not want to mention this. Malaysians were peaceful loving people but many became divided, suspicious of each other and angry because of what happened.
Kampung Baru
After a while most of the Chinese community left because of a lot of racial tension. Because of ignorance people began to equate Malay with Islam.
In the end this suspicion and distrust became a very serious disease. It grew and grew and people probably got more afraid because of stories and rumours.
Human Problem
Never judge people by the colour of their skin, their race and their name. Some Chinese were loan sharks, gangsters and robbers 1n 1969 and there are still many Chinese who do the same until today. Some of these scavengers and scum of society never go away. As long as there is corruption, there is evil and vice. These are human problems not race or religion.
Many of my late mother's relatives were from Kampung Baru. They stayed there since they were young. It was home to them and they owned the land. Suddenly they felt unsafe and unwelcome.
Allah knows and sees all.
This riot shattered lives and dreams of innocent people. We cannot point fingers at anyone since we were not there. Neither did we see it with our own eyes. But some details were recorded by historians.
All I know is probably some few people could have benefitted hugely by this cruel chain of events and it scarred our beautiful country for life. I remember watching Tengku Abdul Rahman giving his resignation speech on tv. We were feeling sad to lose him as our much beloved PM. He was a people's PM. We are still trying to repair the damage after 40 years.
Hope for Healing
May Allah heal the hearts and wounds of all our fellowmen and let us live in harmony again, to focus our energy and our lives towards serving Him, in the hope of His good pleasure and the promise of paradise.
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