Strange coincidence

1. One day as I was buying some cut fruits by a side road, a familiar face passed by. The fruit seller greeted him amiably and the man responded with a cheerful smile. He walked past us towards a row of food stalls nearby to have his lunch, I supposed.

2. I have seen him several times at the Tamil Muslim restaurant at the junction about 30 yards away from where the fruit seller parked his small truck. He wore long sleeves as usual and I fancied that he might be working as a clerk at one of the lawyers firms across the main road. I haven’t seen him for quite some time since the restaurant closed down months ago.

3. “That’s Dr Saaya,” the fruit seller remarked to me as if he realised that I was wondering about the identity of the man in his sixties whom I was following with my eyes.

“He’s a doctor?” I responded, quite amazed.

“You might have noticed his clinic across the main road.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, feeling quite embarrassed.

“He and Dr Rosli are the only Malay doctors in town,” he said as fruits and money changed hands.

4. Then I drove my wife for lunch at an eatery a short distance away along the main road. On the way my wife chewed her cut watermelon to the last piece. As usual the eatery was practically void of diners at lunch hour. On our arrival there was only one regular customer eating his meal.

5. As usual we settled at one of the inner tables. I sipped a bit of warm water and finished up my cut pineapple before eating my meal. As we were eating, another familiar face appeared. He was a regular who looked like a retired government servant in his sixties.

6. He turned up almost every time we ate out at the eatery for lunch. In spite of that we never had a chance to greet each other because he usually arrived later and settled himself at a front table and always faced outside. I am a slow eater and he was already done and went off before I finished my meal.

7. Then on one occasion he was already at his meal when my wife and I arrived at the eatery. As a gesture of politeness I nodded and smile at him. From then on when we met at the eatery there were at least exchanges of smiles. One day he was still eating at the time we were leaving, so I nodded at him and said, “Be seeing you.”

8. That remark had its effect I supposed, for on one particular day the unexpected happened. As he was leaving he turned and smiled at me and put his thumb up. I waved at him. Before leaving the eatery, out of curiosity I asked Tahir, the waiter who usually attended to us, “Do you know the person eating at the front table just now?”

“Dr Rosli,” he replied promptly. I was quite taken aback and the fruit seller’s words came to my mind.

“His clinic is just over there by the main road,” Tahir added gesturing his hand in the direction of the clinic and I thought I knew where it was. On the way home I was watchful and didn’t miss the doctor’s clinic. And then going 200 yards further I caught sight of Dr Saaya’s clinic as well.

  

M.I.M.

 

M.I. Merican (1882-1956)

1. M.I.M. was the initials used by my father, Mohamed Ismail Merican, when he wrote articles to the newspapers. So it seems. Khoo Salma Nasution quoted an article written by M.I.M. in her book The Chulia in Penang mentioning that the initials were my father’s. I once visited the author at her bookshop in George Town and she confirmed it.

2. Looking for my father’s writings is not easy. He was born on this day of 14 February 18 years before the dawn of the last century. He might have begun writing for the newspapers during the turn of the century. It’s very difficult to search for old newspapers from the late 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century even if they still survive in their common abodes—libraries and archives.

3. We began hunting for his writings at those places since 2013. It’s unfortunate that to date we haven’t found any. I know of at least two articles written by my father that were published in local newspapers. One is obviously the article mentioned above which was published in the Straits Echo, 1904, describing “the Dato’ Kramat cemetery in Perak Road [Penang].” The other one is an article titled “The History of Captain Kling Mosque.” And I believe there has to be several others. I just have to keep searching.

4. I was quite lucky in my search at the Archives where I found a few of his letters, albeit official ones, which reflect his character as a down-to-earth person. Besides the letters, I was fortunate to have come across a typewritten copy of one of his speeches. It was an adjournment speech at the meeting of the Council of State held on 18 August, 1948.

5. Later I found a fairly lengthy newspaper report of yet another one of his speeches in the Straits Echo & Times of Malaya dated September 7, 1951 under the headline “Case for Mukim Councils, Land Banks.” It covered much of the words of his speech.

6. On one occasion I visited his alma mater and came across a very old Free School Magazine which contained a report he wrote about the problems faced by the Cadet Corps in the absence of the teacher in charge. Consequently he remarked that someone was appointed to act for the latter who had gone on a long leave.

7. One of his writings emerged from an unexpected publication. I once got hold of a school magazine containing a piece on fascism. I lost it a long time ago together with a page of his typewritten anecdote that I kept when I was still in my teens.