Did I smell a rat?

1. I am indeed very sceptical in nature. For me, any happening that seems strange is either coincidental or explicable in a rational way. For example, in my birth certificate my name was written as Mohd Sharif Marikan, and my father’s name was written as Md Ismail Marikan bin Vapoo Marikan Nordin. Note that “Marikan” should have been spelt “Merican,” the usual spelling used for generations.

2. I regard it as a common error. It might have been that the person who was entrusted with obtaining my birth certificate had dictated the names to the “registrar” who might have written them down in a language he was familiar with, namely Malay.

3. My children and one of my nieces on the other hand have a different opinion. They believe that my father would have wanted my name written as it was publicized in the Straits Echo: Mohamed Sheriff Merican. They believe that the “misspellings” in my birth certificate were purposely done to sever my lineage. This notion was simply preposterous, I thought.

4. They argued that my birth certificate and my identity card would be an issue if I were to identify myself as the rightful heir of my father, Mohamed Ismail Merican. By the way, many years back it was rumoured that my father’s heir was sought out regarding “property matter.” I was not at all aware of it then until after so many years when it reached my ears.

5. I would never know indefinitely what the “property matter” was all about. My children and my niece guessed that it could have been about the piece of land that my father was said to have purchased in Penang for $30,000 or it could have been about any bequest left by my father to his wife and children. In any case, if the National Registration Department had been consulted about finding my father’s heir, then my siblings and I would have been left out anyway because of the “misspellings” in our birth certificates.

6. My mother was told by my father that he had made an allocation of a generous sum of money in his bank account for the purpose of giving their children proper education when he died. I believe that my mother was not familiar with any bank account, but even so she was told that there was only a mere pittance of a few cents in my father’s bank account upon his decease.

7. My guess is that my father had drained his savings for one reason or another, but his grandchildren have their own opinion. They believe that their grandfather might have been too trusting of the person he had entrusted with his bank account or with any other kinds of possessions such as title deeds, bonds and even jewellery. All of these disappeared without trace after his passing.

8. His grandchildren believe that my father might have entrusted his entire possessions to appointed trustee(s). I did not know of any title deeds, but I vaguely remember laying my eyes on the resemblance of bond certificates in my father’s cabinet during my childhood. A long time ago there were also rumours that my father had a boxful of jewellery kept for his children’s education. They say, where there’s smoke there’s fire. Did I smell a rat?