The conflict

1. As I have mentioned previously, I have no precise dates of my father’s marriages. However, his first wife, Chik binti Hassan, might have passed away sometime in June 1937 or earlier. In a letter dated 9 Rabi Al-Akhir, 1356 (=18 June, 1937) my father, administrator of Chik’s estate, offered for sale land belonging to the deceased to the state government on account of settling her estate. This was only a few months away before he retired from the KCS on 23 September, 1937.

2. After Chik passed away, my father married Che Chah, the widow of one Che Daim. They might have been married after his retirement. As I have mentioned in one of my posts, Che Chah had a son named Che Omar from her previous marriage. The latter got married to his cousin, Che Tom who was a daughter of Zainuddin, Che Daim’s elder brother.

3. Previously, I wrote that my father left Alor Star and moved to Alor Merah after his second wife died of oedema in the middle of 1940s. This was incorrect because recently I was told that my grandmother (on my mother’s side) used to visit the sick woman in the big wooden house where my father resided after moving to Alor Merah. Somehow, my grandmother was related to Che Chah’s side of the family.

4. It was related that Che Chah, apparently realizing her illness was terminal, had wished for an arranged marriage of her husband with any of her relatives; hence my parents’ marriage. My father might have been very happy and proud to have the three of us from his third and last marriage. He had no children from previous marriages.

5. I have to admit that I have a bad memory. My childhood memory is dim and hazy. But I still remember the big wooden house by the side of the main road where I spent part of my early childhood. Like any traditional Malay house, the building was raised on tall pillars. A veranda with a rather high staircase adorned the centre of the façade. I still remember losing my balance while playing near the top of the staircase and went rolling down the flight of stairs all the way to the bottom.

6. I have no knowledge whatsoever of the history of the grand old house. As I recall, it might have been standing for at least a generation at the time. The front door led to a spacious hall extending the full width of the building. Rooms flanked both sides of the house with a wide hallway between them.

7. We lived there amid a big family of my father’s stepson and his wife, Che Tom. As I recall, they had at least eight children aged between twenty and four, more or less, at that time. Che Omar’s children referred to my father as “Tuk Wan” (grandpa) and they revered him very much. The other members of the household include Che Tom’s single sister, a teenage daughter of my father’s adopted son and a servant.

8. Che Omar came over every now and then; he was working in a distant district and living with his second wife. My mother told me later that it was my father who supported the whole household out of his pension. Generosity was one of his notable traits. He would keep an envelope full of coins handy and give away a coin or two to the children for treats or pocket money.

9. We had a rather crowded room to ourselves. It accommodated a large old-fashioned iron bed and a cupboard for our clothes. My parents slept on the bed while the three of us slept on a piece of mattress on the floor alongside the bed. Meals were served by a servant. My father took his daily meals alone at regular times at a large table in the hallway. My mother ate with us at a small table in front of our room.

10. Being so young at that time, I was not aware until later that my mother was somehow not at all comfortable with the situation that we were in. I still remember the time when she was looking around for a house to move in; my grandmother took us to a vacant house to survey its condition. The house was just across a small river opposite to her house, but somehow nothing transpired.      

11. My mother was quite thrifty, so she was able to save her monthly allowance for several years after her marriage. She spent her savings to build a house adjoining her mother’s house in the kampong. I was still very young then about eight years old or so when the house was being built by the village carpenter and his young son who made me a toy aeroplane from pieces of woods. They would take several months to raise the building. I knew then that we were moving in when the time came.

12. But it would not be a smooth transition. Apparently tension had been rising between my mother and Che Tom’s side of the household that I was not aware of at all. It might have caused a row to break out one night. I have only a dim and hazy memory of what happened on that night of chaos and confusion. The women were exchanging angry words with one another releasing their feelings of discontent. There was an atmosphere of resentment and tension at the veranda of the big house where it happened. I remember my grandmother was there for her daughter. That is all I remember; everything else is dim to me.

13. The consequence of the episode was, of course, moving to my grandmother’s place. My ailing father was accommodated with a room to himself. None of his belongings which include a treasure trove of books were left behind. He stayed for a few months at his in-law’s house before breathing his last. His body was carried to the new house where the funeral rituals were initiated. He was laid to rest at the local cemetery in Alor Merah.   

A cutting from the Straits Echo dated 26 November, 1956

KCS = Kedah Government Service