TUNKU AND US... (Some more interesting ways to remember him.)
By Mansor Puteh
(NOTE: THIS ESSAY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN MALAYSIA-TODAY SOME YEARS AGO. ITS PUBLICATION AGAIN IS TO MARK THE 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF TUNKU’S DEATH LAST 6 DECEMBER. HE WAS BORN ON 8 FEBRUARY, 1903.
AND FEW MONTHS AGO I COMPLETED A DOCUMENTARY ON TUNKU CALLED ‘THE RESIDENCY YEARS’ WHICH WILL BE SHOWN ON MALAYSIAN TELEVISION IN FEBRUARY NEXT YEAR.)
All of us are related to the Tunku Abdul Rahman, our Bapa Kemerdekan (Father of Independence), in some way. And those who grew up with the birth of the nation will remember him more and directly. Some will also have personal anecdotes and encounters to talk about, especially at a time like this that often allows us the right opportunity to reflect on them.
But as for me, I am related with him and his family by marriage. I had also met him up close when he came to the house in November 1963, after Malaysia was just formed.
The first time I came to Kuala Lumpur in 1965 my mother and my other brother put up at her younger brother’s quarters at the former Campbell Road Police Station (now Jalan Dang Wangi) where he was a policeman. In the afternoons I would play football in the ‘padang’ which is still there, while the barracks had been torn down save for the police station and part of the quarters for single policemen at the side.
One day I asked my cousin, Zainuddin whom we call Zai to take me to the Residency. So the three of us, small kids walked along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman all the way to Jalan Dato Onn passing the flyover that was still under constructions then. It was going to be the first such structure to be in the city, as well as country.
When we got to the main entrance, the police guard asked what I wanted to do there. So I said I wanted to see my sister. He allowed me and my cousin and I entered the Residency which was bare. My sister came out and was shocked to see us two kids there at the official residence of the prime minister. She then went to the back to get some drinks and money to give me.
I waited a while and became restless and walked along the corridor and up the stairs at the back and went to the Tunku’s family quarters passing the doors of his bedroom at the other end.
My uncle, the policeman was too shocked to find out where we had gone to and he didn’t say a word. He knew I was capable of doing such things. But he was more worried about our safety since Kuala Lumpur at that time was not actually a peaceful place, and we were still in school, wearing short pants.
The next time when when I stayed at the Residency Lodge, a house that sat just outside the main gates of the Residency in 1965. It was during the one-month school break. One day the Tunku came to celebrate my nephew’s who is his grandson's birthday with his wife and some grandchildren.
I remember when there was no one in the house, I decided to climb on the roof and sat at the apex for a few seconds before deciding to go down. It was slippery and I could have slipped off and fell to the ground.
The next time when when I stayed at the Residency Lodge, a house that sat just outside the main gates of the Residency in 1965. It was during the one-month school break. One day the Tunku came to celebrate my nephew’s who is his grandson’s birthday with his wife and some grandchildren.
I remember when there was no one in the house I decided to climb on the roof and sat at the apex for a few seconds before deciding to go down. It was slippery and I could have slipped off and fell to the ground.
The last time I met him was at his house in Bukit Tunku where I did an interview that was arranged by my sister, on his involvement in screenwriting for which he had written ‘Mahsuri’, ‘Raja Bersiong’ and ‘Sumpahan Mahsuri’.
The Tunku stunned me when he said towards the end of the thirty-minute interview that he had to write the screenplays, to supplement his income as prime minister then. Or, maybe he was just joking and didn’t mean it.
He had come to the Residency Lodge in 1965 by bringing along a toy horse that he had got his assistant to by at the Robinson’s store in the former Mountbatten Road, which is now Jalan Tun Perak.
The Robinson’s store had been demolished to make way for a bank, much to the chagrin of the ardent conservationists and conversationalists, because the design of the building is classic and should have been retained as an extension of the Sultan Abdul Samad which sits across the road.
I was just a small boy when he came to my parents' house in Melaka to marry off his first adopted son, Syed Abdullah to my sister, Rokiah.
Tunku came with his wife and many of their grandchildren. Sharifah Rodziah is also Syed Abdullah’s aunt. And they were welcome like royalties, since no one there had seen them at such close range before. They seemed to be unassuming and a pleasant lot with the Tunku flashing smile at everybody.
The ‘Father of Merdeka’ had come to Melaka, in such a manner, not to speak about politics or the formation of Merdeka, but to solemnize a wedding of his son was something that many in Melaka who had come feel wonderful.
At that time I was not fully aware of what he was although being the ‘prime minister’ was not fully registered in my mind. I had also not seen him on television as there was no television in our area in Melaka. My father only bought a set much later after some of us had gone to another person’s house to watch it together with the other people living in the area.
So when we had a black-and-white set of our own, it also became communal property and every night when the transmission started at six o’clock the whole house would be filled by a large crowd. But we didn't care; we opened the front part of the house for everybody to watch television.
No one complained what the show was and watched until the transmission ended at midnight before they left the house.
This Fiftieth Merdeka year celebration is becoming more of a farce as the celebration reached its climax at the stroke of midnight at the end of this month.
The Malaysian flags are not fluttering mightily everywhere I look at, unlike in 1997 and 1998 when I remember on 1 August, there were peddlers setting temporary stalls and sold miniature flags for RM12 each. And those who fly them do so reluctantly with no pride. Some major companies that have big buildings only do so after they had been threatened with action by some ministers.
A Chinese friend of mine called Joseph Eu, from the famous Eu family, who used to be in the armed forces, made sure he had a miniature flag on his motorcycle which he often ride to go to the nearby stalls to meet his friends. He said he had stood in for a dignitary when they rehearsed the first Merdeka declaration in 1957. He died a few years ago after suffering from a stroke.
And there were many people who did not want to miss showing their pride in carrying the flag in multifarious ways.
However, after the ‘Reformasi’ movement started, the Merdeka celebrations that followed were muted, and flags were not fluttering anymore, to the extent that the ministry concerned had to offer them for free. Yet, not many people had bothered to fly them.
This year’s Merdeka celebration should be a cause for renewing the pride we have in whatever independence to the country means.
However, unfortunately, it's the media and ministries that have failed us.
The ministries concerned, particularly the ministry of culture, arts and heritage and information are not creative; they only have boring ideas on how to use the occasion to do wonderful things.
All we see are nothing but repeats of what they had done previously.
I am sure many Malaysians are bored each time they bring out memories of sportsmen whom they thought had brought glory to the nation.
It is depressing to see the same sportsmen and their stories being broadcast again and again on national television and in the media, like they are the real pride of the nation. They are not.
The Tunku, especially did not only bring them to the fore, but others, too, in the other more interesting and important fields, all of whom are conveniently neglected by the media in their haste to honor someone for this special occasion.
Malaysia’s independence is not about highlighting our former sportsmen; it is more than that. It is the spirit and message that the leaders, especially the Tunku had wanted to spread. This, unfortunately, is missing.
The media seems to think that it is just the sportsmen who had done so, and not the others.
And worse, the English language tabloid had saw it fit to only talk with those who had any personal and weird and insignificant recollections of the Tunku. This in the form of the letters he had written to small boys and his personal conversations with his drivers and other personal staff.
Is this the legacy of the Tunku that we have to be proud of?
What of the legacies that he had left in academics, science and technology, human relations, foreign investment, international relations, etc, etc?
When will the editors of the mainstream newspapers and television stations come up with something more interesting other than to publish stories about a small boy who got a personal and handwritten note from the Tunku, or tired and similar comments by one of the Tunku’s many drivers?
I believe the Tunku is more than that. He should not be remembered as the person who had written personal notes to small boys and for speaking with his drivers?
I hate to think how the editors would be suggesting that the personal note had resulted in the person receiving it getting a miracle of some sort. Alas, he only got his photo published in a newspaper and nothing more.
And what if after receiving the note, the boy had something mysterious happening to him? I fear that it could cause unnecessary alarm. Fortunately, noting of this sort had happened and the boy, too, had not gone to greater heights in his studies or career that he could link to him having received the note in the first place.
On the other hand, I could claim that the Tunku’s presence in my life had helped me to broaden my horizons. It is a fact.
My brother-in-law who had visited many countries had brought back the Pan-Am catalogues when he returned from his trip to the United States. I was fascinated by them. And it made me want to go to the country to study. And I dare to admit that the Tunku's presence was felt and it had affected me causing me to finally get into a prestigious university in New York City some fifteen years later.
And while we are with the Tunku or the prime ministers of Malaysia, as a one-time journalist with the now extinct Jawi script Utusan Melayu, I had met all the prime ministers except for Tun Razak. I was studying in ITM, Shahalam then and had been holed on campus for three years, when he died of leukemia in London.
I attended a New Year’s eve party with Hussein Onn and most of the members his cabinet that was held at the Nirwana Ballroom of the former Hilton Hotel on 31 December, 1977. And at the stroke of midnight, after everybody had shouted to welcome the new year, 1978, Hussein and his wife, went to the dance floor to perform the ‘joget lambak’ and got everybody else to do so.
It was probably the last time any prime minister had attended such new year eve celebrations in this manner. Mahathir only attended it with the crowd at Dataran Merdeka.
And talking about Mahathir, I bumped into him along the corridors of the prime minister’s department when he was still the deputy prime minister. He was speaking with Senu Rahman and in English. When they noticed my presence there, they immediately switched to speaking in Malay.
I later had a one-on-one meeting with Mahathir at his office in Putrajaya towards the end of his long twenty-two year stint as prime minister. I was quite thrilled when I was invited to see him on the day he celebrated the twenty-first anniversary of his premiership.
He had just returned from his two-week break abroad, after making a scene in Dewan Merdeka where he cried after announcing his resignation as prime minister and all posts in Umno and Barisan Nasional. It stunned the whole nation.
There were many local political analysts who said he had to do it for some reasons. But as a filmmaker, who is familiar with personal antics and actions, Mahathir pulled the stunt because the day earlier the Star had published on the front-page a photo of the Umno convention at Dewan Merdeka that was empty, and even the chairman of the party made announcements on the matches of the World Cup that was being held at that time.
So, Mahathir cried not because he had resigned, but because he wanted everybody's attention on the party convention. And true enough everybody started to think of him and the party and less of the World Cup.
I was worried when I went there because I was thinking that there would be a large crowd of people to greet him. But there was no one. I was the only person in the waiting room on the fifth floor where I had too wait for a few minutes before I was ushered in by his aide who was wondering what I was doing there, if I was a party leader or a foreign dignitary especially with my long hair that touched my shoulders.
In fact, I had cut my hair seven inches the day before, so I could look more pleasant, yet it was still very long. I was probably the only man with such hair who had been invited to meet the prime minister at his office in a one-on-one meeting.
So no wonder everybody at the department called me ‘Datuk’. Although the office at the front gate tried to scoff me, because he thought I had come to deliver mail to the department staff. He got a shock of his life when I told him I had an appointment with the prime minister. He fled away thinking that I might be someone who was not familiar with but who was very important enough to be given a special honor to meet Mahathir alone at his office and on that special day.
My brother-in-law had allowed me to scan all the photos in his collection that were taken over many decades, and mostly when he and his family were living in the official residence of the prime minister called the Residency. And I have compiled some of them into a photography book called ‘The Residency Years’ which I hope to be able to publish together with the fifty-nine other books I have written in Malay and English in a special world record edition.
And as a filmmaker by training, there is just one story or episode in the life of the Tunku that can be turned into a feature film that has an international appeal. However, I am not about to reveal what it is because I do not want anyone else to steal the idea from me. I will work on the screenplay which I had started to research when the time comes.
(NOTE: THIS ESSAY WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN MALAYSIA-TODAY SOME YEARS AGO. ITS PUBLICATION AGAIN IS TO MARK THE 19TH ANNIVERSARY OF TUNKU’S DEATH LAST 6 DECEMBER. HE WAS BORN ON 8 FEBRUARY, 1903.
AND FEW MONTHS AGO I COMPLETED A DOCUMENTARY ON TUNKU CALLED ‘THE RESIDENCY YEARS’ WHICH WILL BE SHOWN ON MALAYSIAN TELEVISION IN FEBRUARY NEXT YEAR.)
All of us are related to the Tunku Abdul Rahman, our Bapa Kemerdekan (Father of Independence), in some way. And those who grew up with the birth of the nation will remember him more and directly. Some will also have personal anecdotes and encounters to talk about, especially at a time like this that often allows us the right opportunity to reflect on them.
But as for me, I am related with him and his family by marriage. I had also met him up close when he came to the house in November 1963, after Malaysia was just formed.
The first time I came to Kuala Lumpur in 1965 my mother and my other brother put up at her younger brother’s quarters at the former Campbell Road Police Station (now Jalan Dang Wangi) where he was a policeman. In the afternoons I would play football in the ‘padang’ which is still there, while the barracks had been torn down save for the police station and part of the quarters for single policemen at the side.
One day I asked my cousin, Zainuddin whom we call Zai to take me to the Residency. So the three of us, small kids walked along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman all the way to Jalan Dato Onn passing the flyover that was still under constructions then. It was going to be the first such structure to be in the city, as well as country.
When we got to the main entrance, the police guard asked what I wanted to do there. So I said I wanted to see my sister. He allowed me and my cousin and I entered the Residency which was bare. My sister came out and was shocked to see us two kids there at the official residence of the prime minister. She then went to the back to get some drinks and money to give me.
I waited a while and became restless and walked along the corridor and up the stairs at the back and went to the Tunku’s family quarters passing the doors of his bedroom at the other end.
My uncle, the policeman was too shocked to find out where we had gone to and he didn’t say a word. He knew I was capable of doing such things. But he was more worried about our safety since Kuala Lumpur at that time was not actually a peaceful place, and we were still in school, wearing short pants.
The next time when when I stayed at the Residency Lodge, a house that sat just outside the main gates of the Residency in 1965. It was during the one-month school break. One day the Tunku came to celebrate my nephew’s who is his grandson's birthday with his wife and some grandchildren.
I remember when there was no one in the house, I decided to climb on the roof and sat at the apex for a few seconds before deciding to go down. It was slippery and I could have slipped off and fell to the ground.
The next time when when I stayed at the Residency Lodge, a house that sat just outside the main gates of the Residency in 1965. It was during the one-month school break. One day the Tunku came to celebrate my nephew’s who is his grandson’s birthday with his wife and some grandchildren.
I remember when there was no one in the house I decided to climb on the roof and sat at the apex for a few seconds before deciding to go down. It was slippery and I could have slipped off and fell to the ground.
The last time I met him was at his house in Bukit Tunku where I did an interview that was arranged by my sister, on his involvement in screenwriting for which he had written ‘Mahsuri’, ‘Raja Bersiong’ and ‘Sumpahan Mahsuri’.
The Tunku stunned me when he said towards the end of the thirty-minute interview that he had to write the screenplays, to supplement his income as prime minister then. Or, maybe he was just joking and didn’t mean it.
He had come to the Residency Lodge in 1965 by bringing along a toy horse that he had got his assistant to by at the Robinson’s store in the former Mountbatten Road, which is now Jalan Tun Perak.
The Robinson’s store had been demolished to make way for a bank, much to the chagrin of the ardent conservationists and conversationalists, because the design of the building is classic and should have been retained as an extension of the Sultan Abdul Samad which sits across the road.
I was just a small boy when he came to my parents' house in Melaka to marry off his first adopted son, Syed Abdullah to my sister, Rokiah.
Tunku came with his wife and many of their grandchildren. Sharifah Rodziah is also Syed Abdullah’s aunt. And they were welcome like royalties, since no one there had seen them at such close range before. They seemed to be unassuming and a pleasant lot with the Tunku flashing smile at everybody.
The ‘Father of Merdeka’ had come to Melaka, in such a manner, not to speak about politics or the formation of Merdeka, but to solemnize a wedding of his son was something that many in Melaka who had come feel wonderful.
At that time I was not fully aware of what he was although being the ‘prime minister’ was not fully registered in my mind. I had also not seen him on television as there was no television in our area in Melaka. My father only bought a set much later after some of us had gone to another person’s house to watch it together with the other people living in the area.
So when we had a black-and-white set of our own, it also became communal property and every night when the transmission started at six o’clock the whole house would be filled by a large crowd. But we didn't care; we opened the front part of the house for everybody to watch television.
No one complained what the show was and watched until the transmission ended at midnight before they left the house.
This Fiftieth Merdeka year celebration is becoming more of a farce as the celebration reached its climax at the stroke of midnight at the end of this month.
The Malaysian flags are not fluttering mightily everywhere I look at, unlike in 1997 and 1998 when I remember on 1 August, there were peddlers setting temporary stalls and sold miniature flags for RM12 each. And those who fly them do so reluctantly with no pride. Some major companies that have big buildings only do so after they had been threatened with action by some ministers.
A Chinese friend of mine called Joseph Eu, from the famous Eu family, who used to be in the armed forces, made sure he had a miniature flag on his motorcycle which he often ride to go to the nearby stalls to meet his friends. He said he had stood in for a dignitary when they rehearsed the first Merdeka declaration in 1957. He died a few years ago after suffering from a stroke.
And there were many people who did not want to miss showing their pride in carrying the flag in multifarious ways.
However, after the ‘Reformasi’ movement started, the Merdeka celebrations that followed were muted, and flags were not fluttering anymore, to the extent that the ministry concerned had to offer them for free. Yet, not many people had bothered to fly them.
This year’s Merdeka celebration should be a cause for renewing the pride we have in whatever independence to the country means.
However, unfortunately, it's the media and ministries that have failed us.
The ministries concerned, particularly the ministry of culture, arts and heritage and information are not creative; they only have boring ideas on how to use the occasion to do wonderful things.
All we see are nothing but repeats of what they had done previously.
I am sure many Malaysians are bored each time they bring out memories of sportsmen whom they thought had brought glory to the nation.
It is depressing to see the same sportsmen and their stories being broadcast again and again on national television and in the media, like they are the real pride of the nation. They are not.
The Tunku, especially did not only bring them to the fore, but others, too, in the other more interesting and important fields, all of whom are conveniently neglected by the media in their haste to honor someone for this special occasion.
Malaysia’s independence is not about highlighting our former sportsmen; it is more than that. It is the spirit and message that the leaders, especially the Tunku had wanted to spread. This, unfortunately, is missing.
The media seems to think that it is just the sportsmen who had done so, and not the others.
And worse, the English language tabloid had saw it fit to only talk with those who had any personal and weird and insignificant recollections of the Tunku. This in the form of the letters he had written to small boys and his personal conversations with his drivers and other personal staff.
Is this the legacy of the Tunku that we have to be proud of?
What of the legacies that he had left in academics, science and technology, human relations, foreign investment, international relations, etc, etc?
When will the editors of the mainstream newspapers and television stations come up with something more interesting other than to publish stories about a small boy who got a personal and handwritten note from the Tunku, or tired and similar comments by one of the Tunku’s many drivers?
I believe the Tunku is more than that. He should not be remembered as the person who had written personal notes to small boys and for speaking with his drivers?
I hate to think how the editors would be suggesting that the personal note had resulted in the person receiving it getting a miracle of some sort. Alas, he only got his photo published in a newspaper and nothing more.
And what if after receiving the note, the boy had something mysterious happening to him? I fear that it could cause unnecessary alarm. Fortunately, noting of this sort had happened and the boy, too, had not gone to greater heights in his studies or career that he could link to him having received the note in the first place.
On the other hand, I could claim that the Tunku’s presence in my life had helped me to broaden my horizons. It is a fact.
My brother-in-law who had visited many countries had brought back the Pan-Am catalogues when he returned from his trip to the United States. I was fascinated by them. And it made me want to go to the country to study. And I dare to admit that the Tunku's presence was felt and it had affected me causing me to finally get into a prestigious university in New York City some fifteen years later.
And while we are with the Tunku or the prime ministers of Malaysia, as a one-time journalist with the now extinct Jawi script Utusan Melayu, I had met all the prime ministers except for Tun Razak. I was studying in ITM, Shahalam then and had been holed on campus for three years, when he died of leukemia in London.
I attended a New Year’s eve party with Hussein Onn and most of the members his cabinet that was held at the Nirwana Ballroom of the former Hilton Hotel on 31 December, 1977. And at the stroke of midnight, after everybody had shouted to welcome the new year, 1978, Hussein and his wife, went to the dance floor to perform the ‘joget lambak’ and got everybody else to do so.
It was probably the last time any prime minister had attended such new year eve celebrations in this manner. Mahathir only attended it with the crowd at Dataran Merdeka.
And talking about Mahathir, I bumped into him along the corridors of the prime minister’s department when he was still the deputy prime minister. He was speaking with Senu Rahman and in English. When they noticed my presence there, they immediately switched to speaking in Malay.
I later had a one-on-one meeting with Mahathir at his office in Putrajaya towards the end of his long twenty-two year stint as prime minister. I was quite thrilled when I was invited to see him on the day he celebrated the twenty-first anniversary of his premiership.
He had just returned from his two-week break abroad, after making a scene in Dewan Merdeka where he cried after announcing his resignation as prime minister and all posts in Umno and Barisan Nasional. It stunned the whole nation.
There were many local political analysts who said he had to do it for some reasons. But as a filmmaker, who is familiar with personal antics and actions, Mahathir pulled the stunt because the day earlier the Star had published on the front-page a photo of the Umno convention at Dewan Merdeka that was empty, and even the chairman of the party made announcements on the matches of the World Cup that was being held at that time.
So, Mahathir cried not because he had resigned, but because he wanted everybody's attention on the party convention. And true enough everybody started to think of him and the party and less of the World Cup.
I was worried when I went there because I was thinking that there would be a large crowd of people to greet him. But there was no one. I was the only person in the waiting room on the fifth floor where I had too wait for a few minutes before I was ushered in by his aide who was wondering what I was doing there, if I was a party leader or a foreign dignitary especially with my long hair that touched my shoulders.
In fact, I had cut my hair seven inches the day before, so I could look more pleasant, yet it was still very long. I was probably the only man with such hair who had been invited to meet the prime minister at his office in a one-on-one meeting.
So no wonder everybody at the department called me ‘Datuk’. Although the office at the front gate tried to scoff me, because he thought I had come to deliver mail to the department staff. He got a shock of his life when I told him I had an appointment with the prime minister. He fled away thinking that I might be someone who was not familiar with but who was very important enough to be given a special honor to meet Mahathir alone at his office and on that special day.
My brother-in-law had allowed me to scan all the photos in his collection that were taken over many decades, and mostly when he and his family were living in the official residence of the prime minister called the Residency. And I have compiled some of them into a photography book called ‘The Residency Years’ which I hope to be able to publish together with the fifty-nine other books I have written in Malay and English in a special world record edition.
And as a filmmaker by training, there is just one story or episode in the life of the Tunku that can be turned into a feature film that has an international appeal. However, I am not about to reveal what it is because I do not want anyone else to steal the idea from me. I will work on the screenplay which I had started to research when the time comes.
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