I REMEMBER WHEN…TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN CAME TO MY PARENTS’ HOUSE IN MELAKA IN NOVEMBER, 1963, TWO MONTHS AFTER HE DECLARED THE FORMATION OF MALAYSIA. – PA
…AND HOW ‘SHOWED’ ME THE WAY TO COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN NEW YORK CITY.
By Mansor Puteh
(Tomorrow, 6 December is the twentieth anniversary of the death of Tunku Abdul Rahman. I am posting this article today and the second part in three days’ time.)
‘MANGSOR MAI DOK SINI!’ SHOUTED TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN IN 1986. HE WAS NOT REFERRING TO ME, AS MANCOT IS THE WAY KEDAHANS CALL MANSOR.
I COULD HAVE PLAYED THE TAPE I RECORDED THE INTERVIEW I HAD WITH TUNKU AT HIS RESIDENCE IN BUKIT TUNKU AND NO ONE COULD TELL THAT HE WAS REFERRING TO HIS RELATIVE OR FRIEND WHO HAD THE SAME NAME AS MINE.
I HAD BEEN CALLED BY MY SISTER, ROKIAH WHO SAID TUNKU COULD SEE ME FOR THE INTERVIEW WHICH I SAID I WANTED TO DO WITH HIM WHICH WAS TO TALK ABOUT HIS INTERESTS IN FILM AND YEARS IN ENGLAND AS A STUDENT. BUT IT WAS SAID IN PASSING. I DID NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY.
But when she called to say Tunku would be ready in two hours’ time, I just had to rush.
I got Hassan Muthalib who was then working at the animation department of Filem Negara Malaysia (FNM) to bring along a tape recorder and off the two of us went to Bukit Tunku where Tunku was waiting for us in the living room.
Tunku was a bit hard on hearing and I had to ‘shout’ or speak louder than I normally would to anyone, and he insisted it.
It was not comfortable to do so to a man of such stature. But Tunku ‘ordered’ me to shout at him, and I did. And out also came the nervousness I felt at my first encounter with him.
Actually, it was my third personal encounter with Tunku. The second time was when he stopped by at the Residency Lodge where I was staying at in 1965.
It is a house that sat just outside of The Residency, which was then the official residence of the first prime minister of Malaysia.
Tunku had come with his wife, Tun Sharifah Rodziah or Mak Engku as everybody in my family called her, for the birthday party of their grandson, Syed Abdul Jalil who happens to be my nephew.
Such a name could only be given by Tunku, as Jalil’s older sister had a more westernized name of Sharifah Mazlinnah which her parents had given her. Both of them were born when their parents, Syed Abdullah Barakhbah and my sister, Rokiah were living at The Residency.
I got to see Tunku for the second time in 1965 when he was still very much the prime minister of the country.
I did not ask my brother-in-law to take a photo of me with Tunku who was sitting in the porch with his grandchildren and children at the party, because I did not know if that would be tantamount to taking advantage of his presence at the Lodge.
It would have been fun to have such a photo with Tunku taken at the Lodge in 1965 so I could also see how I looked like then.
I had seen him and Mak Engku being driven back and forth to The Residency everyday from there as his official car moved along Jalan Dato’ Onn, when he would drive out to play golf or to attend functions.
I would also cycle along the road which went down a low hill which had tall trees whose leaves covered the whole length of the road, all the way to where the other entrance to the Prime Minister’s department was, before turning around to return to the Lodge by passing in front of the residences of some senior officers including that of Tunku’s private secretary and the Selangor police chief.
It was two years after the Formation of Malaysia and four years before the 13 May, 1969 tragedy which caused him to leave office, a very unhappy man who had in August, 1957 declared to the whole world how he had managed to achieve independence for the country ‘without spilling a single drop of blood’ (his own words).
Yet, barely six years later, a lot of blood had to be spilled in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and some other towns in the country, a tragedy which left him almost numb and unable to comprehend what was happening.
The sorriest sight of it all was when he could see the thick bellow of smoke alighting from the streets in the city floating into the sky from the balcony of his bedroom at The Residency.
How dark was the sky in the afternoon and how dark it was for him to feel in his heart of hearts.
Yet, around him he had Malaysians of all races working at The Residency, all of whom felt lost.
The ‘mini-Malaysia’ that Tunku had created in The Residency where he was holding fort, is not the same as the Malaysia below it.
I returned to the Lodge when I wanted to look at The Residency again after so long, in the 1980s, and found it still standing. However, when I came by there again, it was gone because the whole area had been taken over by the construction of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial.
Those who were responsible for the construction and design of the Memorial had not taken into account the importance and relevance of the Lodge and the few other houses around The Residency which were also important to it.
The first time I met Tunku was when he came to my parents’ house in Melaka Town, for the wedding of Syed Abdullah and Rokiah in November, 1963. I was still in lower secondary school at the St. Francis’ Institution in Jalan Banda Kaba now Jalan Parameswara.
I do not remember how it all happened, the wedding and ‘bersanding’ ceremony. I remember when Mak Engku came to the house for the ‘merisik’ in her official vehicle from Kuala Lumpur.
And because the house was hidden, my elder sister, Asmah was directed by my father to stand by the road to watch for the vehicle and a few others to come, so she could show the driving carrying Mak Engku and her relatives to the house.
And the sight of this made many in the whole area who witnessed the ‘event’ to believe that we were all Tunku’s relatives.
They were not aware of what was going on, until the wedding happened.
I could not believe it that discussion for the wedding had happened while Tunku was busy traveling throughout the country and especially to Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Brunei to try and get the consensus of the leaders on the formation of Malaysia, something I was not fully aware of or knew what it was all about.
In fact, I was also not aware of the formation of Malaysia until much later.
There was no press covering the wedding, and ambush journalism was still unheard of then.
It was probably Tunku’s idea not to bring the press along as it was not an official duty, but a family chore that he had to do.
By Mansor Puteh
(Tomorrow, 6 December is the twentieth anniversary of the death of Tunku Abdul Rahman. I am posting this article today and the second part in three days’ time.)
‘MANGSOR MAI DOK SINI!’ SHOUTED TUNKU ABDUL RAHMAN IN 1986. HE WAS NOT REFERRING TO ME, AS MANCOT IS THE WAY KEDAHANS CALL MANSOR.
I COULD HAVE PLAYED THE TAPE I RECORDED THE INTERVIEW I HAD WITH TUNKU AT HIS RESIDENCE IN BUKIT TUNKU AND NO ONE COULD TELL THAT HE WAS REFERRING TO HIS RELATIVE OR FRIEND WHO HAD THE SAME NAME AS MINE.
I HAD BEEN CALLED BY MY SISTER, ROKIAH WHO SAID TUNKU COULD SEE ME FOR THE INTERVIEW WHICH I SAID I WANTED TO DO WITH HIM WHICH WAS TO TALK ABOUT HIS INTERESTS IN FILM AND YEARS IN ENGLAND AS A STUDENT. BUT IT WAS SAID IN PASSING. I DID NOT TAKE IT SERIOUSLY.
But when she called to say Tunku would be ready in two hours’ time, I just had to rush.
I got Hassan Muthalib who was then working at the animation department of Filem Negara Malaysia (FNM) to bring along a tape recorder and off the two of us went to Bukit Tunku where Tunku was waiting for us in the living room.
Tunku was a bit hard on hearing and I had to ‘shout’ or speak louder than I normally would to anyone, and he insisted it.
It was not comfortable to do so to a man of such stature. But Tunku ‘ordered’ me to shout at him, and I did. And out also came the nervousness I felt at my first encounter with him.
Actually, it was my third personal encounter with Tunku. The second time was when he stopped by at the Residency Lodge where I was staying at in 1965.
It is a house that sat just outside of The Residency, which was then the official residence of the first prime minister of Malaysia.
Tunku had come with his wife, Tun Sharifah Rodziah or Mak Engku as everybody in my family called her, for the birthday party of their grandson, Syed Abdul Jalil who happens to be my nephew.
Such a name could only be given by Tunku, as Jalil’s older sister had a more westernized name of Sharifah Mazlinnah which her parents had given her. Both of them were born when their parents, Syed Abdullah Barakhbah and my sister, Rokiah were living at The Residency.
I got to see Tunku for the second time in 1965 when he was still very much the prime minister of the country.
I did not ask my brother-in-law to take a photo of me with Tunku who was sitting in the porch with his grandchildren and children at the party, because I did not know if that would be tantamount to taking advantage of his presence at the Lodge.
It would have been fun to have such a photo with Tunku taken at the Lodge in 1965 so I could also see how I looked like then.
I had seen him and Mak Engku being driven back and forth to The Residency everyday from there as his official car moved along Jalan Dato’ Onn, when he would drive out to play golf or to attend functions.
I would also cycle along the road which went down a low hill which had tall trees whose leaves covered the whole length of the road, all the way to where the other entrance to the Prime Minister’s department was, before turning around to return to the Lodge by passing in front of the residences of some senior officers including that of Tunku’s private secretary and the Selangor police chief.
It was two years after the Formation of Malaysia and four years before the 13 May, 1969 tragedy which caused him to leave office, a very unhappy man who had in August, 1957 declared to the whole world how he had managed to achieve independence for the country ‘without spilling a single drop of blood’ (his own words).
Yet, barely six years later, a lot of blood had to be spilled in the streets of Kuala Lumpur and some other towns in the country, a tragedy which left him almost numb and unable to comprehend what was happening.
The sorriest sight of it all was when he could see the thick bellow of smoke alighting from the streets in the city floating into the sky from the balcony of his bedroom at The Residency.
How dark was the sky in the afternoon and how dark it was for him to feel in his heart of hearts.
Yet, around him he had Malaysians of all races working at The Residency, all of whom felt lost.
The ‘mini-Malaysia’ that Tunku had created in The Residency where he was holding fort, is not the same as the Malaysia below it.
I returned to the Lodge when I wanted to look at The Residency again after so long, in the 1980s, and found it still standing. However, when I came by there again, it was gone because the whole area had been taken over by the construction of the Tunku Abdul Rahman Memorial.
Those who were responsible for the construction and design of the Memorial had not taken into account the importance and relevance of the Lodge and the few other houses around The Residency which were also important to it.
The first time I met Tunku was when he came to my parents’ house in Melaka Town, for the wedding of Syed Abdullah and Rokiah in November, 1963. I was still in lower secondary school at the St. Francis’ Institution in Jalan Banda Kaba now Jalan Parameswara.
I do not remember how it all happened, the wedding and ‘bersanding’ ceremony. I remember when Mak Engku came to the house for the ‘merisik’ in her official vehicle from Kuala Lumpur.
And because the house was hidden, my elder sister, Asmah was directed by my father to stand by the road to watch for the vehicle and a few others to come, so she could show the driving carrying Mak Engku and her relatives to the house.
And the sight of this made many in the whole area who witnessed the ‘event’ to believe that we were all Tunku’s relatives.
They were not aware of what was going on, until the wedding happened.
I could not believe it that discussion for the wedding had happened while Tunku was busy traveling throughout the country and especially to Sabah, Sarawak, Singapore and Brunei to try and get the consensus of the leaders on the formation of Malaysia, something I was not fully aware of or knew what it was all about.
In fact, I was also not aware of the formation of Malaysia until much later.
There was no press covering the wedding, and ambush journalism was still unheard of then.
It was probably Tunku’s idea not to bring the press along as it was not an official duty, but a family chore that he had to do.
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