The Single parent. My immediate neighbour

       My neighbour who was  next door to my house was a single father with 4 kids. When his wife gave birth to their  fourth child,she passed away. This single father, after his wife's death did not get married but played the role of  a father , mother, nanny and as a guardian to his four kids.

      Gopal thats his name, came to Malaysia from Tamil Nadu,  during his teenage years and worked as a blue collar worker. At the same time cooked food for his kids and washed their clothes and took care of them, send them to school and grew vegeis for the family's  consumption in a vacated land in front of his house.        
         Bananas, tapiocas, long beans, okra, aubergine, " "vetrillai valli kilanggu" a fruit in the form of a tuber  which is found on a creeping plant with leaves like betels.

    He also had chickens and turkeys other than ducks for his family's consumption. I had never seen him sitting or chatting with any one. There were two huge tree infront his house. One was  a jackfruit tree which bear juicy huge fruits and  another  one was a "drumstick" "Murungai"  tree.

   A mother can play the role of a father, but a single  father, to take care of the children and to educate them is very difficult, but as  a father this single parent send his kids to school and prepared food  for them, not only that, he also preserved vegetables and tapiocas which he grew in his garden.He dried  the boiled tapiocas and kept in a air tighht bottle for months, which is known as "vadam" or crackers.

     A father who had  also stitch his kids clothes and cleans the house every evening after coming home from work. Once I  still remember, he advised me about keeping the house clean and how to maintain the cleanliness of ones home. I was only fourteen at that time and learnt nothing from  my sisters about keeping the house clean, so I was not good at cleaning and maintaining the cleanliness of  my house.
   
     
      Gopals  wealth   was only the house in which he lived with his four kids and his grand child..
      
     I still remember , in his house only old metal boxes which he brought from India were used to keep the family members  clothes. The floor of his house was a rough concrete floor. His eldest daughter was my second sisters classmate. After her form five exam she was married off to some one from suffolk estate , which is at present known as Kg Kamaruddin in Sri Manjung.After married, his daughter followed her husband to Taiping where he has been living and  working.
   
      Sunday is the only day Mr.Gopal  to be at home fully and that is the day he collected and dried the firewood  as much as he can afford. Because during rainy season it is very difficult to get fire wood, or to cook, so in advance Mr. Gopal stored the  firewood in  the shack which he built to keep the fire wood and  the less used things.

    Those days almost all the families owned a shack opposite their house. My family's shack was used to keep all our bicycles and the fire wood.

My Village and childhood memories

        The midwife in my village  known as    Accammah. Her husband’s   name  Ragavel. They had four sons all  married and stayed in the same house. Their family was the only extended family in the Village.
      

        My mother told us that Accammah was  beside my mum for every delivery. Even, my birth was in my village house.  Accammah was the midwife.  Accammah’s daughter in-laws cooked, in big amount in big pots. Every noon around two or three after lunch Acamah’s daughter in-laws pounded  the  grains   and make flour or use a traditional mill to make the flour. It was not an easy job. I even helped them while they grind the rice and grains for the next days   Breakfast. Accamah’s first daughter in-law, every morning collected  the cow dung from the Shed and mixed  it with water and polished her kitchen and the corridor of their house and then draw beautiful Kolams or ranggoli’s .
   
        I wondered why she was doing it. I even asked her why and she told me tha, the cow dung will protect their house by preventing insects from entering the house.      According to my father, Ragavel and Accammah came to Malaysia as teenagers   after they  married in India and all their children  born here .  One of their son went to Saudi Arabia after his wife’s death and worked there for 10  years. 
      My sister used to read the letters he sent  his parents. Another son married to  a Malay woman  and his name is Rayan after conversion he named himself as Ibrahim.
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       He  was a plumber with the water works department. He   had two sons and they looked very much Malay. Rayan seldom visit his parents and now no one knows about his whereabouts.
       

   One of Accammah grandson is my classmate and his name is Mano. We attended the same school and were classmates. Even after school hours he was my friend. My neighbourhood kids most of them all boys around my age. The girls were either too old or too young to be my friends.   I mean they were much younger including my youngest sister. Thats one of the reaso, most of the time I would  be  either playing with my brothers or with the other boys such as Moses, Peter and Mano. That’s the time I learnt to climb trees and make my own kites. 
        
    I observed my brothers making their fishing rods by melting pieces of tins in a can and   by using  banana leaf they pour the melted portion of tin in the leaf which they made in a shape of a cocoon. This cocoon was used in the fishing rods, which they had created them selves. Other than fishing rods, they also good at creating their spikes from alluminium rods. Whenever it rains heavily, the drain at the back yard of my house used to be  full and it looked like a small  stream.

      Once, when I was swimming in the back yard  with my brothers, my father back home and he searched for us. My sister told him that we are not listening to her advice and still playing in the rain.
        
              My dad came with his belt and chased my brothers out, I quickly ran and hide in a corner and he could  not see me.
     Somehow I escaped that day from his beating. But my brothers    were    beaten     because the water level was very high and the current was very strong due to heavy rainfall.
      
      My third and fifth brothers were quite playful and were not serious in studies even though they were very  good students. But my    fourth brother was very hardworking.
        

    He had ashma as far as I could remember. In the dust and the cold and by sneezing and wheezing he mugged with his books day and night.   He is the most hardworking and studious one in the family other than my second sister.

My village, neighbours and the sweet memories

•           John Cannon was the most popular name in my neighborhood in sixties his house  was the only house with a television set. My neighborhood people were all at his house when a Tamil movie or drama was telecasted.   
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•         He was the replica of John Cannon of the "High Chaparral".So my brothers named him as John Canon and his wife as Victoria.           
  
•     The only reason why everyone went to his house to watch TV programmes was because none of the families owned Television set at that time.                                                                                               Another reason was, the family members were friendlier to everyone and  every one was comfortable to visit the family.                Being a child I was excited to watch the Tamil movies and followed my brothers and sisters to 'John Cannon's' house to watch the Tamil dramas and movies.          One day on our way back home from John Cannon’s house a snake crept on my sister’s foot.   
•      My sister came home and told us about the incident and when my father knew about it The next day my father bought a 24 inches screen television set.    
  
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•      After the arrival of  the television set the whole village was there to watch Tamil series in my house.Most of the late evenings the living room was full of crowdmy neighbours.     
•         The ladies came there only to watch Tamil dramas and Tamil news but the kids were there for every programme.   The living room  was full of kids almost evry evening.          
•        My favourite programmes were the cartoons and the cowboy movies.                                                                     Most of my neighbours were either self employed or work for others; none of them       were either worked with the government or at the  private sector.    
  
  
•          So the standard of life of the village people was lower middle class.  Only few Kids from the Village attended English school, my siblings were among those who attended English School.   My dad with the maximum number of kids managed to fulfill our basic needs and  provided us the best food and best clothing’s and fulfilled  our neccesities.                                During those days entertainment such as television was considered luxury.   None of us had the machines such as blender and grinder.   The traditional way of grinding and and making flour was considered the common way of living.   
  


•     The John Cannon has two sons and a daughter.   We were very happy and proud that our” Childhood neighbor" friend was a national player, in early eighties,
  


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• And at present another one from my village became a Politician. I mean He is a member of Parliament.
  


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•      Another one is a number one officer with the National AirLines of the country.Even though we were all from very simple background, today many of us live a life that ordinary people could be proud of. My humble and simple Village had produced many talented and ambitious individuals who are serving the nation and at the same time excelled in their personal and family life    
  


•     At times I recall the moment, when we all the village kids used to make our own kites and flew those in the sky.    
  


• Our long term holidays were something we really cherished. We all used to trap birds and catch grasshoppers for our mynas.

My Child hood memories with my brother

       Few incidents of my childhood days still very fresh untill today.  Some im not really sure about but  few unforgetable incidents still very fresh.One day my brother was awake till midnight and I asked him why?
 
   He said he was waiting to catch the bats on guava tree and going to toast them.

   So I was ready for that special ”function” , after catching those bats, he made fire and burnt those bats in the fire and then gave me a small portion of the meat.
 
   wow!! It was so delicious. And on another occation my 3rd brother caught two squirrels and toasted them in fire after skinning them.

   Again I got a little bit of that flesh. Other than these, activities our neighborhood dogs had been trained to catch iguanas.

   Those days, the Chinese used to ask for the iguanas meat and they pay good price.

   They believed that the iguana meat could cure asthma. So these youngsters make arrangement at the back yards during school holidays.
 
   Most of the families own a small land and they grew their own fruits and veggies.

   In our land we grew Ragi, tapioca and corn. I mean these were for our own consumption.
 
   Beside these, My brothers had grown okra and long beans.

   Each family had big number of children and the maximum number of kids in a family is 13.
 
   The family with the smallest number is the one with 4 kids, My father had 9 children and we were his wealth. All his hard earned money was spent for our school fees , food, clothes and to buy the books.
 
   Sending 9 kids to school and providing their basic needs is not an easy task, because those days everything was self sponsored no scholarships or funds or freebooks, money needed for everything.
    Being a fault finder with National Electricity Board, my dad had big vissions in life for his children, but he was not around to see his children coming up in life. He was only fifty two when he passed away.

memories of dad

      My recent visit to my hometown, brought back the memories of my dad. I visited the river side where my dad used to take me and my younger sister on weekends. He pedaled his bicycle from our house to the river bank with us on his bicycle. 
     We were left to play in the water which was shallow and he waited for us on the river bank. After an hour plus me and my sister came out of the water and changed our clothes and followed dad.He pedaled his  cycle to his  close friends house and we were served tea , fried bananas and samosa.
       Looking at my dad and his friends speech , I realize how close my dad has been with them. I mean they were his very close friends, until  I heard my dad was telling them how hard he tried to win my mother's heart to get marry her. According to him, my mum was very passive and did not respond at all. He said that he approached my mothers only brother and be befriended him and after became  good friends only, he got the chance to get married to my mum. According to my dad my mum was a very brave lady but very firm and strict with guys, that's why she did not respond to my father's approach.

    When ever I'm alone I used to recall those beautiful moments and my dad's conversation with his good friends and how close he moved with his only brother in law, Mr. Narayanasamy who was a plumber attached to  water works department. A very hard working man, who even on weekends, when he is not working did part time job as a plumber and sold vegetables. All his earnings were used to support his two step children.

    My dad when ever  at home called me and asked me to read the wedding invitations and the news letters and asked me to explain to him. The reason  he asked me to read was, he wants to know or to test my literacy  from year 2. 

        Dad was the only person who really observed my character. I even heard him telling his friends," she is very different than the other children, she always walks back  alone from school and always on her own, seldom I have seen her with her friends". I was only ten at that time when he uttered these words to his friend.         
        Almost all my needs were fulfilled at home so I never had any extra needs or expenses. Food was cooked at home by my sister, I mean every meal was prepared at home. So we never bought food from outside.

       Every evening almost around 4 to 5 pm,  me and my sister send tea to my dad who was on call. When on call, he is not allowed to  leave the office and need to be there until phone rings and my dad need to follow the driver who is there  waiting for him, being a fault finder with CBE (TNB currently) it was a whole days work, at times dad goes in the van few times a day or sometimes just wait in the office when there is no case.

        Those days there were no facilities as they have today. My dad used to climb very high double ladder which was so tall and several times he fell down and broke his leg. He would be on leave until he was able to walk again, this occurred several times. His last fall was when he was 52 and he had an attack which caused him to lost his life.
       when I see The Electricity board workers, especially those fault finders performing their task, in a crane which functions as a box and takes them high to  the pole, I  wonder , If these facilities were available during dad's working years definitely he would have been alive now and live with us.