Migration
After his wedding, Kumarasingam arranged for my mother and me to return to Kuala Lumpur with him. We were to go by train from Jaffna to Colombo, and thence sail by ship to from Colombo to Singapore. From Singapore, we would go by train to Kuala Lumpur in Malaya. The prospect was not exciting. I was apprehensive of more cruel beatings. I had no wish for an education. I would have preferred to stay behind to become a farmer, but life with my uncle was Hobson’s choice. I had no courage to take a chance in the unknown world by running away.
On the train journey, my nightmare recurred a few times and I would awake screaming and drenched in sweat.
Transit in Colombo
Coming from a tiny village and arriving the next day in the city of Colombo, the proximity, size and types of buildings completely bewildered me. The heavy traffic of horse carriages, bullock carts, bicycles, wheelbarrows and the number of men and women swinging along with loads on their heads on the busy roads left me confused. At the lodging house where we stayed, I was amazed to see long rows of people sitting on the floor eating food served on banana leaves. When I asked where I was to go to answer the call of nature they directed me to a building, in which men squatted in little open cubicles over a stream of water that ran below their bottoms. Hardly believing what I was seeing, I did as the others did and sat in a vacant cubicle. I feared I would slip and fall into the channel of water and be washed away with human filth into the sea beyond. Believe me I was very, very careful, in spite of my wish for death.
Busy streets of Colombo. Ceylon 1915.
Lankapura.com
I lay on a mat beside my mother in the row of people who slept at the boarding house, and, for the first time, began to think about the prospect of sailing across the vast stretch of water. I did not know the world was round. For me it was flat. Looking across the sea, I did not see any land; so where was this Malaya to which we were going? It would be useless to ask my mother; she knew nothing and never told me anything. I was not in the habit of asking anyone else. Others laughed at me if I asked anything and treated me like an idiot. I had to figure out for myself whatever I wished to know. I thought that on reaching the edge of the sea we would drop to a lower level and then sail to the new place. It did not occur to me to wonder how a ship would leap up to the higher level to return to our native land. Having solved the puzzle, I fell asleep, and upon waking up, I told myself that I must keep myself awake on the ship to see this magical drop.
We sailed in a Japanese steamer ship as passengers on the open deck. In the event of rain, an awning was to protect us, but there was no rain. Deck passengers brought their own provisions, cooked their meals on the deck and slept on mats. The people sleeping on the deck reminded me of a herd of cows lying on a field after grazing. The voyage was uneventful. For seven days, sun was scorching, and for seven nights, it was beautifully cool. One day, there was sudden excitement when someone shouted, “Emden! Emden!”
“Where, Where?” shouted all others.
One guy pointed to the horizon, “There, There!”
Everyone ran to that side and asked,” Where, Where?”
A few said, “There, that spot!”
A Japanese sailor said something. Some passengers interpreted, “He says, not Emden.”
The excitement subsided; I asked, “What is Emden?”
A big man said, “German ship. Sinks all ships!”
“Why?”
“War boy, war!”
“What war?”
“You don’t know war? Madayan! (idiot)”
A twirl of the long moustache, and end of dialogue.
The next morning I woke up in Singapore waters to one more lesson in geography – what islands looked like. I must have been asleep when the ship dropped to the lower level!
In and out of Singapore
Although I have cajoled my brain to recall events relating to my landing in Singapore, I cannot recall what hopes or wishes I had. I remember being obsessed with the terror of my brother and feeling like a kidnapped child. There was no pleasure in the new surroundings or expectation of any fresh adventure.
I vaguely remember staying at a Tamil boarding house in a row of shop houses in front of the Railway Station. A crowd of Tamil immigrants like ourselves, men, women and children, each carried a trunk, or a rolled-up mat, bundle of clothes, cooking pot, cotton shawl containing rice and jostled for a space on the floor to lay our possessions. People rushed and crashed as they went up the staircase. Kumarasingam and his wife staked a spot with mats and bags for themselves. My mother and I were at the end of the ground floor, near the kitchen. We took possession of our domain by unrolling our mats and sitting on them until all the others had found their pads and would not steal ours. Every one spoke at the same time. It was cacophonous. I heard the rumble and angry warning of an iron monster and realised that it was the train at the station in front of the boarding house. Was it morning, afternoon, or evening? I had forgotten.
Kumarasingam told us that he could not get train tickets to Kuala Lumpur until two days later. During this interval, he took us on a visit. We boarded a tram, which was a noisy, rattling iron monster. We changed from one tram to another, walked some distance and arrived in Ceylon Road. Walking up some steps, we entered a house where he introduced my mother and his wife to Dr. and Mrs. Pathy. The doctor had been his classmate in Jaffna and they had remained good friends although Kumarasingam was only a clerk while his friend had become an eminent doctor. I was awestruck to meet such a dignitary. Looking around I saw through a doorway, a prayer room with pictures of Hindu deities Siva, Pillayar, and Lakshmi with the light of an oil lamp falling on them. After a while, Dr. Pathy went off to say his prayers and scatter scented jasmine flowers on the deities while his wife chatted with the adults in our group.
The next day, we commenced our journey to Kuala Lumpur on a train jammed among noisy passengers, rolled up mats and miscellaneous bundles. An hour later, we scrambled out and rushed to board a ferry to cross the Straits of Johor. (The causeway between Singapore and Johor had yet to be built). The ferry tossed us about for a while and we felt nauseous. The journey continued to be draining, where we jostled again into a waiting train. I found myself sandwiched between people and parcels!
Meagre accommodation in Kuala Lumpur
Exhausted, I fell asleep. When I awoke, we had arrived at the Kuala Lumpur Railway Station. Someone helped me into a bullock cart together with trunks, mats and bundles and we arrived at a two-roomed terrace house in Galloway Road. Two young men welcomed and helped us into the house with our possessions. One was Kumarasingam’s younger brother Arunasalam, who looked bigger, stronger and tougher than his elder brother did. He played football while Kumarasingam only played darts. The other was Ponnampalam, a distant uncle, who was younger than Kumarasingam and was reputed to be a good footballer despite having a deformed foot.
The entrance door led into the first room. A large wooden table stood against the wall that separated the front room from the next one. A door led into the second room, and beyond, a third door gave way to a few steps down to a small space and a little kitchen. Having been used only to the mud-walled hut in my village, it did not occur to me to wonder how the two tiny rooms of the terrace house were going to accommodate Kumarasingam, his wife, his brother, his cousin, my mother and me. After dinner, my mother laid out her mat in the open space between the kitchen and the steps and lay down to sleep. My brother and his wife slept on a curtained iron bed behind a screen in the inner room. I think that when it rained, my mother slept in the space between the cloth screen and the wall. The table in the front room served as a bed for the two young men. I lay on a mat on the ground in the narrow space between the table and the wall. Although I had apprehensions about not being able to fit into Standard 3 in an English school, I was disappointed when I learnt that schools were on vacation and that I would have to wait for the new term for enrolment. I wanted to go to school not to learn but to escape from my brother and to play with other boys.
First impressions of Kuala Lumpur
Since it was school vacation, Kumarasingam announced that we would go by train to Lahat, north of Ipoh, to visit Uncle Sinnapoo. For the first time I felt a happy expectation and excitement but held it under control for I feared he would cancel the trip. Uncle Ponnampalam took my mother and me by rickshaw to the railway station. I was thrilled, sitting between my uncle and mother, watching the rickshaw puller galloping like a horse. I had never imagined that a human could run so fast pulling a vehicle loaded with two adults and a boy. I was too fascinated and full of admiration for the rickshaw puller to observe anything else. The traffic in the roads was largely rickshaws, bullock carts, a few horse carriages and cars, several cyclists and numerous pedestrians. Chinese men had long plaited queues tucked into their pockets. I was also fascinated to see the variety of people – Malays, Tamils, Chinese, Sikhs, Europeans and others. This was quite a new cultural experience — a visual lesson on a multi-racial, multi-language community.
Downloaded from museumvolunteersjmm.com
We entered the railway station by the gate beside the fourth platform. I was astounded, stupefied, by the spaciousness of the station. It had four long pairs of railway lines and four platforms. A stationary train at the first platform had a mammoth engine at the top and a line of carriages larger than my imagination could have conjure. Masses of people moved around the fourth platform and disappeared into two deep holes in the ground, one on my right and the other on my left. Uncle Ponnampalam must have realised that I was too ignorant to know what was happening. He explained that the passengers were going by the subway to the first platform to get into the train there because people were not allowed to walk across the railway lines. We too traversed the subway to travel by the same train. It was marvelous and fascinating, I could not believe that there could be a way underground, under the railway lines and under such a heavy train and wondered how the roof of the subway could support such weight.
Railway station, Kuala Lumpur.
My education from new sights and scenes was continuing. Despite my terror of my brother and the uncertainty of my future, new sensations emerged. I excitedly looked forward to experiencing once again love from Uncle Sinappoo; make the acquaintance of my aunt and their two children. The absence of Kumarasingam sharpened my senses to the scenes of the world at large. The journey became pleasurable and highly educational.
While entering a carriage I heard a rumble. Peeping through the space between two carriages, I saw an incoming train puffing smoothly along the track next to a platform on which I had been standing. It was wonderful to behold a means of transportation so vastly superior to a bullock cart! I began to appreciate coming to Malaya. There were pleasurable experiences in life, not mere whacks and kicks…
The train journey that opened my eyes
The train journey was three hours. Sitting with my mother, I listened with wonder at the pandemonium of mixed tongues, foreign to me, spoken at high pitch. Even the spoken Tamil had a different rhythm and tone. The sound of the wheels of the train going ‘dumb-de-dumb-de-dumb’ on the rails, the whoosh of wind through the windows and the ‘tick-tack, tick-tack ‘of pylons as we passed they had more meaning than human speech. For a fleeting moment, I wondered whether school would be as incomprehensible, and how I would cope. However, that problem was too difficult to solve and I switched back to focus on the happiness awaiting me at Lahat. I surrendered myself to the changing views through the train window. The deepest impression I have is of the hills and mountains on my right. It would come back to me in later years when I was studying the geography of Malaya and teachers said that the mountains were the “spine of the Peninsula”.
The train crossed numerous bridges across small and large streams and rivers. We passed through villages and towns. All of this scenery laid for me a tangible foundation to understand the abstract information I read later in school textbooks. Little did I realise that this train journey would one day replace my dislike for education and fill me with an avid desire for knowledge. Many of the visual experiences that came to me without the aid of teachers would awaken me to the wonders of nature and the capacity of the human mind to invent and bring into existence things like subways, bridges, locomotives, multi-storied buildings, the telephone and the telegraph.
Lahat and Uncle Sinappoo
Uncle Ponnampalam had assured us that on arrival in Lahat, Uncle Sinappoo would await us on the platform, since he was the stationmaster, and personally ensured we disembarked safely before allowing the train to continue its journey. I was amazed to hear that my uncle had so much power. Sure enough, when the train reached Lahat, Uncle met us. I admired his uniform of closed white coat with silvery buttons, long white trousers and a blue cap with the label: Station Master. His upright bearing, short moustache and affectionate smile remain fixed in my memory. He led us to his quarters, a small bungalow, very near the station, where his warm-hearted wife made us feel welcomed to her home. In next to no time I was playing with uncle’s children, a boy aged four and a girl aged two. The few days I spent at Lahat were the happiest I would experience for years to come. I felt really wanted and loved by the entire family. Although my uncle told me that I could visit him every school vacation I was sad to leave. I doubted Kumarasingam would ever send me on a holiday. As it turned out I did not visited him again until 1925.
Return to Kuala Lumpur: educational torture under Kumarasingam
My return began the worst period of Kuamarsingam’s ‘tuition’. I was terrified when I heard that he did not have to resume work for some days and was going to give me intensive tuition to prepare for Standard 3. Breakfast over, brother fetched a walking stick, put it on the table, took out a reader, sat on a bentwood chair, made me stand in front of him, gave me the reader and ordered me to read. I think I looked for words I could recognise and muttered them.
“Enah madayan, (what a fool), “start reading at the beginning,” and picked up the walking stick.
I started spelling the first word, the cane came down hard on my left leg, and urine ran down my legs wetting my sarong and the floor. Blows with the cane rained on my body and I said in Tamil that I wanted to go to the lavatory. He sent me off with a kick in my behind telling me to come back quickly after a bath and change into my second sarong.
The tuition continued several times a day. The cane was a constant ‘stimulator’. His method of teaching changed a little. He made me repeat words until I could remember them. He would read a sentence and ask me to read it after him; if I made a mistake the walking stick descended heavily on me. He would read more sentences at a time after which I made more mistakes and experienced more blows. Even in the evenings when children of my age played with tennis ball in the back yard of the terrace houses Kumarasingam did not permit me to join them and forbade me to speak to any of them.
While this was going on, one day there was a quarrel between the two brothers. Arunasalam picked up his few possessions and walked out to live with friends a few doors away. One night, during a thunderstorm, Kumarasingam got so frustrated at my poor progress in English that he stripped me of my loincloth and chased me out of the house with his walking stick, telling me not to come back. Absolutely lost, and shivering in the heavy rain I slunk in shame to the Pudu Road junction, a short distance away, and stood behind a large tree, not knowing what to do or where to go. I was still crying in fear and shivering in the rain when in the light of the road gas lamp I saw my brother Arunasalam riding his bike into Galloway Road. I shouted, “Annai!” (elder brother). He got off his bike and, telling me to follow him, led me to the house where he was living, gave me a towel to dry myself, a loincloth and a singlet, and warm water to drink. Telling me to wait, he walked out, obviously to speak to his elder brother. He returned with an umbrella, took me back to the house where my sister-in-law gave me dinner and sent me to sleep on my mat.
Assistant to sister-in-law as cook
At first Kumarsingam’s wife did all the house-work including cooking and I had to help her before leaving for school by scraping coconut, grinding or pounding spices and making thosai or steaming string hoppers for breakfast. Later an unemployed brother of a postman was employed as a cook.
Mother is hospitalized
My mother’s cough worsened and she was admitted to a ward in the Bangsar Road Hospital. I did not know what was wrong with her. No one took me to see her. I had too much suffering – coping with my study of English, being overharshly punished with the walking stick and kicked about, to know what was happening to my mother or why my two brothers had quarrelled.
One day Uncle Ponnampalam (or was it brother Arunasalam?) took me pillion riding on his bicycle to visit my mother. I was shocked to see her reduced to skin and bones and coughing out blood. She signaled to me to keep far from her. She hardly spoke to me, but pointed to my head meaning that I should apply oil to my hair, which is what she had always told me to do and I neglected. I promised to obey.
The fact that my mother was in hospital did not stop the tuitions. The cruel walking stick my uncle unleashed on me resumed its duty but by now, I had become stoic, bravely reconciled to it. I would cry, but my terror had begun to wane and in the evening, I would join the boys in the backyard to kick their tennis ball with them, making sure that I stopped before Kumarasingam returned home, and that my sister-in-law was not a tale carrier (tattle tale). She must have disliked my being brutally beaten, but dared not intervene.
One day, however, I return to the house before he returned home and I had a terrific beating and kicking. Only when my sister-in-law pointed out to me that brother had dipped his toes in chicken dung before kicking me that I realised I had to wash the loincloth. This action of brother killed any last form of lingering respect and deference I had for him. Eventually without compunction, I would pinch coins from his pockets as well as to tell lies to escape beating. However, I did stop playing with the boys for some time.
Mother’s health deteriorates
In January 1917, I began school in Kuala Lumpur. My mother was still in hospital in Bangsar Road in Kuala Lumpur. On many evenings, Kumarasingam visited Mother at the hospital. Hence, his spells of tuition for me became less frequent. Mother must have been asking for me, because, one day he took me with him, and left me with her while he went to see someone else. She was very ill with tuberculosis of the lungs. She lay still on her side; blood flowed from her mouth into a receptacle. She tried to speak but her speech was indistinct. She pointed to my head and smiled faintly indicating that she was pleased at my using oil on my hair. I could not bear the sight of her condition. I could do nothing I for her. We had never been demonstrative in our love. Feeling moved, I caressed her hand and leg. She shut her eyes. I stopped caressing her. She opened her eyes and gestured gently for me to go away.
After that, I visited her frequently. We had moved to Kajang (see next chapter), and I visited her before catching the train to Kajang after school. I kept my promise to oil my hair. Mother would point to it and give me a short, faint smile. My visits were rushed, and Mother would hasten me away to prevent my missing the train. Later, I realised that she wanted to spare me witnessing the agony she was experiencing. I did not mind the visits being short. It was too harrowing to look at her condition.
Mother dies
In May 1917, my mother passed away at night. When I reached school the next morning, a cousin Thilaiampalam who lived in Chan Ah Tong Street, was the bearer of the sad news. He persuaded me to go to his house and kept me company throughout the day and during the funeral. His elder brothers, Thambiah and Veerasingam, also consoled me and drew me closer to them from that occasion. All three walked with me behind the hearse a long distance and then accompanied me in a cart to the cremation grounds. On hearing the news, I felt helpless, numb, lonely and lost. Apart from my mother, and in a small way my sister-in-law, who was away in Jaffna at that time, no one cared for me. Uncle Sinnapoo was too far away to show me any affection. Kumarasingam made me feel that my existence was a burden on him. I was like a caged animal.
I had expected my mother’s death. She had deteriorated rapidly and looked more dead than alive. I had not been able to bear seeing her condition and I felt that death would be an escape for her. I did not cry over losing her. As her youngest son, I performed all the funeral rites including setting fire to the pyre. The rigorous Third Day ceremony I sat on the bank of Klang River by the Methodist Girls’ School in front of a priest and listened without understanding his Sanskrit chants. They immersed me three times at long intervals in the muddy water of the river, and I remained in my wet loincloth until the end of the rites. All that was without breakfast. It was like penance for being the youngest son. Perhaps the intention of the ceremony was to prevent me grieving over my mother’s death. However, what I felt for several months was confusion and a kind of relief that her suffering was over.
I fall ill
After going through the rites, I fell ill with pneumonia. I must have been very ill indeed, because Kumarasingam summoned a “Dr. Scott” to see me. He was not a real a doctor, but a trained medical assistant who was competent to treat mild ailments. There were times when I did not know what was happening. At other times, I wished for death. There were times when I wondered why Kumarasingam, of all people in the world, sat near me. I did not want to look at him. When I was recovering, I was too weak to sit up. Having failed to persuade me to eat a rusk biscuit, Kumarasingam threatened to beat me if I did not eat. I put it in my mouth and vomited bile. The part-time cook, who was a postman, gave me rice gruel, which I could tolerate. However, I wished to die rather than take any nourishment. Scott came by and spoke to Kumarasingam. After that, I was given soft rice cooked with some mild spices and fish and I commenced regaining my strength.
In the meanwhile, my sister-in-law gave birth to her first child, a boy, Kathiravelupillai. I do not remember whether my mother’s death or her grandson’s birth occurred first.
If an astrologer had been consulted, he would probably have said that the stars under which that baby was born had caused my mother’s death. Perhaps he might also have said the baby’s stars caused her TB!
After Mother died
I remember several visitors consoling Kumarasingam over my mother’s death and congratulating him on becoming a father to a son. Tamil teacher, Muthiah, stands out in my memory as a constant companion of Kumarasingam. He frequently quoted old Tamil sayings.
A walk down memory Lane
In later years, Muthiah’s son, John, became one of my best friends. He too loved to quote English proverbs. At one stage of his life, he had a long illness. He recorded in his diary every visit his friends made to him during his illness and would remind me of any long interval between my visits! We remained close friends throughout our respective marriages. His wife and mine became good friends as well. During his later years, he insisted that my family join his for celebrations of birthdays and Christmases. Even when he was too ill to join his guests at dinner, he wanted us to visit and talk with him.
Reflections
In later years, I have wondered whether I should have asked that my father be my guardian when my mother died, and I was only 11. Perhaps he would have treated me better and given me more affection if he had exercised his right as a father. However, I thought I deserved the beating for I was too playful and neglected my studies. Possibly, with affectionate treatment my behavior would have been better. I feel that whatever I have become is not the result of my being beaten. Rather it has been in spite of it. My teachers, friends, my reading and environment were the best influences. As later chapters will tell you, I did find interest in learning and paid attention to lessons instead of talking or playing during class time. Perhaps it was my karma or the ignorant tutoring that brought me all the beating.