THE AGELESS MAN OF KUALA TRENGGANU
For those who hide behind their identities
and the exteriors of themselves and their skin as a protection of their
cultural identity, I invite you to meet the Ageless Man of Kuala Trengganu who
carries his cultural identity in his heart.
I had freshly arrived in Adelaide in the
company of my schoolmate, Basant Kumar Samarasinhe and we were both eager to
find students from Malaysia and Brunei.
I remember meeting the ageless man of KT at
one such gathering of students from ex-British Colonies of the Far East. Malaya
Singapore Borneo Brunei.
I remember thinking; this humble man with
soft voice and demeanour must be Malay. He was an alumnus of some prestigious
high schools in Malaysia.
Soon, he arrives with an Indonesian lady
with a tinkling country Australian accent who amazed us all with stories of her
native Thursday Island. I made up my mind to visit that exotic place after
meeting that lady who later on became the Ageless Man’s wife who now has become
the Ageless Couple of Kuala Trengganu!
In the next fifteen years, much water
flowed under the bridge; I had qualified as a doctor, had finished my initial
medical training in Melbourne and was looking forward to going to the USA for
further postgraduate training.
I was in Brisbane at that time. Why not go
to Thursday Island before leaving this brown continent for that other one?
Brisbane to Cairns, stay over night there
and then on a small plane to Horn Island with a stop over in Weipa. I
distinctly remember, looking at the motely group of passengers at the Cairns
terminal, almost all of whom were fierce looking or black with frizzy hair or
portly madams in colourful clothes.
The reason to go to TI was that distant
evening in Adelaide when I had been introduced to the Ageless Couple of Kuala
Trengganu. I had lost touch with them, but that sense of adventure drove me on.
On arriving at the Horn Island where the airport is, I took the Ferry which
deposited me near the Grand Hotel where Somerset Maugham had languorously spent
some nights with locals, commenting that, TI, boasted the shortest interval
between the arrival of a white man and him finding himself in bed with a native
lady!
I checked into a local hostelry and
wondered what am I to do in this isolated part, despite being inhabited where
the flavour of New Guinea and Papua could be felt mingling with those of Ambon
and Japan. A curious mixture of people descended from pearl divers of the
century past, now an outpost of some Australian colonial types, I was bent on discovering
this island, re create the history of its rich past.
I remember leaving the hotel, suitably
attired to face the heat, when I spotted a figure slowly moving across the road
just opposite the hotel. My heart raced, could this be the Humble Ageless Man
of Kuala Trengganu (became that later). I shouted his appellation rather loudly
and imagine my surprise, when he turned his head towards me, and showing great
surprise walked towards me. It is not often in Thursday Island you meet your
friends from the Continental Australia, especially ones forgotten in the mists
of time.
Check out of your hotel, and you come and
stay with us, was his humble request and I soon found myself in the studio (he
is an artist and photographer) surrounded by the cacophony of the Melanesian
days and nights. I met the extended family of his wife, who were of Ambonese
origin, now diluted with mixtures typical of Thursday Island. No one spoke the
original languages or kept their original belief systems but had blended into
something unique. The Melanesian presence in the island was strong. Where there
are “heathens”, there are missionaries, of course, so some frail Australian
ladies were touting their large bibles while the Melanesian in his evening
alcoholic stupor belted out songs of immense longing for something or other.
Another visit soon followed, it took me all
day to reach from Melbourne, as it is the farthest you can travel in Australia
and still be in Australia, a distance of over 4000 km. This time, I met Burmese
nurses, Indonesian students, Australian outcasts (from Foolgarah?), an odd
Filipino counting his rosaries. I was able to visit the Island where Captain
Cook had taken possession of Australia, some islands that lay so close to Papua
that you could feel the breeze from there of mangroves and human waste. A
mutual friend had deposited me in an isolated island where I could spend few
hours in absolute harmony with the elements.
Five years ago I was invited to visit
Cairns by a distinguished doctor and I had wanted to revisit and reconnect with
the Ageless Couple, with whom I had lost contact soon after I left our beloved
Red Continent.
After Cairns, I was going to Malaysia and
my newly discovered loves there, when I received an email, from none other than
the Ageless Man who proclaimed that he had in the previous couple of years, had
made Malaysia his home. Cancelling the plans to visit TI, I planned to use my
repeated visits to Malaysia to reacquaint myself of this charming couple, the
humble man who carries his identity not in his skin or clothes but in his
heart. And the same voice that reminded me of the countryside of Australia
which I first heard in Adelaide, that of the Ageless Wife of the Ageless Man…
We met a couple of times in KL in the
company of my good friend and yoga teacher, MC.
Just a few days ago, I was in Malacca on my
way to Bogor and I thought to myself, there is a visit that is overdue: to the
ageless couple with cultural identities hidden in their hearts in Kuala
Trengganu. After an uncomfortable bus ride overnight, I found them sitting
quietly at a bench amidst the chaos of the bus station in KT.
We spent two days together, we had time to
talk, and the Ageless Man and I, in the company of the genial taxi driver Pak
Hashim, went exploring and did visit the temple dedicated to Zheng He/Cheng Ho.
I also had to visit the Malaysian Moslem Follies, photocopies of the mosques of
elsewhere and a 500 million-ringgit mosque for the faithful? Or for the coffers
of the contractors? Why didn't they put that 500 million into upgrading their
poor education system or the local hospital system, known to be backward even
by Malaysian standards? Better to keep them ignorant and unhealthy but captured
in their prayers I suppose, they must think, those who wear their cultural
identity on their skin and in their clothes covering themselves head to foot
suffocating in this hot climate!
I thoroughly enjoyed the visit, getting the
flavour of the simple life of the Ageless Couple of KT, learning from their
humility and the satisfaction with life, their distancing from faceless chatter
or gossip.
And most of all, with a note of jealousy,
Their love for each other, the devotion and
attachment even after 40 plus years of marriage!
I am writing this in Brussels, Belgium. Let
me raise this glass of Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa and toast them, hoping
that I too can carry my cultural identity deep in my heart, and not on my skin
or in my clothes
LChaim and Toda Raba, as we say
Teremah Kaseh…
