A chip off the old block

We were on a family outing once and my father pointed to a JKR lorry and asked whether I knew what 'JKR' means. “Jabatan Kerja Raya,” I replied. My mother went into shock when my father replied, “Jaga Konek Raja.”


Posted By: Raja Petra Kamarudin

My first lesson in life was probably when I was seven or eight years old. One day I came home from school with a 'new' eraser and my mother asked me where I got it from. She knew she had not bought it for me. I told my mother I found it in school and my mother went ballistic. “You stole it?” she screamed.

“I did not steal it, I found it,” I protested. “Someone had dropped it, I don't know who, so I picked it up.”

The next day my mother followed me to school and marched me to the headmistress' office. I was made to hand over the eraser and apologise to the headmistress. The headmistress lectured me and told me that the eraser must belong to someone. So the right thing to do was to hand it to the lost-and-found department so that an announcement could be made and the owner could come and claim it back.

I was so embarrassed that I never dared pick up anything again, never mind how worthless it may have been.

When I was about 11, I got into a fight with three Javanese boys. I was then in the Meru Road Primary School in Klang and that was certainly a Javanese-infested area; even till today I think. One of the boys called me “Raja Melayu celup” because I could not speak Malay properly. Well, I had just transferred there from the 'Mat Salleh' Alice Smith School so what would you expect?

I took a swing at the Javanese boy and landed one on his head. It was not that hard a punch really. I think I hurt my hand more than his head but this happened right in the classroom in full view of the rest of the class so he was not about to let me get away with it.

After school I discovered that someone had let the air out of my bicycle tires. I felt a tap of my shoulder and turned around in time to meet the clenched fist of the Javanese boy. The punch got me right in the face and I hit the ground in a total daze. I had never been punched before and the sensation was quite astonishing. It is actually true when they say you will see stars. I did.

I did not dare pick myself up from the ground until the Javanese boy and his two friends had all walked away. Then, with my face throbbing with pain, one eye puffed up, and my mouth swollen like I had been stung by a bee, I pushed my bicycle to town to pump up the tires again.

By the time I got home I was already almost an hour late and my mother was pacing the floor in anxiety. She was shocked to see my swollen face and I explained what had happened, which was why I was late home from school.

When my father came home from work I expected him to rush to my aid but, surprisingly, he took one look at my face and just said, “Hmph.” He did not follow me to school the following day to complain to the headmaster or to insist that action be taken against the three boys who had assaulted me. The message was quite clear: I was on my own. I got myself into it so I will have to get myself out of it.

From that day on I was very careful about getting into trouble. I knew my father would not help me get out of it so I had to make sure that whatever I did there would always be a back door or escape route in case I needed to beat a hasty retreat. That first 'let down' sort of taught me that I need to strategise and size up the situation. I must assess whether the battle I might be taking on is too big for me to handle. The cavalry is not going to come to my rescue if I screw up.

The lesson I learnt from this is: you are on your own. No one, not even your own father, is going to bail you out.

I was always in love with motorcycles but my father would not buy me one until I had a driving licence. Then he made a deal with me. If I pass my LCE exams with an 'A' he would buy me one. I was already on Murugesu's 'least likely to succeed' list so that was a challenge which I considered impossible to achieve. Anyway, I did get an 'A' and my father, though very surprised and quite suspicious as to how I did it, kept his promise and bought me my first motorcycle, a Yamaha 90cc, which I felt then could go as fast as a jet plane.

I was in form four when I first got into trouble with Murugesu. Those who went to VI in the 1960s would probably remember the headmaster we called 'Black Hitler'. It was quite racial really but then that nickname was given by my 'best friend' Rajadurai. So I suppose there was nothing wrong in calling him that if an Indian boy was the one who gave him that 'title'.

Just to digress a bit, Rajadurai became my best friend after I took 'six cuts' on his behalf. Someone had painted graffiti on the toilet wall and a stool pigeon said that 'Raja did it'. Murugesu thought I was the 'Raja' the informer meant and I was summoned to the headmaster's office. I told Murugesu that I did not do it and he demanded to know who did. It was either rap on Rajadurai or take the cuts myself. I was no stool pigeon so I took the six cuts. I was then given a tin of white paint and made to repaint the entire toilet. From thereon, to avoid any further confusion, we called Rajadurai 'Tengku' and I became 'Pete'. So no one was called 'Raja' any more.

And that was probably my next lesson in life: there is no justice in this world and never expect a fair trial.

One day, Murugesu caught me 'racing' in school and he literally ran after me with cane in hand. (He always walked around holding a cane so that he can swing at us whenever he saw us). Actually, I was not really racing. It is just that I only knew two speeds, full stop or full speed, and all I did was ride at my 'normal' speed.

Anyway, I hid in the toilet while Murugesu searched the whole school compound for me. He also asked the head prefect to lock my bike so that I could not escape. Unfortunately, Murugesu finally found me and he swung his cane on my backside with all his might. The impact was so great, like a golfer swinging his golf club, that the cane broke into two. Not satisfied with being able to give me only one 'cut' when he had intended to give me 'six of the best', he then slapped me on my left ear and I heard all sort of zinging sounds in my head. I wonder if that is why I am slightly deaf in my left ear -- or could it be because of too much disco music?

I was asked to report to the headmaster's office to collect the key to my locked bike. I knew that Murugesu had about a dozen or so canes decorating his room so I decided to give the 'invitation' a miss. I then took a bus home instead, much to my father's surprise who thought I had lost my bike or it had been stolen.

I was scared stiff but had no choice but to explain what had happened. He told me to get in the car and we drove back to school. My father marched to the headmaster's office with me in tow and gave Murugesu a piece of his mind. I must say I was surprised as I had expected him to take Murugesu's side.

“I bought my son that motorcycle so it belongs to me,” my father said indignantly. “That is my personal property and it is in my name so you have no right to lock it. Unlock it now or else I am going to sue you for abuse of power and authority and for illegally detaining someone's private property.”

Yes, I was wrong for exceeding the school speed limit. But the punishment I received far exceeded the gravity of the crime. Furthermore, it was unconstitutional for the school to detain my bike. The school rules do not allow for this. And it was not my bike actually but my father's bike since he had paid for it and it was in his name.

I was baffled at what I considered an overreaction by my father. I was, after all, guilty of a crime. It would be many years before I would understand my father's stand on the issue. Just because someone had committed a breach of discipline does not give you the right to do what you like to that person. Punish the criminal by all means but make sure the punishment is legal and befitting the crime. Two wrongs do not make a right and the ends can never justify the means. Furthermore, the constitution must be upheld and just because you are in authority does not give you the right to breach the constitution.

We were on a family outing once and my father pointed to a JKR lorry and asked whether I knew what 'JKR' means. “Jabatan Kerja Raya,” I replied. My mother went into shock when my father replied, “Jaga Konek Raja.”

“Hoosh!” my mother shouted and my father just laughed. “But it's true,” my father protested. “JKR will do anything the Sultan commands it to do so it is 'Jaga Konek Raja'.”

The whole conversation was beyond me as I was then still too young to understand 'politics'. Much later in life would I comprehend what the issue was. My father was opposed to what he considered an abuse of authority on the part of the Sultan. He did not like the idea of the rakyat having to pay for the new Istana Alam Shah in Klang, which was of course built by JKR. That was back in 1960 and I was then only ten years old. When the Sultan died just before the Istana could be completed my father uttered, “What did I tell you? You can't use the rakyat's money like that.” Invariably, the Sultan never got to live in his new palace and my father was convinced this was God's punishment for building the palace.

When I came of age when identity cards were compulsory, my mother took me to the IC office in Klang to apply for one. Being born in England meant I was a 'foreigner' so I was issued with a red IC instead of a blue one. A few months later I went to collect my IC and brought it home to show my father. He hit the roof when he saw it was a red IC. I was bundled into the car and we drove to the IC office. My father marched into the officer's room and threw the IC onto the tabled and demanded that they replace it with a blue one.

The poor officer was visibly shaken and tried his best to explain. “But Engku, your son was born in England and has a British birth certificate so he can't get a blue IC. He needs to get his citizenship papers first. Only then can he be issued a blue IC.”

But my father would hear nothing of it. “My son may have been born in England but that was in 1950 and in 1957 Malaya gained independence from Britain. I brought him back to Malaya in 1956, one year before Merdeka. It does not matter where you were born. When we became Merdeka, whoever chooses to remain in this country, even if they were born in another country, is an automatic citizen of this country. So issue him a blue IC and do it now.”

I got my blue IC. But when it was time for a new one to be issued at age 18, the IC office was at a loss as to how to issue me a blue one when I should have instead been given a red one. Anyway, they decided to 'close one eye' and just issue me a blue one without probing further how I got a blue one in the first place.

I always thought that my father had abused his authority by intimidating the IC office into issuing me a blue IC when I should have been given a red one. Later, of course, when I discovered the meaning of the word 'discrimination' and when I discovered that many Indians and Chinese were denied citizenship though they came to this country before Merdeka, I understood what made my father go ballistic. My father should have been a wakil rakyat. Probably then many Indians and Chinese born in this country before 31 August 1957 would not have had so much problems fighting for citizenship.

But my father did not like politics. He in fact despised politicians. And that was why he was amongst those few Malays from his 'batch', the first group of Malays to go to England immediately after the war, who did not choose politics as their career. All his contemporaries like Tunku Abdul Rahman, Tun Razak, Tun Dr Ismail, Tun Ghazali Shafie, Khir Johari, and many more went into politics.

Towards the end, however, my father did show some interest in politics. That was about four years or so before he died and when Parti Gerakan was launched. After shunning politics his entire life, my father suddenly became so excited and spoke at length about the new party of intellectuals which was non-race based and which was about to take the country by storm. It is sad that Gerakan eventually got reduced to just another Chinese party and ended up nowhere near the 'Malaysian' party like my father had hoped. I think that was the first time my father actually came out to vote, though I can't be too sure, but he proudly declared that he voted for Gerakan, the first true-Malaysian party. My father never once spoke about the earlier elections but would go on and on about the 1969 elections -- so I assume that was the first time he voted.

My father died when I was about 22 but he lived long enough to leave an impression on me. Of course I am not perfect; nobody is. Some say I am quite eccentric (gila babi or taufung). But my values are what I have been brought up to believe in. Sure, I am opinionated. I am also very abrasive at times. But once I believe in something I will fight tooth and nail to defend it. And I am what I am because I have been brought up to become so. Nothing can change that.