Tired but happy today.

On a whim, I invited my father along for a trip up to Mersing on-the-job. Not very professional, yes, but he wasn’t around for the meetings and such. It was a strange feeling, since this was the first time he decided to follow, and I had a few moments of doubt as I was reversing out of the house.

My father’s one of the old-timers we talk about, either in derision or awe. A repository of historical events having witnessed history in the making in the heart of our country. Over beers and cigarettes, we would sit ourselves down and talk about the ‘State of the Union’, discuss politics and how things have changed. Today was no different, and it was speckled with anecdotes about the past, as seen through his eyes.


Yesterday, the NST (?) ran a story about the JRA kidnapping on the AIA building in 1975. My father was working for AIA as a Group Manager at the time, and was caught in the 4-day drama. He had memories of his boss warning all ladies and men to stay away from lifts, or to attempt to escape the building out of panic, since JRA members were lurking outside waiting for willing hostages.

It was 4 days without electricity (I think his memory is fuzzy here…) and tales of days spent without the air-conditioning and walking around in, as he puts it, “our jocks” and outraging ladies who were similarly trapped in the AIA building. It was funny, and he didn’t know much of what happened except what he ended up reading in the newspapers, but it was interesting nonetheless.

I had always wanted to ask him about the May 13th riots, but never got around to asking it. He started out with blaming the DAP at the time for stirring up feelings in demanding for an ethnically-neutral government. He remembers LKS, not personally, but as a young politician proving himself in those dark times. He was, during the riots, trapped in the AIA building again he said, living off A&W hamburgers or some such. (Were there A&W hamburger outlets at the time?)

His forced incarceration, he told me, lasted about 10 days, with more cavorting in “jocks”. He remembers stories of the St. John’s ambulences receiving bodies in the 6’s and 7’s, and of tales of bodies bearing gunshot wounds that appeared to be from army rifles (he had been in the army before, 2nd batch apparently). I told him that deaths amounted to about 145 (or so) people officially reported dead.

“Nonsense!” he said.

“There were more?” I asked. I mentioned the 140+ dead to gauge his reaction. I’ve heard kopitiam stories from other old timers who insisted that there were more dead and dying in those days. But till today, I had never known what my father thought of those times except for sketchy stories now and then over the years.

“There were thousands!” he said, turning to look at me. His mouth was hanging open, and he had an incredulous expression on his face.

“Can’t be lah,” I said.

“Did you know after the May 13th riots so many people wanted to buy 4D with the numbers 6398?” he asked me.

“6398? What’s that number?”

“The number of people who died.”

“That’s impossible, that’s too many people.”

“Yes!” he said in his own way, a melodic ‘yes’ ranging from his deep bass to his limited treble. He recounted how helpless people were seeing the killings, the slashings and the deaths. There was blood and there were bodies everywhere. Everywhere. My father described it all in incredulous tones, as if I didn’t believe otherwise, as if I was told a different story. He told it mechanically, describing how groups of Indians and Chinese would gang up to attack Malay civilians.

“In Malay kampungs it was worse. The Chinese and Indians living in the kampungs were slashed!” he said.

“Slashed?”

“Yes! In another place there was a group of Chinese men who wore dhotis, wore like a sarong-like thing, white colour and also wore that hat, that white hat-”

“Songkoks?” I supplied.

“Ya, ya. So the Malays thought other Malays had come to save them. Suddenly the Chinese when they got near just took out their parangs and slashed them!”

“But are you sure about the 6,398 number ah?” I asked, pressing the point.

“That’s the number everyone thought at the time lah,” he said, waving off my question.

“But the government says about 140 plus-”

“No cannot be, there was much more than that.” he said.

I wonder if what my father told was true. The official figures are about 140 plus, the exact number eludes me, but there were reports of thousands injured. I suppose my father’s belief that many had died did not, as it were, take into account the many who were merely injured rather than dead. There were other things he said today, more seditious things which I have self-censored (social responsibility and all that, ya?), but I enjoyed that little dip in the past even as we drove down roads and scenaries that hadn’t changed since the 1960s.