cakap cakap...carefree days in Kuantan.

It could be said of my life that my time in Kuantan was probably the last of my truly carefree days. Nothing remotely problematic clouded my horizon. I was in Lower 6 at SABS Kuantan. Our house at Telok Sisik, just across the road from Istana Teruntum, was less then a 100 yards from the sea.

My immediate memory was learning the joys of sailing from Joe – his name was Mudzaffar but everyone knew him as Joe. Imagine if you can gliding silently across the waves in shallow waters and seeing fishes and ikan pari gliding below you. I also fished from the shore for huge catfish and when I have caught them I know not what to do with them because I know my mother was not going to cook the fish into any dish. She simply will not eat that fish. What she does not, we do not eat.

I also remember camping alone by the beach in a canvas tent that my Father must have ‘requisitioned’ from some police reserves. I had everything I needed –  an ice box with cold drinks and one of those Philips portable record player playing my favorite Francoise Hardy’s LP over and over again – “If we are only Friends” and “All over the World”.

I love the solitude of camping by myself knowing that home was less than a 100 yards away. Sometime an old man would walk the length of the beach with his Jala – casting for belanaks. I knew of him because he was Joe’s grandfather and a former MB of Pahang – Dato Sir Mahmud. He did not disturb me nor I him. This was a man completely at one with the sea and never needed me to complete his time at play.  

Sometimes I will take the Aluminum Dingy with its 6HP engine and a full tank of petrol and go into the river upstream towards Kuantan town and then lose myself in the maze of inlets that branches of the river into God knows where. Always alone.

Apart from Joe and my school acquaintances I never remembered having friends in Kuantan. I never knew anybody outside school and saw nobody after school except my family and kept my own company. And yet I was happy.

My Father was the Chief Police Officer of Pahang. What I know of his job then was that he had a Holden Car with a Driver and he was saluted everywhere he went in the state. Two memorable incident stand out in my memory. I have never seen my Father saluting anybody while in Pahang until that day. We were sitting out on the balcony enjoying the sea breeze. I was in my shorts and my Father in his sarong – it being a Sunday –when suddenly a huge Austin princess swept into the compound of our house. I have never seen my Father jumped to attention that fast in my life –it was his boss Dato Hussein Sidek, the Commissioner of Police –who took it upon himself to come a calling on my father at his house on his way back to Kuala Lumpur from a visit to the East Coast.

The other time was when a Sikh Air Force Officer  -slightly the worse for drink – drove his car into our compound and came to a stop because our lamp post was unable to get out of his way fast enough. Again we were sitting out on the balcony enjoying the evening sea breeze. The officer in question reversed and then proceeded again to move forward in the same direction. Stubbornly the lamppost again refused to get out of his way. After the third time this had happened my Father walked up to the car and reached in to take the key out of the ignition switch. The Sikh Officer in full RAF uniform grabbed my Father arm and held on to it as if his life depended on it. My Father, now slightly agitated because the aroma of alcohol wafted all over the place, sternly told the Sikh that he was the CPO and wanted him out of the car. The Sikh said something he should not have said. He eyed my Father and said, “Show me your authority!” My father said “OK”. He made a call and within ten minutes the Sikh was off to jail to sleep off his hangover.

There was one other image that will forever be fixed in my mind. We were in Pekan to partake in the celebrations of the then Sultan Sir Abu Bakar. I have heard many tales of this legendary sultan but none prepared me for the sight of seeing him for the first time. We went to see him play tennis and he arrived in shorts that started from halfway up his chest to his knees. He was a huge imposing figure–all 200lbs of him. A spectacular sight for anyone to see. He had his fondness for ladies but a Sultan much loved and respected by the people of his state.