I cannot picture my mum as a child. All mums must have been children once, for sure. But, I can’t imagine mine being young and doing the stuff children do – play, have childhood friends, go to school etc. etc.  I’ve known my mum all my life, but only as an adult. She was 28 when she had me.  I know photos can help create a profile. Unfortunately, there aren’t many to be found.

What I do have are stories. My mum’s stories. Not chronological or structured. Some first-hand recollections. Some recounted to her by an older cousin. Others – when someone, something or some events trigger her memory. But, all are delightful anecdotes of her childhood. From the 1930’s until after WW2. And, mostly, while growing up in Butterworth – the main town in Seberang Perai across from Penang island.

For instance, a floating tissue in a tub of water led to a story about a game of chance that my mum played as a child. She invested one cent, each time, in the game that was run by a Japanese man. Yes, a Japanese man. The game worked like this. He dropped a piece of tissue-like paper into a bowl of water. The paper then showed up a number. Usually, one. Hmm… And, my young mum would win a real glass toy tea cup, a saucer or a plate, wrapped in a triangular or rolled-up edible fortune cookie or biscuit. The colourful crockery were fun toys to collect and play with.

Her childhood friends were Devi, Marimuthu, Sarojini and Kim Loon.  Devi apparently had two goats with her wherever she went. Goats in tow, the two girls, found a shady spot by a drain, and made a game of peeling the skin off the ‘buah setoi’ or cowboy fruit. Armed with switchblades (my mum doesn’t remember how or where they got hold of the blades), they competed to be the fastest peeler. They played until they ran out of fruits, keeping count of who emerged winner of the day. I had images of the female versions of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. My mum quite proudly declared that she is still able to peel mangoes or any fruit without tearing the peel or damaging the skin because of the skill she honed competing with Devi.  

With Marimuthu, my mum attended a Tamil language pre-school. Then, she furthered her education at St Teresa’s Convent, now renamed SMK Convent Butterworth. At St Teresa’s Convent, my mum enjoyed learning and speaking English, and playing with her friends, Sarojini and Kim Loon. She also recalled fondly her mother sending her off to school with a butter and jam sandwich for lunch, as lessons finished only at 4pm each day. The solo bus ride to her school at Chain Ferry Road was fun, and made her feel grown-up and independent.

The oldest amongst three girls, my mum comes from a family of strong and entrepreneurial women. Her great grandmother was called Amni. Grandmother was Kanama. And, her mother was Tulasi. Amni, a slightly built woman, sold Indian breakfast food such as ‘appam’, ‘idli’ and ‘tosai’ in Penang to support her two daughters. She did this after leaving her philandering husband, something quite unheard of, not the philandering husband, but actually leaving him, in the early 1900’s in Malaysia.

Many years later, Kanama took her baby girl, Tulasi, to join her husband, who was visiting relatives in India. When Kanama discovered her husband was living with another woman, she boarded the next available ship and sailed back to Malaysia – to her mother’s home in Penang. Slowly but surely, the big and feisty Kanama grew Amni’s breakfast food business. And, managed to buy a house on a fairly large land in Butterworth. Kanama added three units to the main house. Mother and daughter rented out these units and sold cotton from the cotton trees that grew on the land. Their earnings, although not much, were enough to sustain the all-female household. Tulasi then carried on with the breakfast food business after her husband died, when my mum was only five.

My mum’s maternal home was very open and inviting. Tulasi graciously welcomed near and distant relatives. All were housed and fed for free. In return, some of the relatives and even tenants helped with chores around the house. From my mum’s description, her home was like a benevolent hostel. Tulasi also gave away, at the end of business, unsold ‘tosai’ and ‘idli’ to a Japanese lady, who fed these food scraps to ducks that she reared. She would, in turn, collect and fold laundry from my grandmother’s clothes’ line, and perform other little tasks. Yes, a Japanese lady, who lived in the same neigbourhood. Hmm…

These stories – some disjointed, others less clear – have helped open a little window to my mum’s life as a child, her friends, her family and home. Nice.