The Good Old Days

Most of the people like me who had retired and once had given their best part of their lives to work for the government because that's the only opportunity available then, would most probably look back to the good old days. Are we just plain sentimental fellows who just like to sit in the Kopitiam which is making a comeback amongst like minded colleagues who also served as clerks, middle-level administrative assistants known as Executive Officers and of course those in the elite service which was fondly known by it's acronym the MCS. Maybe and maybe not. But we are acutely aware that definitely we had lived through the good old days when there were still several " Mat Sallehs " who somehow remained behind because they loved the laidback pace of life compared then to the hurry burry atmosphere, say of West End London or it's greater borough say in the outskirts. When I first tasted life in the cold and uncomfortable weather of the UK, I could not understand why everybody seemed to be chasing after buses and the tube. Then only I realised that life in that Cosmopolitan City of London is where the rat race is. No wonder some of these English gentleman such as Mubin Sheppard refused to go back to his own land even if he could live very comfortably with the generous gratuity and compensation for their loyal services to then Malaya. I could still recall those days when life in Kuala Lumpur moved at a snail's pace as compared to today. I could get a bus at Foch Avenue that shows "Malaya Command" at its "forehead" and just pay a few coins to get to Kampong Baru. Those days the bus was known as the GTC or in full, the General Transport Company. I used to walk leisurely along the banks of the Gombak river opposite what is today the Wisma Yakin, where the flow of the water was a pleasure to look at, placid and unlike what we see today, laden with rubbish and worse than "kopi susu". Now talking about the good old days, my father used to walk from his uncle's quarters near Pudu Jail to V.I. where he attended school only for a short while and then the war broke out. He did not complete his Junior Cambridge because of the Japanese Occupation and thus he went back to his mother's house in Rasah, Seremban. Today even that house has been demolished recently to make way for progress where huge pylons are being laid into the ground where the beautiful house once stood. Fortunately the Dato' Bandar Mosque is spared the demolition simply because the makam of the Dato' Bandar Abdul Rahman still stood just outside the Mosque. I suppose if the bulldozer comes to exhume the grave and flatten that place, the people involved would have been turned into stone. Well what was it I was trying to convey? Sometimes the mind just got carried away and hey presto! One gets diverted from the original idea. That's why a friend of my vintage who was with me in the ICU ( not the IJN type ) of the PM's Dept. who is also a famous blogger whose title I seemed to wonder why he liked to refer to dried fish of Trengganu as the favourite food of the old retainer at the palace on the hill where the Sultan used to stay. I think it's called "Istana Maziah" even till now, where only the ghosts of the retainers wander its corridors.Tengku Ali Bustaman is one of my former associates when working under the same roof, lament about the good old days. One day when we were in Tanjong Pagar railway station in Singapore, he asked the cameraman to take the angle shots of the elaborately crafted busts which adorned the fascia of the Station. It had been the sorepoint whenever the two country's officials meet to discuss what to do with Tanjong Pagar. Until today it's an impasse. Maybe the shabby facade which is an eyesore to the S'pore Govt. is a reflection of the indolent attitude of our people who managed the Railways since time immemorial till now. But the good old days when the Sahibs used to travel like Maharajas on the special coaches provided by the then Malayan Railway for these special breed of hounds with their retainers could not be erased from the mentality of those who took over the management of Keretapi Tanah Melayu. It's really absurd they still call it the KTM Berhad even though "Tanah Melayu" had since became "Tanah Pusaka" which usually become the source of endless conflicts between siblings as why one should get more than the other. Tengku Ali and I always talked about the " Good Old Days " when my late Uncle, Allahyarham Hashim Amir Hamzah was a popular broadcaster with Radio Malaya. Pokku ( as he's fondly known ) was starting his career as a broadcaster in S'pore, my uncle was his mentor. He always had praise for Mr. Hashim Amir Hamzah, because as a former teacher at the Tuanku Muhammad School, Kuala Pilah, he was always immaculately dressed, just like the old schoolmaster described in the literature book which became a text when i was in special Malay class, entitled " Tom Brown School Days". Pokku once was choked by his tears when we were on Sentosa island, where the museum showing the diorama of how Sultan Hussein signed away the island of S'pore to the East India Company and history of Stamford Raffles became a legend and his 'Munshi' an Indian Muslim by the name of Abdullah Munshi wrote books to glorify his master. Later on I found out that the small boy seated next to the Sultan during the signing ceremony giving up his sovereignty of Singapore to the Company was his close relative. Thus sometimes the good old days turned out to be "the bad old days" just because of a paltry sum of money which today can't even buy a trishaw, what more a whole island which is now a first world facility of the little red dot known as the Republic of Singapore. Now they are declaring the principle of the Law of the Seas to ensure the island republic's future destiny. I was never fond of Singapore. Even as a small boy, whenever my father brought me to Change Alley, it always reminded me of the backstreets of Batu Road where transvetites pry their business into the wee hours of the day. I simply despised Singapore not because of it's kiasuness which people describe the attitude of the shopkeepers in Orchard Road, but because it was such a foul smelling place where the famous Indian Muslim restaurant was situated by the banks of Singapore River. Now of course the smell is no more, but the people smell even worse, due to their lack of courtesy to others and if not for Lee Kuan Yew, they would be a basket case of ASEAN today. See you next time and have a nice day!