School Life

School was fun and I was a good student with good results most of the time. Any red marks in the report card will be accompanied by long lectures from mum and sometimes a good whacking too!
Teachers were fierce and the no nonsense type, if you are caught not paying attention in class or not doing homework you had it from them. Still we respected them for their dedication and example which they showed. They not only taught us what we had to learn but also taught us good values. Teachers were not only respected but also feared. Don’t let them catch you out at night or you will get it the next day.
We saw the other side of our teachers too, it was not uncommon for them to invite us over to their house for a meal, followed by questions which probed our values and also the things we did. I remember my class teacher well. He was a Punjabi married to a Chinese lady. Short and stout he was one of the fiercest teachers and everyone was scared of him. But despite his fierceness he will be the one who would invite us to his house and ask us to help ourselves to his coconuts whenever he was in good mood. He would take us for hikes and cross country runs during PE lessons and there was one occasion when we landed in his house during a lesson and he said” Ok boys, you have had a long run ,now you can help me clean my coconut tress.” We readily obliged and had an interesting time breaking the nuts and drinking the juice. The nuts were smashed on the ground and we had to quickly drink the juice before they spilled all over the placed. A second or third smashing and the nut would be split right open to enable to attack the meat. This was usually scraped of with a piece of the husk. Who needs spoons for scraping anyway?
We were all required to play games every afternoon after school. Football, hockey, running, rugby were games which I played. I was pretty good in running and won some prizes during sports day. Rugby was fun and we enjoyed this game most during rain. Of course mum would scream her head off when we returned home after a game with all the clothes dirty.
Football was not one of my favourites but played quite often because of its popularity. My standard position was fullback and our captain told us no one must get through us to get at the goalkeeper. I had a small group of friends who played a lot together.
Other than the normal school activities, we used our catapults or lastics as they were called to go for birds of fruits. Lastics were made by getting the right kind of branch usually from the mangosteen tree or lime trees/This branch will then be fixed with two pieces of rubber (usually from an old bicycle ).Our favourites were rambutans and mangoes. Mangoes grew in big bunches around where we stayed and the raw ones were usually eaten with just a bit of salt.
Dad on occasions would take me out with his friends to a coffee shop for coffee and peanuts. This was a real treat and dad and I would share the cup of coffee as it came .I would get some of the coffee in the saucer and dad would drink from the cup. I would quietly stuff some of the peanuts on the table into my pocket for later on, thinking that no one would see me. Of course dad saw me doing it and he told me, as we walked home that it was a bad habit. I dare not do it again for fear that dad would not take me out with him again the next time. Tapah days were happy days. It is a small town but there were lots of things for kids like us to do .We played by the riverside whenever we could and at times went to the small river to catch catfish. We were warned that catfish can sting and were always careful when we handled them. The river was a favourite place of ours and weekends would be spent there, of course without the knowledge of mum. Another favourite place of ours was the little hill at the back of our house, here we would play tumble and roll and imagine we were soldiers fighting. It sure was fun imagining that we were at war.
The market place was another favourite spot .There was one stall which sold the best beef balls and we would go there whenever we had a bit of money to spend. The old lady there knew exactly what we wanted and she knew that whatever she served would be polished off with the bowl perfectly cleaned off.
The Lim brothers (One of them is Lim Keng Yaik ) stayed at the far end of the town in a big bungalow .We envied them because they were the rich kids on the block ,but we were always better than them in studies and games. My buddies during this period were all Indians because all our neighbours were Indians. One of them Yogeswaran ended up as our national hockey coach. Another of my buddies was the son of a teacher, one of the fiercest teachers in school..
I remember an interesting family which stayed in a big bungalow. The man had eight daughters and longed to have a son. However he was told by a fortune teller that if he had a son his luck would not be good. True enough he finally got a son but soon after that he got into trouble. He was very sick and died not long after that and his children were separated as they all had to live with relatives here and there. Believe it or not!
We stayed in Tapah until I finished standard six .After that dad got news that he was transferred to Ipoh something which made mum happy as she always complained that Tapah was a small little town and she found it boring. She did had her mahjong kakis and also a game called ‘ chi ki “ which was played with some small cards. I used to shuffle the cards for them and as a reward would get ten cents which allowed me to make a beeline for my favourite beef noodle shop at the market. Sometimes mum would be very tired and I had to massage her legs. If she made money I would be paid ten cents for this service. If she lost she would be in bad mood and I would just do what she wanted without daring to ask for payment.