'piggyRabits' for 'The Town Snobs'

True to what Yusof told us, towards the end of January our class received the additional enrolment of students from town. They all look like ‘town snobs’ all right - well groomed, clean, tidy and healthy. They were in proper school uniforms, with matching white shoes and stockings. Their shirts neatly tucked in and their shorts were properly buckled. On many occasions they were paraded by HM as models of properly dressed English School students during the weekly School Assembly. However hard we tried, we from the Malay Reservation were no match to most of them. They were so because they came from affordable elite families as most of them were children of Government Officers from The Custom & Excise, The Police Force, The Marine Police Force, and The Forestry Departments stationed either in Bagan Datoh, Simpang Empat or Hutan Melintang itself. And with the completion of the new Government Quarters at Hutan Melintang the same year the number increased especially in Primary Class 1.
Now there were 2 factions in our GES - (Government English School), Including those in the Primary 1, the total enrolment of each faction almost equal in number. Only a few of six years from nearby Malay Reservation enrolled into the Primary 1 class. The rest were from the Government Quarters and non-Malays pupils from the adjacent estates.
As most of them were from town shcools, for the initial time period we were not that friendly to the new comers. Normally during School Recess we played with our own playmates. While we The Kampung Boys were at our special playground engaged with our war games, those town brads, choose to play football at the school backyard.
There was this new student, nice and well nurtured town boy named Ahmad. While trying to retrieve a ball from a ‘longkang’ behind the school latrine, accidently his left foot got stuck into an uncovered sanitary manhole and was plastered with contaminated ‘morning soil’ – shoes, stocking and all. It was a dreadful sight to see him struggling and pulling himself out of the manhole, dirty and smelly. Together we helped him clean himself before class began.
The incident was an icebreaker between the Village Lads and the so called ‘Town Snobs’. We found out that they were not that snobbish after all, as most of them were friendly lots. We joked on Ahmad’s unhygienic escapade behind the school latrine. We nicknamed all those ‘town boys’ in long stockings as ‘Kerani Jamban.’ In retaliation they termed some of the barefooted village lads as ‘Budak Kaki Ayam’.
Boys were boys. They fight and played together. It was our War Games in the secondary overgrowth that cemented our ‘love hate’ friendship. We admitted them into our War Games Club. As a goodwill gesture we were all treated with fresh apples, by the town boys especially those from Bagan Datoh. They seemed to have ample daily stock of fresh apples and being a member of War Games Club was a win win situation for all. The integration works well. Soon one adventure leads to another. Together we designed more new War Games. We added ‘Perang Kominis’, ‘Perang Red Indian’, ‘Perang Koboi,’ and ‘Tarzan & Jane’ to our original ‘Perang Korea’ and ‘Perang Jepun,’ until the War Game zone became out of bound to all of us during school hours, imposed by the Head Master Mr McKenzie.
There was this incident after class when the War Game became serious. An overzealous assailant splashed a bottle of ink at the other. The victim’s school uniform was badly blackened with ink, and he had to travel back home by bus in it. The incident was reported to the school authorities the next day by the boy’s officer parent. We were all reprimanded and banned from entering the plot.
When school lessons were fully in force, less time was spend in the school playground. The Class of 1953; as the most senior in that GES need to strive for the better. English Language was totally foreign for most, especially to the Kampung Boys. Understanding the grammar and sounding the spoken English in correct phonetics was not a piece of cake to the Bugis, Mendailing, Rawa, Banjarese & Javanese decent from the Malay Reservation. Firstly we all sound awful with English vocals of vowels and consonants. So most of our free times were spend in the class room perfecting our English language pronunciations by reciting Rhymes or Poetry. At times we were force to recite ‘tongue twister’ until we had a bite of good English Pronunciations. “SEA SHELL, SEA SHELL, ON THE SEA SHORE’, or ‘ROUND AND ROUND THE RUGGED ROCK, RAN THE RUSSIAN RASCAL,’ was our daily chant. Also hard luck for all those with bad spellings as the punishment would be writing 100 words for each spelling mistakes done.

(In latter part of my life, while serving as a Senior Radio Producer in Radio Malaysia in 1966 we interviewed a candidate for an opening in The Music Department. He proved himself as a very talented musical student of a renowned Singapore musician Zubir Said. He claimed that he was more than qualified for the Radio job. He also lamented on the difficulty of securing a good job as there was no opening for music graduate like him, that he resorted to tapping rubber to support his family. Right to his claim, he proved himself well versed with music score and played the piano well. My boss was taken by his honesty. Later we did a ‘Voice Test’ on him. We found out that he could not pronounce the letter ‘S’. For such word as “Saya” he would pronounce as “Caya.” So we coined for him a Malay ‘tongue twister, ’SAYA SUKA SAMA SUNDAL.SUNDAL SUKA SAMA SAYA. He was asked to practice hard if he wanted the radio job. He got the radio job alright, but till this day he still practiced hard to get the sound of the letter “S” right. He was not made a DJ or a News Caster, but he excelled himself as a music composer and producer. On retirement he was bestowed a Datok title for his contribution to Malaysian music industry.)

Now back to us The Village Lads; slowly and enthusiastically we shoulder the English sound ‘learning curb’ brunt; meaning more time in chanting ‘tongue twister’ and less time on the playground. With fewer activities on the playing fields meaning we received less supply of daily fresh apples from the town boys. So we thought of a strategy, inviting them to our Weekend War Games Meet. Most importantly we need to encourage the Bagan Datoh town boys, as they were our only source for the constant supply of fresh apples. To this Yusof advocated the idea of having rabbit as pet. He was boastful on the abundant supply at a Chinese farm near his place. As Yusof put it, the owners could not control the overgrown rabbit population and would be too happy to part with those ‘arnab’ for free.
All believed Yusof.
Most of us were taken with the opportunity of having our very own rabbit pet for free. Some even wanted more than one pair, and promised to bring a big ‘gunny sack’ for the catch. As expected the supply of fresh apples from The Bagan Datoh town boys began to pour in regularly.
Time passed, and the urged to cuddle our pet rabbit almost drive some of us crazy. Yusof agreed to honor his promised if only the Bagan Datoh boys could find time for our Weekend War Games Meet, and later visit the Chinese farm for the rabbits. He knew it was difficult for them to give a definite decision as, they could not find a good explanation to their parents to be at school during the weekends. It was a good strategy as he could stall them for sometimes, till he found another solution.
Personally I was not taken by Yusof’s promise. On my own I scouted the Chinese farm mentioned, only to find no rabbits around the compound. I felt betrayed. Was Yusof telling the truth, or that I was ignorant on the where about of the Rabbit Pen.
I was informed later; the group did go to the Chinese farm for the catch on one fine Saturday afternoon. Were they succeeded with their catch? It was an incident of 'The Unforgotten Truth' long remembered only by all those closely involved.

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This Malay rhymes still etched in my mind as I received Nordin Sabran’s SMS recently urging me to consider the incident of PENGEMBALA ANAK ARNAB in my next posting. Well Nordin, here it is. Please correct me if I over dramatized the incident, for as a professional writer I am licensed to it.

Dalam Semak Ada Duri,
Ayam Kuning Buat Sarang;
Orang Tamak Selalu Rugi,
Saperti Anjing Dengan Bayang-Bayang.

WALLAHUALAM.