My First Visit in a Year
My seven-year old son was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition in the middle of last year. While I suppose, there were lots of contemplative thoughts and conversations going on in my head, they were hardly expressed in writing. (It would have made for some captivating reading otherwise.) Similarly, there was few, if any opportunity at all to socialise and write about it.
In what was a first in months, I had the privilege of spending close to three hours in the company of Aunty Midah and her husband Uncle Mahmud last Friday after prayers. Lunch unfolded in the cozy confines of their home, served on the square dining table which has been witness to our conversations, interviews, countless cups of tea and how I have since been regarded as family since my first visit eight years ago.
Lunch was a delightful affair, shared with Uncle Mahmud. I was served Nasi Ayam with the whole works - crispy roasted chicken, sambal, kicap, salad and soup. Aunty Midah, visibly fatigued and with no appetite for food, joined us in conversation instead. Among the things we talked about was my son’s unexpected diagnosis. Her words, steeped in acceptance and wisdom borne of her own trials with lymphoma, resonated deeply with me.
Like always, our conversations drifted through familiar landscapes of memory, namely, her childhood, her parents and her visits to Pakistan. Yet this time, it meandered through a different course and I learnt new facets of her past, such as her family relocating to Holland Close as a result of urban resettlement in the 1970s. I suppose talking about her childhood in Jalan Eunos naturally made her nostalgic. “If I could go back in time, one of the things I would do is to revisit my childhood,” she said. One of her wishes is to visit Pakistan, a challenging task given her somewhat fragile health.
I engaged in conversation with Uncle Mahmud as well, and I think for the first time, he shared with me recollections of his childhood, one that was filled with hardship and poverty. “I was barefoot till I was eight. I bought my first slippers when I was nine years old,” he said. His difficult childhood betrays the fact that his maternal grandfather had a thriving briyani business prior to the Second World War. However, he passed away unexpectedly leaving his children orphaned. The only one who knew his briyani recipe was his young assistant, who he had come to regard as his adoptive son. Later in life, he had refused Uncle Mahmud’s request to share the recipe with him. (I would like to believe this rejection would ultimately lead to the creation of his own tandoori chicken recipe, one that would be expanded as a business by his daughter and son-in-law, and fittingly, named after him.)
As the sky darkened outside, and the rain poured unabating, I lingered, cherishing the moments that I shared with this remarkable couple. Before I left, I asked the two of them for a photo. “Sure, of course,” Aunty Midah said, with that generous smile of hers. “When anyone ask, you show them lah, this is Aunty Midah,” she laughed. As I took their photo at the familiar dining table, Uncle Mahmud tenderly wrapped his arm around Aunty Midah.
