The Best Detective Agency in Trengganu III

Earlier episodes: 1, 2.

Now read on...

Lepas ayang kkukok cahaya segar teluh masuk cceloh daung-daung pohong ru sebeloh pejabak jang besor, kena makgak teksi Cik Kaleh baru gilak, naik kkelik kuning ssiyor mmacor masuk mata budok-budok galah jaber jjalang gi sekoloh. Bila matahari condong sikik naik pulok ceroh nnerang dari cerming pitu pejabak, di bawah, cahaya tu kkelik dari gigi mah Muda Kor, mmacor ddalang ppala dia. Orang pangge dia Kor sebak tangang dia dekor, atah loteng keda dialah letaknya opeh ambe.

Pagi tu ambe turong awa makang apang kkeda Muda sebak ade urusang puko sepuloh. Muda tu mmusang orangnya, tapi pagi tu dia tengoh suka gelekek sebab ambe ajok dia gi ddarak. Tengoh dia hiruk air kawe hak dia baru tuang ddalang piring dia angkak ppale sikik, suka gelekek sapa ssembor air kawe dari mulok. "Mung Mak, mung ning memang nnakok pahek!''

"Kalu dia pange mung pong mung dak gi ssorang, Kor, mung bawok ambe jugok.''

Memang ambe yang nak jugok Muda gi sebak bila orang tengok tangang deko orang bekeng pong dak jadi nak maroh sebab ssiang kak dia. Biasanya ambe suka kalu orang nak paka ambe suroh jjadi mmata-gelak, lebih-lebih lagi le ning bila pitih dah kering takdok sekepeng. Tapi pagi tu rasa suka ccapo takok, mulok senyung tapi hati dak-dak dok ddebor. Hari ning ambe buka keh baru: nak cari laki Song. Tapi sebelong tu ambe kena cari Song Janda Kaya sebak kemaring dia mari cari ambe di pejabak, dok ddiri masang ccatung ddalang gelak, waktu ggarik, suroh gi jugok rumoh dia, kalu tidok, kata dia, dia nak mari kerik lebih dari berah ddalang bilik sebeloh opeh ambe.

Tiba-tiba bila dok tengoh mamoh apang denge kawe sama Muda Kor di meja bulak bbawah pohong sena ddepang keda makang dia, kaki ambe rasa pedih macang kena kerik ssitu jugok. Amba lopak teruh sambe garu kaki, nasib baik dak jatuh sokok dari ppala sebak teratok sutoh keda Muda. “Ha sudoh,” ambe jjerik ke Muda Kor, “dokkang dia mari kerik dah kaki ambe ssining.”

“Dak kanglah dia nak kerik kaki mung pagi bboler ning, kita pong baru nak gi rumoh dia,” Muda Kor jawak, sambe mata dok jengok bbawoh meja. “Tengok tu Mak,” dia teruh kata, “beratus-ratuh askar meroh nyalla dok gigik kaki mung. Jaga bbaik nati dia naik ddalang seluor ketik batu mung sape nak uboh obak ssitu?”

Ambe solor bbawoh meja lepah tu locak teruh, sambe tangang dok garu kaki dua-dua.

“Yang mung letak meja makang atah sarang semuk gata tu ba’ape Kor?” ambe tanye.

Habih ssembo sekali lagi air kawe dari mulok Muda Kor, dak tahang geli hati, kik-kik, tengok kaki ambe kena gigik semuk gata. Hak naik atah keting ambe kerenyek sepuloh ekor, hak lain dok tengoh panjak kaki habih lari bila ambe kebah kaki seluor.

Atah teksi Cik Kaleh nak gi rumoh Song, amba dok ggaru kaki lagi. “Le ning musing panah ddering banyok semuk keluor sebak tanoh kering. Musing jo’ong kurang sikik sebak tanah ddener,” Muda Kor kata, macanglah orang dak tahu.

Cik Kaleh dak kkata sebak gohek teksi naik bukit leloh bedoho. Sekali sekala dengor suara dia tanya, “Song? Song mana ni, kita dak pernoh dengo.” Dia senyung ssenegh, gigi dia pong mah jugok, macang Kor, rambok dia bbojeng kemah, ttangang dia ada jang dok kkelik ddalang cahaya matahari, masa tu dah nak naik tegak atah ppala.

Rumah Song warna aluminiang ttepi paya. Dari jauh napok macang rumoh besi, ceroh sapa ppinor mata. Mata gelak ddalang cerah, ambe kkenang ddalang hati.Tapi suara Kor tiba-tiba ganggu pikirang ambe: "Orang dok ssining kalu hujang, air bah tentu kkatok bbising bbangor, tapi hari ning sebak ceroh takdak bbunying apa-apa." Dia penoh denge kata-kata macang tu, dalang tapi takdok makne. Cik Kaleh berhenti ttepi lokang, mata dia dok tilek rumah Song dak kkelik sebak nama Song ning dia dak pernoh dengor. Muda Kor bayor dia samah; dia pong gostang, terus hilang bila teksi turung bukit, lari celubu.

Tengoh ambe tengok Cik Kaleh pegi jauh, ambe dengor suara Muda Kor naik sapa atah rumoh: “Assalamu alaikong! Ning rumoh Cik Song ke?”

“Naiklah,“ bunyi suara sorang budok ppunag, “ni Pak Mak Sprong ke?”

Ambe bekki sokok atah ppale, teruh ajak temang ambe naik sama. Atah rumoh ada sorang budok llaki kecik, dok nnulih atah meja. Lepah tu, keluor budok ppuang takdi, jepuk kami duduk atah kerusi panjang kayu ttepi pitu.

“Doklah dulu,” budok llaki tu tiba-tiba kata. “Mok tengoh ssetok kkarong ddalang nu.”

“Bukang kkarong saja ssetok tengok mok, Pok dulu pong ggitu...” Belong habih budok ppuang tu ccakak, keluar Song tiba-tiba, terhecok-hecok dari ddalang rumoh dia. Ambe ingak dari kemaring betok badang dia, penuh bika pitu opeh ambe, dia jjalang turong naik, turung naik macang orang nnari atah tanoh dak rata.

“Gi masok ddalang bilik, mak nak ccakak ning. Gi masuk buak air!” Bila dengor suara Song budak ppuang tu teruh masuk, tingga anak llaki lebihkurang 12 tahung tu di luor, dok bang dengor apa yang kami kata.

“Guane yang kecok tu?” ambe buak berani tanye Song Janda Kaya bila tengok dia jjalang turung naik, turung naik ke kerusi ddepang kami.

“Mung jangang banyok mulok jaga ttepi kaing orang, mung mari sebak nak tulong cari laki aku,” dia kata.

Bila ambe aleh mata tengok ttepi kaing dia baru ambe sedor. Kaki dia bukang kecok tapi tonjeng, sebak tu dia jjalang macang unta.

“Mung nak ngatte orang, mata mung yang kesek tu guane? Kemaring ddalang bilik mung gelak aku dak napok,” tiba-tiba Song datang balik, mata dia dok cerlong kat ambe.

“Oh ning masa jjadi Hoong Gak dulu, ambe lawang Kominih ddalang kebong getah, kena tembok sebelah mata.”

Bila dengor jawapang ambe to Muda Kor teruh suka kik-kik. Dia pong cerita selalu, “Tu bukang kena tembok, dulu kelahi denge orang ppuang dia, kena rocoh denge sodek.”

Kah! Kah! Muda ngilla.

Baru napok Song geli hati sikik, tapi dia dak jadi senyung, napok sangak dia ok. “Ning sape dia ning?” dia tanya, mata dok tengok tangang Muda hak rekok macang ulak kekek tu.

Ambe kata tu Muda, kawang ambe. Bila kata ggitu baru ambe sedor hari ning derumoh Song macanglah hari orang cacak sedunia: Song tonjeng, Muda dekor, ambe kesek; ada serema.

Lepah kami makang akok denge air sirak, Song pong cerita. Dia asal dari dekak Sekoloh Arab, lepah tu nnikoh denge Mbong, laki dia hak hilang lesak tujuh tahong dah dak juupa. Nama dia Song Janda Kaya bukang sebak tok llaki dia hak hilang tu banyak pitih tingga kat dia, tapi sebelong tu pong dia dah banyak harta hak pak dia tingga. Bila laki dia Mbong tu lari baru orang pangge dia janda, janda kaya. Dia nak cari laki dia le ning bukang sebak nak dia balik, tapi sebak dia ambek pitih Song banyok jugok, Song nak ambek balik hak dia.

“Dulu mung duduk dekak sekoloh Arab kang, Long Ladang mung kena?” ambe tanya, saja-saja.

“Dak kena ba’ape,” Song jawak, “Sama sekoloh denge kita.”

Bila balik ke opeh ambe teruh buang sokok sebak ppala dah panah banyok mmikir. Dah nak wak guana: janda bekeng, laki hilang, rumoh tepi paya. Ambe dengor suara anok ppuang dia, bukang kkarong saja ssetok, pok dulu pong ggitu jugok... Teruh ambe buka sapo surak kelabu hak dia beri tadi, keluar pitih sepuluh ria. Tengoh ambe tilik gambor Agong hak mula-mula tu dok tengok ambe dari atah pitih tu, bbunying orang ketok pitu, teruh masuk ppala Muda Kor jengok ddalang opeh amba.

“Mak, Hoong Gak tu nnatang apa?” dia tanya.

Cerita Mat Sprong ning hanya khayalang. Tak dok kena mengena dengang sapa-sapa hak masih hidok, mati dah atau pong dok tengoh rasa dak sedak tuboh. Kalau ada sama dengang sapa-sapa tu hanya kebetolang, bukang sengeleng buak.

[To be continued...]

Ways of Unseeing

Well, whaddya know?

All I’ve been looking at from here and there would’ve added to one coherent whole. Or so I thought, until a comment came in that’s thoroughly devastating and unexpected. Hold on folks, I didn’t mean it to be taken at all like that.

Of course history is uncertain, and maybe even bunk. But without history who are we? So Thucydides and Ibn Khaldun and Gibbons, everyone who are like them, are just jabbering idiots, perish the thought. Even Dr. Mahathir once felt the need to quote Santayana, and he did right because, without your past, how are we to know who we are, how then do we go ahead?

The Sejarah Melayu is history for what it’s worth, and the Hikayat Hang Tuah, though never claiming to be history, is full of useful insights. Would we be better people if the writers of those works didn’t sit down to do what they did? No siree, we’d be the poorer for that.

I’ve been led up this road by the comment below by Anonymous, who urges history writers to "give us a break." Perhaps Anonymous doesn’t read history much, and that’s his own look-out, but if historians decided to down tools and gave us what Anonymous calls "a break" we’d all be impoverished.

So one speaks to one’s father, and hears that journeying to Kuantan (not even a hunderd years ago) was something that started at daybreak and continued till close to sunset. That’s been told me by many folk; in Trengganu I knew an old man with rheumy eyes who used to walk all the way to Kuantan to do the textile trade, through coastline and jungle tracks. I knew another (whom I’ve blogged about) who was making a similar journey when he was caught in a a flash flood, and he had to perch in a tree for the night somewhere near Beserah. Anonymous’s father told him much the same thing about long journeys in the past, but did it make him wonder about human resilience or the vastness of this earth? No, it made him more rooted to his spot, and his mind became imbued by this image of folk in the monsoon blown East who were so isolated that they were fossilised.

So did people travel then? Of course they did — by sea, by land, by boat by elephant ride. Did the men of Tun Habib from Johor come to Trengganu to settle in Telemong? They did and they stayed, as other men from the archipelago travelled as far north as what’s now known as Cambodia, and stayed there as rulers for more than a thousand years. Did Megat Panji Alam go to Pahang, did the Telanai go to Melaka, did the Melakans come down to Inderapura for whatever was their business? You don’t need the mind of a rocket scientist to make up your mind on that.

Were Trengganu, Patani, Kelantan and the neighbouring parts so isolated that they knew nothing of what lay beyond the bush? Is that why they spoke Trengganuspeak, because they were so hermetically sealed from all the rest? To think so would be to misunderstand society's dynamics. Travel was hard, but this didn’t stop them from doing just that. Melaka sent many men to Patani to fend off Siamese attack, how far was it from there to there in those days? Trengganu people were familiar with Samarinda cloth, Chinese ceramics, and the kain cindai that wrapped around the waists of warriors. And where on earth did they get that?

The marvel is not how we did not move, but how we are so scattered, so widespread. Perhaps we can choose to ignore all that and tell historians and philologists and all the anthropos what have you and all those other 'ologies' to shut up, because Kuantan was a long way from Tepoh.

We can look at the world and wonder or we can choose to be pitifully smug. But cynicism is often a two-edged thing and often it tells more about the person than the thing that he’s roiling at.

Nusantara history has been one long episode of diaspora and people displaced, and to think that history is bunk because Pahang was the distance of the setting sun is to underestimate the will and determination of our forefathers and mothers; but still, it's a thought...

By Elephant To Pahang

Trengganu history is a problem as I've been saying, as not a lot can be gleaned through the haze. In fact, much of history is like that, reading Shakespeare you'd think that Richard III was a hunchback and a bungling idiot too at that.

And so was Trengganu Taring Anu or Terang di Nu or what-have-you. You see figures in the mists, stonework figures of some deities that, according to Chinese accounts, scared the brigands and pirates off the banks of Kuala Brang on the river, and they were the Telanai and the Megats, and carvers in stone in Ulu Teresat.

But ah, the Megats. I'm grateful for this comment from Megat Iskandar Bin Megat Zaharuddin, who says he's the 14th direct descendant of Megat Terawis:

"I've read your article on the history of Terengganu and you've mentioned quite a number of Megats in your article.

"Can you tell me where did you get the idea of Megat Panji Alam learning from Megat Terawis of Perak?

"I think you (perhaps the person who gave you the info)have made a big mistake here. Megat Panji Alam was in the era of Hang Tuah and during the reign of Sultan Mansur of Melaka.

"Megat Terawis on the other hand flourished during the reign of Muzaffar Shah of Perak i.e. Son of Mahmud, grandson of Alauddin, great-grandson of Mansur!

"The Sultanate of Perak only existed in 1528 and Megat Terawis became the Bendahara circa 1530s - and he continued to be the Bendahara until the second Perak Sultan!"

I mentioned Megat Terawis in passing when speculating on our own Megat Panji Alam, whose burial place — I'm told — is now marked out in Kuala Trengganu. I've been thinking about this and even wondered why, for a man who was reputedly killed in faraway Pahang (and in those days Pahang was a faraway place), he was taken back to Trengganu to be interred. Perhaps it was the custom in those days for people of royal blood to be taken for burial in their properly designated place. Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah of Melaka, for instance, died in Melaka, but was taken for burial in Pagoh, near Muar, quite a journey from Melaka.

But my question remains, who was Megat Panji Alam?


The Megats did indeed rule Trengganu, or parts of it in the 16th century, as did the Telanai who, judging from his title, came directly or indirectly from Palembang. I feel the same about the house of the Megat, as I do not think it was a title made in Trengganu and furthermore, it was the fashion in those days to have rulers come from outside their realms, see Melaka, Bintan, Perak, Kuala Brang, Perak or Pahang. The present queen of England came from the House of Sax-Coburg-Gotha, and the late, but unlamented, Farouk of Egypt, from Albania.

So Megat Panji Alam's father ruled Trengganu (or parts of it) in the 16th century, and of him we know little. But we know a bit more about his son Panji Alam. According to the Hikayat Hang Tuah he was a boastful man who wanted to attack Melaka with a force of six-thousand, four thousand fighting men and two thousand carrying provisions, which rather reminds me of Persia's King Darius who went to meet Alexander of Macedon with a cast of thousands, including harem and staff and kitchenware.

Now that was the Hikayat Hang Tuah, which is a good and rousing read, but unreliable as history. According to the Hikayat Hang Tuah went to Inderapura (Pahang) with Jebat and Kasturi, and 3000 fighting men. According to this account, Megat Panji Alam was ambushed by Hang Jebat and Hang Kasturi after he managed to evade them by jumping into the entrance to the audience hall of the Sultan of Pahang. The attackers took turns to stab our Megat repeatedly with their kris as he was washing his feet at the foot of the stairs. As all this was happening, Hang Tuah was inside, holding small talk with the Pahang ruler.

A popular account of this encounter states that the Megat was betrothed to Tun Teja of Pahang, another area of dispute, as the Sejarah Melayu, a more reliable source, says that she was engaged to Pahang's Sultan Abdul Jamil, not Panji Alam. And it was Hang Nadim, not Tuah, who went out looking for her.

The Hikayat Hang Tuah, written after 1641 but before 1726, is unreliable as history, something it never claims to be. It's fact and factoid, events all jumbled up into a jumbled but amusing whole. At its centre is a mythologised Hang Tuah, a superhuman figure. But still, it is, as Henk Maier says, "the vade vecum of everything Malay". Megat Terawis was plucked from folk memory and given the image of a suitable villain to contrast with Tuah's upright character. The Laksamana was an exemplar, so dashing, so spirited that he sailed to Pahang as soon rumour began to spread that Megat Panji Alam was planning to attack Melaka. He set out with choice men, with drums and instruments of war, and two katis of gold from the Sultan's bounty. And as his friends were preparing for battle, he was reading from his library (perpustakaan). On the other side of town Panji Alam was ordering his men to beat the drums of war as he threw his spear into the air, then deflecting it with his body. He was, says the Hikayat, a man given to boasting and drunkenness, and who came riding on a beast named Shah Kertas (a paper elephant).

If Megat Panji Alam's father ruled Trengganu in the 16th century, then it's impossible that he'd have met Hang Tuah, who was subject of Mansur Shah (1459-1477). Then, according to the Sejarah Melayu, the Telanai of Trengganu, was murdered by Seri Akar Raja on the orders of Sultan Muhammad Shah of Pahang because he felt slighted by the Telanai's direct mission to Melaka to pay homage to Alauddin Riayat Shah. Seri Akar Raja got Trengganu as reward (if only briefly) as the Telanai family fled, while his three grandchildren — Megat Sulaiman, Megat Hamzah, Megat Umar — were taken into adoption by Sultan Ala'uddin.

Now there's valuable material there, from which I'm inclined to think that Megat Panji Alam was a contemporary of Megat Terawis, and not Hang Tuah as many would like to believe. Tun Teja, whoever she was betrothed to, was taken to Melaka where she married Sultan Mahmud, then died while leaving Melaka through a padi field as Alfonso D'albuquerque rampaged through the city. Mahmud buried her there before moving on to find a throne elsewhere.

Photos:
Top to bottom: Tomb of Hang Jebat, Melaka; Tomb of Hang Kasturi, Melaka; Tomb of Tun Teja, Merlimau, Melaka. Source: Melaka State Government website.

The Best Detective Agency in Trengganu II

Continuing the story of Mat Sprong who ran the best detective agency in Trengganu. How he started his agency, who called one dark, rainy day. Read Part I here.

Ambe dok tengoh luga, waktu baru masuk ggarik, anjing nyallok keng! keng! masa setang tengoh gelibuk. Dah lah bilik gelak sebak takdak lapu, tiba-tiba making gelak, bila bayang benda bulak dua butir jatuh atah meja ambe, dengang bayang tuang dia dok ddiri besor jjalor, dudok cokkoh ddepang mata.

Nama dia Song, dia kata. "Dak kang mung dak kena, akulah hak orang panggil Song Janda Kaya."

"Kalu mung duduk tinggi langgok atah tiang lapu Ppadang Malaya pong manalah aku nak kena mung sape," ambe jawak.

"Aku nak cari laki," kata Song lagi, ppinor mata.

Barangkali sebak lapor, barangkali sebak kkejuk tengok orang ttina ddiri cokkoh ddalang bilik separuh gelak tu, ambe ssilak dengor. "Ni bukang Biro Kawing, ning agensi mmata gelak," ambe kata.

"Bukang aku nak belaki, aku nak suruh mung cari laki aku!" Song kata lagi, suara making bekeng, perok ambe making gobor.

Dari pitu di belakang ppale ambe masuk cahaya kuning ssior, lapu kereta. Bunyi enjing bberer, Mamud derebar lori angkut najih bandor Kuala Teganung dah mula masuk kerja. Cahaya lapu sapuh dinding bilik, kena haribulang hak ambe siek pagi tadi, 29 Jung, 1962. Cahaya kuning tu jatuh pulok atah muka Song, napok mata dia dok kkelik ddalang gelak, badang dia ddiri tegak ddepang pitu masuk ke opeh ambe. Kadang-kadang muluk kita nak telajak tapi pengalamang kata jaga-jaga. Malang tu perkataang "Jaga-Jaga" napok jelah ddalang mata Song, tengoh meroh nyalle ddalang cahaya malap waktu lepah ggarik, bila anjing bbunyng lagi keng! keng! jauh dari atah kubo. Ambe dok ddiang atah kerusi, dak kkata apa-apa.

"Dah guane," tiba-tiba Song kata pulok. "Mung ingak mung buleh cari?"

"Ggininglah," ambe kati, pening ppale dok mmikir guana nak lari dari orang ppuang hak bekeng dak jjuruh arah tu. "Ggininglah nak waktu ggarek ning dak baik kita ccakak ddalang gelak, esoklah kita jjupe."

"Yang mung dak pasang lapu tu ba'ape?" Song akat suara lagi.

"Dah nak wak guane, lapu baru kena potong, lupa nak bayor be."

Duuuuunnnngggg!

Song ssetok bila ambe tang dinding sebeloh bilik denge tapok tangang. Barangkali dia latoh sikik, ccarok, tapi ambe tak berapa dengor sebab masa tu Mamud pong dok tengoh tekang minyok lori dia.

"Yang mung tang dinding tu ba'ape pulok?" Song tanye.

"Mitok ma'ahlah, tapi tu pong kerja ambe. Ambe bukang jadi mmata gelak je, jaga tikuh pong ambe jugok. Kalu ambe dak tang dinding tu kuak-kuak habih berah ddalang setor sebeloh nye kerik ddie."

"Oh ggitu," Song kata. Baru dia sejuk sikik, barangkali sebak kkejuk takdi bila ambe tang bilik ddegung. "Tapi mung tau aku duduk duane?"

"Dak taulah sebak baru jjupe."

"Nah, ning alamak rumoh. Mung gi petang esok." Bila habih kata ggitu dia teruh pusing nak keluor bilik. Napok dia jjalang sengek-sengek sikik, badang dia sama penoh denge bika pitu. Belong habis lagi ambe tarik napah, lega, dia pusing ppala balik, teruh cerlong mata ambe.

"Baik mung gi Mak, kalu mung dak gi, bukang berah saje nati hak kena kerik ddalang bilik ni!"

[To be continued...]

Branch In The Family Way

Dead people tell tales.

One of the earliest inscriptions that signposted the coming of Islam to our region was found on a tombstone in Minye Tujuh, Aceh, dated 1380, recording the death of Sultan Iman who had sovereignty over Kedah and Pasai. The writing was Indian, the language, a mixture of Arabic, Sanskrit and Malay, and the Sultan was said to be a son of the House of Barubasa.

There are, incidentally, Aceh type tombstones on the graves of Tok Raja Ri and Syarif Muhammad Al Baghdadi, both found on the bank of a river in Kampung Jenagor, in Ulu Trengganu, though I must say that the writing on the Trengganu Stone predated Minye Tujuh's by many years, and the Trengganu record was written in the Jawi script and in more fluent Malay.

As I noted in my last posting, there are many old cemeteries in Kuala Trengganu that are familiar to the townspeople who go about living their daily lives, but of which we know little. The vast burial site on the edge of Kampung Patani may well have contained remains of Patani people who came down to Trengganu with Sultan Zainal Abidin I, who, if I'm not mistaken, was in Patani when orders came from his father the Tun Habib Bendahara of Johor to make haste to Taring Anu to install himself Sultan there.

The link between Patani and Johor is something I'm still looking into, and what I've seen so far is that Syair Dang Sirat stood on much ceremony as boats were to-ing and fro-ing, ferrying people in costumes galore in the pre-nuptials between the houses of Patani and Johor. Dang Sirat, though an attractive lady, wasn't one you'd want to send an emissary home about to sing the powers of her lure. She was, to put it mildly, a court lady, and even her beauty was quite illusory. I know, I know, it's skin-deep and all, but it did get her entangled with the man from Johor, and then, one day, while out riding on an elephant, her hair got entangled in the branch of a tree, and that unravelled her magic spell. She became, in a whoosh, a crone and the witch popped out of her bewitching spell. Her Johor suitor, I regret to say, was so shocked by her sudden transformation, that he unsheathed his kris and laid it immediately into her.

This was the susuk of course as we knew it in Trengganu and elsewhere; a word, which, by coincidence, also means 'to hide' for you Tengganuspeaking people. So please, please, if you're using one, for whatever reason, do not stand up on your elephant as it is progressing through some greenery.

But back to what I'd set out to say, and that is, there's a vast area of Kuala Trengganu with a history that isn't at all very clear. The Sheikh Ibrahim cemetery and the Tok Pelam are relatively new, and many people have family buried there. But I have yet to come across records of those other burial places in Paya Bunga and near the Bus Station by the old jail house (as one of you have pointed out) and on those hills that rise around Kuala Trengganu. They could well have been the burial places of people who brought our history to our door, hoi polloi from Patani, Daik, Johor, and other parts of the archipelago maybe, the spear bearers, the backroom boys, kitchen staff and assorted people.

Perhaps it's time we take take a look at the records (if there's any) or ask questions of those who know.
* * *
The writing in the photo (above), found in the Sheikh Ibrahim cemetery, reads:

Makam Sultan Mansur II
Sultan Mansur Ibn Sultan Zainal Abidin, menaikki takhta Kerajaan negeri Trengganu sebagai Sultan Trengganu yang ke 7 pada 31 haribulan Januari 1831. Semasa pemerintahan Baginda telah tercetus perang saudara kerana merebut kuasa antara Baginda dengan anak saudara baginda ia itu Tengku Omar. Di dalam peperangan tersebut baginda telah berjaya dan di lantik sebagai Sultan Trengganu. Sepanjang pemerintahan baginda pernah memberi bantuan ketenteraan membantu kerajaan Patani menentang Siam. Baginda mangkat pada 4 haribulan Mac 1836 dan dimakamkan di tanah perkuburan Sheikh Ibrahim, di jalan Pusara, Kuala Trengganu.

Sultan Mansur II was grandson to Mansur I (1733-1793), the second sultan in the present line. His father Zainal Abidin II (1793-1808) fathered three future Sultans, Ahmad Shah and Abdul Rahman, and then Mansur II, when Daud (son of Ahmad Shah) who succeeded to the throne in 1831, died in the same year.

Mansur's was a time of civil war, between him and his nephew Omar whom he defeated but who came back from exile in 1839 to depose Muhammad Shah I (Mansur's son) who sat on the throne for 3 years. These were hectic times on Bukit Putri, as you've already seen here.

Burying the Past

Half of Kuala Trengganu, it seems, is necropolis. There are more cemeteries in this town than in any other.

As a child I used to walk, in daylight of course, in a place called Nesang Pak (nisan empat, four grave stones), which, as the name tells, had a grave there with four stone markers on it, instead of the usual two. They lay there in the shade, with those of many others who were buried there, beneath a cluster of bamboo trees that creaked all day in the slightest breeze. It was an old burial place that no one visited, and no one remembered who lay there.

There was a vast expanse of cemetery next door to — and in the back of — the Malay Sekolah Paya Bunga; there are old gravestones on top of Bukit Putri, and the Bukit Kecik, and in Kampong Keling, where lived the family of the Datuk Amar; there were many old graves on the slope of the hill.

Behind the Arabic School, the old Madrasah Sultan Zainal Abidin, in the sandy soil that stretched a long way, were graves too, the dead of long ago, in their last, nameless resting place. Old grave markers were large round stones, picked from the sea, unlike the new ones whose roundness or flatness will tell you if the dead was male or female. May God have mercy on them all.

My mother was buried in the old Sheikh Ibrahim cemetery, quite coincidentally, near the grave of an early Sultan of Trengganu. It was in a stretch of burial place that extended further up, into other burial places, to accommodate the Buddhists and the Christians and the Hindus. You could walk there till you saw the mast of the "wireless" station from afar, where Father cycled to in the wee hours when he was a young rookie. This was a long, dark road, before the complete electrification of Kuala Trengganu.

Near the Sheikh Ibrahim is another, called the Tok Pelam, where people still bury the dead of Kuala Trengganu. Both the Sheikh and the Tok were old luminaries, two learned men who must've had many followers. They built a structure over Tok Pelan's grave, to house those who stayed up late at night to read a surah or two; and to passers-by it looked like a house and many tales were spun in there. I was told in my Sekolah Ladang days that an egg of the buraq was kept there, and the buraq if you don't already know, is a bird that travels multi-dimensional pathways.

Cemeteries make sobering thoughts, beckoning us to the end of days. We're all dead now, as someone said, the living are just dead people on holiday. Needless to say, the cemeteries of Kuala Trengganu are silent records of its past, its repositories of old. On Bukit Putri are old sultans, past royalty, people killed in battle for ascendancy. In the cemetery of Kota Lama are remains of the Sultanate and their entourage who moved to the Kuala from the Ulu. Many old graves and burial places in Kuala Trengganu are untended and forgotten, though they're still highly visible. The cemetery near the Sekolah Paya Bunga, for instance, is near what used to be known as Kampung Patani, where people from that now Southern Thai province lived and were perhaps buried when they came down with the founder of the present Royal House of Trengganu. There was Kampung Daik too, near the Masjid Abidin, and the Kampung where you can still see a cluster houses belonging to the family of Datuk Amar and the Datuk Mata-Mata.

Those long forgotten burial places could have been the last resting places of folk who came to Trengganu in the course of its history, from Daik and Patani and other parts of the archipelago.

The Datuk Mata-Mata was the old commissioner of Trengganu police, and the Datuk Amar was an important Court official, perhaps the Prime Minister, descendants of the entourage that came with Sultan who came from Johor on the orders of Pak Habib, the grand old Bendahara. Father used to have many friends from the Datuk Amar family, who was known to us as Che Long, an oldy worldy Malay gentleman (and I used the word advisedly) who always dropped in on us Friday mornings for a cup of hot Milo. His grandfather the Datuk Amar was a fluent Arabic speaker who used to sit on the wakaf by the little madrasah in Kampung Keling opposite the Pasar Payang, to practise his language with seamen from the Gulf area. Hadhrami sailors have etched many glorious marks in our chequered history.

In Kampung Dalam Bata, near our kampung of Tanjong which Awang Lorong Jjamil so dreaded, lived a grand old man who trekked his slow but steady path to the Masjid Abidin in my day. He must've been well over ninety then, and was still brimming with many stories, and the name he went by was Datuk Balai, and old court official at the fin de siecle. One thing that never failed to fascinate me about this Datuk was that he was part of the entourage of Trengganu that went over to Bangkok with the Gold Flower, the Bunga Mas that we made for the Thais every so often to keep them in good humour. Datuk Balai once told Father that as soon as they walked the streets of the metropolis with the flower, assorted Thais prostrated themselves immediately in every nook and in every corner, for such was the lure of gold. I shook his hand once at the urging of my father, and I'm glad that I did so, for I shook the hand of Trengganu history.

But such is the transience of life, nothing in it lasts forever, even cemeteries themselves do die. The last time I visited Mother many years ago, I saw a notice posted by the gate. "Burying the dead is forbidden here," the notice said, a strange notice, but the end of the road for the cemetery.

The Best Detective Agency In Trengganu

Nama ambe Sprong, Mat Sprong, detektif perebet yang mula-mula sekali di bandar Kuala Teganung.

Pejabak ambe di Bangunang Panji Alang, dekat Pejabak Jang Besar, atah loteng, dekat setor berah. Bbawah opeh ambe Keda Makang Muda Kor, jjua nasi belauk denge apang balik, sebelah keda Pak Kor. Tapi Pak Kor bukang pak Muda, tapi sebak tangang Muda dekor, orang panggil dia Kor, wala pong dia takdak kena mengena denge Pak Kor.

Satu hari Muda kata pada ambe, "Mak, aku beri bilik ke mung atas loteng, mung jaga berah, jangang beri tikuh kerik."

Ambe kata, "Baik Da, molek sangak." Ggitulah ceritanya bagimana ambe mula-mula jadi detektif perebet atah loteng Bangunang Megak.

Satu hari sorang ppuang naik cari anok dia, nnangih wek-wek. Dia kata, "Ada dak napok anok kita naik ssining? Kita cari ngatte dah!"

Ambe tanya, "Anak mung rupa guane?" Dia pong ceritalh ggitu-ggining, lepah tu ambe pong kata, "Tu tah!"

Sebak bilik ambe atah loteng, ambe buleh tengok kot pitu napok anak dia dok panjak pohong kerekuk. Lega hati dia sebak anak dia selamak, teruh selok tangang ddalang coli buak keluor pitih seria. Ambe kata dak payahlah, tapi dia nak beri jugok, "Ambeklah, kita sedekoh denge iklah!"

Dari hari tulah ambe angang-angang nak jadi detektif perebet. Bila ambe cerita ke Muda nasi belauk ambe nak buka pejabat atas keda dia dia kata, "Molek, molek!" Lepah tu dia tanya, "Detektif tu nnatang apa Mak?" ambe pong ceritalah sedikit sebanyok pasa tugah ambe jadi detektif perebet. Dia kata, "Tapi mung jaga berah aku jangang kerik ttikuh baik-baik!"

Orang laing hak ambe cerita pong kebanyokangnya suka gelekek, sebak di Teganung ni takdak lagi orang jadi detektif perebet sambil hala tikuh. Bila ambe junga keluor pitu nak buboh papang tanda mereka serema gelak keh! keh!. Tapi ambe dak kesoh sebak tulah kerja ambe, seperti hak ambe tuleh atah papang notis ttingkat atah,

MAT SPRONG
MATA-MATA GELAK
24/7

* * *
Satu hari, tengah bbunying bang ggarik, ambe duduk ssorang ddalang gelak, dok ppikir panjang sebak dah lama pitih dak masuk. Dari jauh dengar motosika Haji Deramang pegi semejid, kadang-kadang bbunying tayar lori siah-siah lalu atah air di jalang. Hujang turung dari takdi dak serek-serek. Kadang-kadang bbunying kucing kkarak ttepi tong Majlis Bandarang; atah rabong bbunying burung ppati dok tteduh dari hujang, kur! kur!

Ambe dok ssandar di kerusi, malah nak ggerak. Nak dengor radio bateri habih, nak minung air sejuk pong peti ais punoh. Napoknya malang tu kena makang nasi belauk Muda Kor jugok, pikir ambe, seperti kemaring, seperti kemaring dulu. Seperti esok, lusa, tulak...

Ddalang kesunyiang waktu ggarek masa setang tengoh gelibuk tu, peruk tengah kkeruk, tiba-tiba dengar bbunyi, tuk! tuk!. Mula-mula kohor, lepah tu making kuak, TUK! TUK! macang kena habih reng...

Ambe pong bikah bangung ccacang cari sokok, tangang pong bekki seluor kkeduk sebak dudok lama do'oh, tapi dak dang ambe buak semua tu pitu pong tebuka, masuk cahaya dari lapu luor atah lata bilik. Lepah tu satu bayang besar jjalor jatuh kena kertah dok atah meja, ambe teruh tengok ppitu napok benda bulak, sebuter macang Bukit Besar, sebuter macang Bukit Bayah. Tuang dia jjalang terenjut, terenjut.

"Mung Mak?" dia tanya.

"Orang kata ggitu belaka," ambe jawak.

Ddalang hati ambe ttanye tanye, "Hisy! Ttine garek mana pulok ning?"

[To be continued...]

Sticks of Old Trengganu

Kuala Tengganu must have been the first town to serve satay for breakfast. The smell came wafting down the cloistered walkway of Kedai Pak Lah Yunang, and the Fernandez shop for posh watches and the old kedai Yamada, which later became the Redi Photo Studio. The satay man stood in the narrow lane between the walls of two shop ends, and fanned billowing smoke from his satay, laid across a bed of glowing charcoal. It was an early time of day as the trishaws arrived with loads of kangkong freshly harvested from the paya, and the lopsided clockfaces on the jang besar showed times in various places in this world, except that we couldn't place them to towns that we knew. Three o'clock it would be sayng on one side, and five maybe on another. I can't remember what stood there before this big jang took over, perhaps just a few concrete-filled leger or metal drums.

Sometimes Pak Yassin, the Pak Lah Yunang man took me to the coffee shop for a few sticks of the satay as reward for being son of the man who'd been a lifetime subscriber to his Utusang Melayu and various loose-leaf kitabs that came encased in folders with which to face the Tuan Guru. The Tuan Guru too sometimes came by in the people's teksi otherwise known as the trishaw, or the beca, on his way home to Tanjung Kapur after a session of post-dawn pedagogy at the Masjid Abidin further up, past the gertak or what my mother called the ttiang bridge, past Ah Chin the tailor's, past the delightful kedai bbunga.

Another peculiarity I noticed about this early-morning satay under the clock tower was that they were served with toasts from the kitchen of the shop owner, whose name somehow missed out on the Kuala Tengganu roll call of noteworthy coffee shop owners. He wasn't with Koh Heng and Sumbu and Bhiku and Pak Lah and Kedai Wan Wook of old Tanjung by the sea.

After my posting of the photo of Kuala Trengganu taken by former schoolteacher in Kuala Lumpur during a break form his sixth-form years, I'm reminded by kind readers (see comment, below) of another satay man who'd slipped out from my memory. It's a funny thing to wake up to especially as I knew the name well as he featured almost daily in my travels. Che Muda's house was near the Surau Besar by the Kelab Pantai in Tanjong, and his house was always ponted out to me as the house of Che Muda Satay. Later when we moved to Kuala Lumpur, the name appeared again as, if I remember it rightly, he owned a restaurant and lodging house in Jalan Raja Muda in Kampung Baru. This was the place where you went to in those days to meet the likes of Pak Sako, aka Ishak Haji Muhammad, who penned the famous book Anak Mat Lela Gila. I read the book but never met the man in the KL branch of Che Muda Satay, his watering hole in the metropolis, or so my father said.

If, as Long Ladang and Pak Ku have pointed out (comments, below) that he produced the most excellent meat-on-sticks in Trengganu in those heady days, I'm afraid I've missed out on that too. Which is a shame really, as the coffee shop they speak about that stood just to the right of the picture (below) was actually next door to the permanently closed residence-cum-shophouse of a man who always walked in what we in those days called the kaciperat shirt and the sarong pelikat who was grandfather to a very good friend, Lim C.H., who came down from Dungun to read whatever it was that we read, at the Sultan Sulaiman Primary School. I remember an amazing pictorial book called Old Lob and His Farm, in which lurked Percy the Bad Chick and Mr Grunt the goat, and Dobbins the shire horse and, funnily, no cow worthy of a name. Then there was another school book that carried the man and the pan, and the pan and the man...and so it went.

And then Mr Wee Biau Leng the headmaster blew his whistle and that was the end of the school day. Lim CH and I would rush to the awaiting teksi pedalled by our man Pak Mat, and off we went, past the paya marshlands of Batas Baru, past the Chung Hwa Chinese School, then to Lim's grandfather's house, before arriving at Tanjung, where I alighted in front of Kedai Pak Lah, another famous cofffee house of the town.

I used to pop in at the coffee shop where Che Muda's boys sold his satay sometimes, to buy a tiny frozen block of butter that the shop kept in the freezing compartment of their Kelvinator. That cost ten cents in those days, and the cholesterol was a treat for me. And then I'd go back to the house to read another comic book or two of LIm C.H's comic books in his grandfather's doorway.

Yes, the benteng was to us then like the monolith in Kubrick's Space Odyssey, enigmatic and long and took you out to nowhere in particular. Well, to the middle of the water, actually. It was a mind-blowing experience to walk the benteng on a blustery day as you felt sure that with the right gust you'd be blown off terra firma into the deep water of the South China Sea. The benteng had stood there for as long as anyone could remember, but perhaps it wasn't built by aliens as we thought, but by Japanese workers who came to Trengganu after they landed in Kota Baru (I hope they built one for Atok too over there).

And Wok (comments, below) mentions another name, Engku Mohsin, a famous man from a well-known family who used to speak in political rallies in Padang Malaya. He was beaten, I think, in his quest to go to Parliament, by a man who went by the name of Dato' Onn Jaafar.

And who's a semek now? Thanks OOD for dropping in and your kind words. Semek is a Trengganu gal, not as endearing as the mek, but very much a part of our community in Trengganu. And I say, OOD, don't be like thatlah, you're always welcome to comment here. And thanks too to Tok Bageh, for stopping here.

Boats in the Harbour

This photograph was taken in Kuala Trengganu in 1958, by a young photographer, Chung Chee Min. I believe it was taken just in front of the then Padang Malaya, and the boats you see with the square sails hanging to the yards are the penambang that plied between Seberang Takir and Pulau Duyong to the shores of the Kuala. The penambang ferried schoolchildren, workers, traders and assorted characters across the river Trengganu, and I still remember the creaking yard grinding against the mast as the sail caught the wind, and the Tok Penambang navigating the boat with his little oar. You don't see them in the picture, they've probably gone for a sip and a bite at Pak Dir's stall just opposite the General Post Office, beside the Customs and Excise office in the harbour, to the left of the picture.

Pak Dir made wicked rojak, with slices of squid, and prawns fried in crispy batter. He'd put thinly sliced cucumber into your plate, and beansprouts, and maybe pieces of cow's lung, fried to a rubbery texture in his kuali. The mainstay of Pak Dir's rojak was the sauce — hot and sweet — that he poured with relish onto the heap in your plate; and after you've eaten the rojak you still got plenty of change from a dollar. They say that the first sauce ever made for the rojak lay at the bottom of Pak Dir's pot, maturing quietly in its primordial soup through passing time, and never taken out but always topped-up in a daily ritual, way back from the time when the rojak became a thought, in those days of experimentation in times immemorial. The Tok Penambang, thus sated, would amble contentedly to his perahu throat still burping and bits of sauce still clinging to chin, then he'd ferry you across for twenty-cents per head, and maybe a bit more for the baby-sized nangka (jackfruit) you'd picked up from the pasar. You can see me in the photo, standing near right, wearing a pair of shorts I'd just picked up from Ah Chin the tailor.

When we upped roots from Kuala Trengganu and moved to Kuala Lumpur, I enrolled in a school there where I met Mr Chung, who was a teacher. He was easily one of the brightest buttons there, and put up many marvellous productions on the school stage which brought hilarity to us all. Later, when I, like him, became an old boy of the alma mater, Mr Chung popped back suddenly into my life, with an email from Canada (where he's now happily settled). Mails have been travelling back and forth ever since, he calling me Kemo Sabay and I calling him the same too. Funny, because I always thought that he was the one with the silver bullet, who rode out crying "Hi yo, Silver!" When I told him I do a Trengganu blog, he dug into his old album and produced the above photo which I've resized and reproduced above with a salute to his camera skills, in Trengganu, years ago.

And oh, by the way, I recently handed in to Mr Chung a piece of work that was long overdue. Which goes to show that it's never too late to hand in your school essay.

Leaving A Mark

Yesterday, while walking around the duck pond in a London garden in the pale light of sunset — and sunset's at 9.20pm these days — my walking companion was thinking aloud about the Arabic word ruh (which is also known in Malay) which has not one, but three possible meanings: the spirit, the angel Gabriel, and a commandment from God. And it set me thinking about an epigraph I once read in a book of travel in Yemen, which said that Arabic words are like that, and it went on to expostulate in a humorous way the chameleon-like life of words. An Arabic word, if I remember it well, can mean what it is generally known for, the exact opposite of it, and then it can have a meaning that pertains to parts of a camel.

Arabic is probably one of the most punnable languages on earth, taking a different shape with the slightest variation in pronunciation. That same friend was, earlier in the week, telling me about the punning qualities of the word hamam, which, from my travels in the Maghreb, I understood to mean a bath-house, or a water closet. We were then eating roasted pigeons, a delicacy which was, until then, unknown to me. This is hamam too, my friend said. And then he proceeded with a saying which, judging from the way he averted his eyes to see if there were children there, was not meant to be told before the watershed hours. It was about eating hamam and going to the hamam because of what it did to you in the intervening hours. But I'll leave it to your imagination to sort it out in your own way.

There are a few words in Malay that are punnable, and in Tengganuspeak certainly has them too. I can think of two right now that are capable of doing so, bbaddi is one, and jalang, another. But whenever puns and the Malay language come together, I'm reminded of a conversation I had with Anthony Burgess some years ago on one of his frequent visits to London with his Italian Contessa. Burgess, as you know, lived a few years in Malaya and Brunei, which he used as the backdrop to his Trilogy. There came this Malay gentleman to him, Burgess said, who told him, "Oh Tuan Burgess, I love your English puns." To which Burgess replied, "Saya pun!"

Walking round the pond was acting out what my mind was doing for the most part of yesterday, moving around in undiminishing circles. Earlier in the day, I attended a talk by an erudite Malaysian expert on the use of linguistic markers in texts of old Malay. Markers are important when writing in the jawi script, especially in those days before we started using the noktah or the comma. The noktah is important as you know, as it tells you where to stop, but before we began to use it widely, how did we apply the brakes? Well, narrative markers, like syahdan, or ada pun or the homophonic maka. To illustrate his point, our Malaysian professor (he isn't, but he should be) used a fairly modern text, the Hikayat Kelantan, (written in the 1920s by the brother of the late Dato' Asri) which he had put into his computer to note the many different kinds of markers used in Malay story-telling to mark the stops and the beginning of twists in the tale. It told the story of words, how swiftly they took different forms when in full flow. A conjunction is a conjunction in certain parts but becomes a marker in another, for example. And then a man in the audience stood and raised the question: I wonder, he said, if the word maka could not also do the job of merely being decorative to the text, i.e. a visual marker.

Now, that's something I hadn't really thought about, and which could well nigh be possible. So far, the only visual markers used in 'unpunctuated' Malay jawi text that I know are those curly-wurly indicators used by the scribes of the Syair Dang Sirat, to fill in spaces left between text and page-edge, as indicators that the rhyming scheme was complete.

I shall look at maka now with greater wonder, to see if it is maka or merely a marker.

Eating Habits

Some of you probably have it in the back of your mind still, the day when your Mother or your minder clasped a handful of hot rice in her palm till it was shapd like a ball, then popped it into your mouth with some encouraging word. "Telur burung," perhaps. That in fact was what it was meant to be, a bird's egg. To do so the rice had to be dry, not flooded, as some people like to eat their roti canai these days, full of gravy or kuah. Sometimes, as a treat, the rice, piping hot, is mixed with minyak sapi, ghee made in the hinterland abode of the orang darat, from the milk of the buffalo, in the way that Italians draw their milk for the mozzarella from these sturdy, wayward beasts. In the mixture of rice and fat is added garam lada which is just that, red hot chillies pounded with crunchy bits of sea salt. My father told me once of what he saw in his childhood days, a buffalo pissing onto a karung bag of salt just as it was about to be loaded onto the big boat. But then life is such, always a symbiosis between man and beast.

Now, the other thing you'd have noticed as you opened your mouth wide to take in the telur burung of rice would've been that the person feeding you would've opened wide her own mouth too. Such was the telur burung once you had it in your hand, chillied and gheed and piping hot, it had the propensity to start an uncontrollable reflex.

But eating was one way that separated the men (and women) from the boys (and girls), the polite and the not so well brought up. You eat bbaik which is an envelope of many traits, enen though taken simply it means merely 'properly' or 'carefully'. In the bbaik is all the manners that you've been taught at the mengkuang mat of your dining place. "Makang bbaik ya Awang!" could have been just an urging by a Mother to a son, to be mindful of the fishbones, not to take in too much chilli into the mouth, and not to togok the drink while the food is still undigested. Togok is an unsightly way of taking a drink, and you see it nowadays when a dandy walks the street, head thrown back, as a can of Coke is poured into the mouth. In our house we had some beautifully made carafes of clear glass, called the gogok, and we knew never to togok from the gogok. The gogok bulbed out at the base, and had a long, thin neck which shaped out at the top to form a rim with a pouring spout.

Eating is always a leisurely business, never to be rushed. But if you have to, you'll have to polok your food, pushing one after another into the mouth with rapid succession, until your cheeks are tembong. This is as unsightly as it sounds, cheeks blown out like a puffer fish; people would think you're greedy or your mother-in-law would think that you're in a hurry to leave the house. Some people polok and talk, and make their words very muffled; and to make it worse, they have their hands flapping about, throwing bits of rice onto the neighbours in addition to those already spouting out from their mouth. This way of eating is best avoided.

Another bad habit while savouring the food is ngeccak which is an onomatopoeic word. If, while eating, you hear yourself making the sound cak, cak, cak, then that's ngeccak, so it's best to close your mouth as you're chewing the cud. I have a feeling that our gecko, the cicak too got its name from the sound it makes, but that's in another part of the house.

The idea when eating is to be jjuruh and not just tertib but also terning, lest you be accused of being bedo'oh or just ddo'oh. Both tertib and bedo'oh are Arabic words, and they remind me of a traveller from the Hadramaut who was eating from a communal dish, of rice and meat and multi-coloured bits of saffron and turmeric and onion seeds. The man was looking for meat from his section of the big plate, but couldn't find much, so he said, "Ana suda lama berjalan sini sana, atas bawah..." as as he did so he rummaged his eating hand through the rice in search of the fleshier parts.

Eating with the hand is tricky business as you know from seeing first timers to feeding their own cheeks. Another trick is not to smear the spoons that are used to ladle out the sauce from the dishes with your eating hand. So you normally use the left for spoons, the right for mouth. Some people prefer to reach for the lauk with their hands, even though the spoon is sitting free at the edge of the dish. This has to be done carefully, going precisely for your target so that your fingers don't dip into the sauce. If you reach and dip, that's called ranya lauk and is to be avoided at all cost, unless you're older (or bigger) than everyone else in the house.

Eating is normally done seated, not on the chair, but on the mat — bersila for lads, and ttipuh (bertimpuh in standardspeak) for lasses. While men suap their food gently to the mouth, ladies normally jepuk some little bits and tuck them into their mouth. The young kunyah as the old gonyeh, which is done with gums, not teeth. Some old people use the gobek, a kind of tubular food-shredder, for their sirih, but I've not seen it used for rice.

After eating you sedawa a bit — erk! is approximately the sound it makes, but not awwwwwwrrrk! which may be a bit too much. And then follow it with an "Alhamdulillah!" a word of thanks to God, for the food, while giving a polite nod to the host. It's best though not to sedawa in your neighbour's face as sound effect alone is enough without the benefit of smell as well.

As a man eateth, so is he, as I've learnt from the illustrious Awang Sulung Merah Muda. He was, purportedly, a Trengganu man, hailing from a land called Pati Talak Trengganu, and was of royalty born. When tackling his food, this is what the story's narrator, Pawang Ana, said:

Santap ia santap beradat,
Dua suap ketiga sudah,
Keempat basuh tangan,
Kelima kumur-kumur,
Keenam makan sirih,
Kelat jatuh ke rengkongan,
Seri naik ke peroman,
Paya-paya berserang panjang.

He must indeed have been a very slim person for he stopped at the third feed or suap, to chew his sirih leaf and betel nut. But this was ceremonial dining that he was into, for the story continues:

"Maka berangkatlah ia naik ke istana, lalu dibuang kain basahan, diganti dengan kain baik.

You'll be pleased to know that he was eating in his kain basahan, i.e. the kaing ssahang that we've been talking about.

Just one word though before we wash our hands in the ketor after having enjoyed our food, and retire to the corner for a bit of the sirih or before popping the tebaka spare into your mouth, if you're with the old folk in the back of the house. Awang Sulung did a paya-paya once the taste of the sirih had travelled to his throat and as his face began to radiate. This paya-paya is what we nowadays would call the puek, which is a deep red projectile that you spit out from your mouth as you enjoy the srih leaf. Needless to say, this is a dangerous exercise to be done with due regard. Preferably outside the house.

To find out what happens next to our Awang Sulung, you'll have to read the book.

Cerita Minoh Karang

Minoh duduk ccokoh ttepi telaga, dok kara air. Rambut dia jerebek, kuku panjang jjengong, ggitulah rupa dia.

Tiak-tiak hari mak dia kata sapa keluor orat mereh,"Gi lah Minoh, paka baju mmolek, sikak rambok, kerak kuku!"

Tapi Minoh dia babe sikik, dak dengor kata. Kadang-kadang dia jawak, "Natilah Mok, karang Minoh buak. Le ning ada kerja."

Ggitulah tiak-tiak hari, peranga Minoh rambok jerebek, kuku panjang jjengong, seperti orang cerita.

Satu hari datang sorang dari jauh, dok ngitta dalang kapong, orang kata dari Johor. Lepah tu dengor pulok, dia dok cari nnattu. Bila Mok MInoh dengor ggitu da pong dang-dang suroh Minah ssiap mmolek, sikak rambok, kerak kuku, biar napok tertib terning, jangan jadi orang ngatta. Nasib baik jadi nnatu orang Johor.

Minah kata, "Biarlah Mok, kalu ada jodoh tu adelah. Nati karang Minah buat tu serema. Le ning Minah ngattok mata." Minah pong tidorlah, keroh-keroh, terus jendera.

Mak dia dah mula gobor perok sebab barang-barang dak siap lagi nak pergi jjaje ppasor, ubi ketang apa serba belong koyok lagi, terus kena buat le-le. Dia pong teriak kat Minah, "Minah, mari tulong Mak rubus telor, koyok nyior, ssiang ikang apa serba."

Minah jawak, "Nati Mak, karang Minah buak."

Ggitulah anak ttuah tu, tiak-taik kali suroh buat dia jawak karanglah, le ning ada kerja.

Lama kelamaang, masa jjalang, hari ggerok sokmo, Mak dia pong kohor tua. Minah pong macang tulah, rambok jerebek, kuku panjang jjengong, dok mmaing tepi telaga. Jirang dia Semek dah nnikoh dah, denge orang Johor hak mari cari nnatu dulu. Dapak ke dia. Le ning dok Jjohor, rumoh jereguk, kereta bejalar, gi Singapura sokmo.

Mak Minoh pong dak larak dah, sebab anak dia sorang tu cukuk babir. "Tu lah aku kata dulu, anak mung ni kerah keng, " dia beleber kat laki dia. Tapi laki dia kata, "Dak, budok-budok le ning ggitulah belaka. Cuba mung tengok tepi pata tu, macang-macang pe-el, songor-songor belaka!"

Lama kelamaang, kawang-kawang Minoh hak gi sekolah denge dia habis dah nnikoh, ada gi Pperak, ada gi Jjohor, ada jadi nnatu Tok Guru Pula Rusa. Tapi Minoh dok ggitulah, dok ccokoh kat rumoh, jadi anok dara tua. Tiak-tiak hari dok derumoh, rambuk jerebek, kkembang sokmo, dak ubah peel lama.

Bila suroh buat apa-apa dia kata, "Karanglah Mak, tunggulah Mak, le ning panah ddering, dak buleh keluar jjaje pape."

Mak dia pong nak kata apa? Budok-budok le ning, bukang buleh ajor kata.

Satu hari Minah napok bayang dia ddalang telaga. Rambut dia jerebek dah ubang pulok, kaing ssahang dia dah banyok tahi sawa sebak kena basah-kering, basah kering sokmo, kuku dia pong dah panjang jjengong, gigi rongok pulok tu, dah nak wak guane.

Mak dia dah takdok, Pok dia pong dah lama pergi ikut tok ki, tok nyang dia. Minah dudok ssorang koteng-koteng dalang rumoh dia. Kawang-kawang sekoloh dia dulu dah ada anok cucu belaka, cuma Minah je dok nniaga kerepok lekor ttepi pata.

Nak cari tok llaki pong dah tua ngattok, orang tak mboh, jadi doklah ssorang diri dok kkenang Mak Pok dia masa ada dulu.

Ggitulah cerita Minah hak jjual kerepok lekor, dok kara air tepi telaga denge timba.

Itulah dia Minoh Karang ikut cerita orang tua-tua. Jangang buat karang kalu buleh buak le ning, kalu tidak dak jjadi sokmo, macang tulah sapa bila-bila.

Moral: Procrastination takes your neighbour to Singapura.

From Stage to Stall

How can you be wanting in the face of plenty? In Trengganu they sell papa which may be mistaken for the meaning of the word that is extant in standardspeak, i.e. poverty.

How then can you have forever what is patently a once-only offer?

In Trengganu, a man who's impatient to be married may appear to be giving an incorrect signal to a prospective mother or father-in-law. To the question "When do you intend to get married?" his reply may be, "Nak selalu!." Now, selalu is a word that's capable of mistranslation because of the homophonic quality it shares with that standardspeak word (also spelt selalu)which means 'always'. The Trenggsanuspeak selalu was correctly spelt sa lalu (lit. "in one go") in old spelling, and actually means right now. So ladies, don't raise your hopes too high, he may not want it always (selalu) but he just wants it for now — a farewell kiss maybe — because he's in a hurry, the perahu besar is about to leave the shore.

So papa though it sounds very impoverished, is just the compacted apa-apa, things, anything, what's before you now. Womenfolk of Kuala Trengganu rise at the crack of dawn to bake and fry and simmer things in the kuali or belanga; then they amble out with a load on their heads to sell you the daily papa. So if you're asked on your way home from your morning jog if you "Nak papa?" the lady's not wishing you an impecunious life, it's just Mak Song asking if you're hungry now.

I'm grateful to Ceklong for bringing this word back to me as I've not seen it for a long while. (see Ceklong, Comments below). And it set me on course for another word which has always been a puzzle, and that's leger. Leger was the word used to describe the oil drum, you know, the round metal thing about the height of a ten-year old child, with hoops embossed on its side? Fishermen and ferry runners had lots of these in their backyards in those days once they'd emptied them of their motor fuel. Winstedt says that leger is a cask for wine, or a vat, whilst other dictionaries say that it's a barrel for storing water.

We had a leger to catch the rain from the roof, and a boon it was for local mosquitoes. And then in streets they packed them solid with cement then stuck a little board in them to warn you of impending danger. I saw a car coming to grief against one in a rainy night, but was happy for the occupants of the vehicle for having missed out on the potholes.

We saw much promise in the leger in those days, especially as they began to appear in Padang Malaya. On these leger, many tens of them for sure, were placed wooden planks that were nailed and bound into platforms, then they were enclosed on three sides by walls of planks, with a little stage door in the rear. At nightfall, after we'd eaten our makang malang, we'd sit facing the unwalled side to watch rodat, or some singing and dancing and the occasional trumpet blast by our own P.Jalil. But the crowd puller was the bangsawan by a troupe from, perhaps Singapura, with a cast of known and unknown stars. We had Ahmad Nesfu once, but always, always the delectable Rohani B. I never found out what happened to Rohani A.

These were anniversaries of some importance, or the marriage of members of the royal family. I remember once a ceremony that took place on a high stage in the daytime called the mandi safat which was some sort of bathing ritual, then followed by many nights of rollicking gaiety. The bangsawan went full-swing with a tale of the Raja Laksamana Bintan, P. Jalil was in full breath, and the makyong players were in full flow. The makyong was a puzzle to me as it never wove stories that we knew, and a lady in full bling emerged once or twice with a bundle of sticks which she administered with many whacks on some poor fellow. Then she continued in her way with an er, er, er... It could be that we'd missed out on some adult elements of the story.

Sometimes the leger appeared too on our part of the pantai, normally on the day after the 'Id festival of Hari Raya. The stage was set, the curtains drawn, and the players came out after maghrib to act out a piece of modern drama. The lady part was played with gusto, by a winsome lass who was lip-sticked and covered in a comely shawl, but we recognised him at once as Wan Endut, our local boy. When I last saw Wan Endut he was boss of his own stall by the Pantai Teluk, master of the teh tarik and the roti canai and the apam sakor. Walking past Wan Endut's stall you'd get a whiff of the discarded heap of tea leaves sitting in a steaming pile just by the copper urn of boiling water. The tea was filtered in a linen bag that looked like a wind-sock from the airstrip in Seberang Takir, and the smell of tea intermingled with the creamy sweetness of the condensed milk, the Chap Teko then, as I recall. As the wind changed and the pantai took over, a strong smell of fish and mud added to the attributes of the day.

Wan Endut wasn't the only tea-stall holder then in Pantai Teluk, but he was the only one I think, who made the batik sarong de rigeur. There was another tea maker called Koh Heng, who wore shorts on a long day and longs when it was a little cold. Koh Heng was a lanky man married to a Malay lady, and sometimes the twosome arrived at the stall on their bicycles. Then there was another whose name was probably Sumbu, a dour Chinese guy in this brotherhood of tea makers. They sat there all day serving tea and listening to the patter of fishermen come ashore, and whisked flies away from the plates of paung or pulut lepa or the conical banana leaf kelosongs of nasi dagang standing cold.