Reminiscence of an old man

Now that he is at the twilight years of his life, as he seats at his coffee table overlooking his well-groomed and well-stocked garden of flowers and plants rightly chosen and selected by his wife who literally sees to its development and cultivation, albeit over years of labour and time consuming to ensure success thereon, he cannot help feeling that the years have really caught up with him at long last. Just looking at all the matured trees around the house compound alone tells him history of the place.

The coconut trees were planted almost at the same time when a niece or a son was born and as traditional with the Malays, the newly born babies foetus would be buried at a house compound, which in his case, almost all his children’s foetus were buried here. It is amazing that the coconut trees, the mango and the rambutan tree are all fully grown now despite the lack of proper attention on them by way of fertilizers etc. It is living proof of what others say of our country, you just throw anything on the ground and it will grow !

Of course watching these matured trees brings back to him the fond memories he has had with his wife bringing up the children at the time when not everything was easy to get. Just the simple disposable nappies of today was nonexistence then. The cotton nappies of those days have to be hand-washed daily because there was no washing machines then or even if they were available, they were only for the well-to-do and he just could not afford one then. The worst time with these nappies was when it happened to rain for days on end and there was no way for the washed nappies to get dried in time. The occasion would call for emergency purchase of new nappies which were not that cheap then in relation to his income. As for the children’s food, this was virtually all home cooked meals since the super markets of today were nonexistence then - at least not until later years. The fortunate thing was that he got helpers at home. These were brought over by his in-laws all the way from the wife’s home state. The good thing then was the kampong folks children were willing to work as house maids in people’s home, unlike these days when the whole country lacks local workers and we have to rely on imported workers from of Indonesia, the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and even Vietnam .

Gone are the days when he never could feel physically tired or drained of energy from doing both mental and physical work. He could for instance play his favorite tennis to be followed later by his other favorite squash game and to end the day with a twenty laps swim and the dry sauna. These activities made his days then and he now relish the pleasant memories of the good time he has had then. Now he feels spent. No more strength or energy. He can only hope that he will someday gain something back by taking special vitamin pills and herbal beverages besides ensuring that he also takes care of his diet, realizing that he has been gaining weight lately, as proven by his sluggish movement when he last played his favorite squash game against his regular sparring partner who has played with him for the last twenty two years. He being ten years older than his playing partner matters little in his game all these years since he has always been able to put up good fight in the game to make it a fair one to win or lose as the basic expectations of all games. The fact remains, he can still play squash although sadly he no longer plays tennis because the court area is bigger and this puts undue strains to his already aching knee joints. In tennis he would have to pick up the lose balls more often than playing it whilst in squash the frequency is lesser and involves smaller areas for ball picking.

His knees started to give way when at one time the meniscus of his right knee broke during an intensed squash match. As if that was not enough injury already, his left knee had to be operated on when pieces of the knee bones were found to be imbedded in and around the knee cap area, resulting in excruciating pains whenever it occurs. Hence he has had to have an operation to extract these chipped bones which totalled twelve in all, with the net result, the same knee never ever got fully recovered and became instead a weak knee till today. However, these knee injuries never could make him stop playing squash. Over the years he has learned to accept the pains on and after each game. He is stubborn to it and stubbornness is indeed his trait mark says his wife on most occasions when they get involved in arguments or other daily life’s activities.

Talking about being stubborn, he admits that to be his trait mark .Many times this character of his had created undue problems to his life. It was only through his good fortune that got him out of those troubles, to which he often told himself, these must be the pay back time of his father, grandparents and great grandparents who must have done some good deeds somewhere some time in the past to merit rewards in return to be given to him. Thus he assures himself that he too must do good deeds to others during his life time so that the payback will be for his future generations.

But life is hard these days. Modern civilization has resulted in making available so many opportunities to go astray in one’s life. He recalls his younger days indulgences in drinking alcoholic drinks such as the beer although he was fortunate enough not to get into the heavy ones such as the whisky and the brandy, to which his elder brother was just the opposite. His elder brother had tried on many occasions to try to make him drink these whisky and brandy but to no avail because he has never liked the taste of these stuff. Thus he was saved there but that is not the end of the story to his involvement in bad activities.

Having friends who themselves enjoy doing petty gambling of sorts such as buying lotteries and totos it becomes a life habit for him to indulge in these which fortunately for him had never let to extremes like most punters do but he has a lot to thank his wife who always restraint him. Life after all is a gamble as most of his close friends used to say to him. You start with your life partner i.e. your wife who could bring you blissful marriage life or hell ; your choice of employment which could bring you personal satisfaction and happiness or misery ; your choice of friends who are genuinely sincere and loyal or hypocrites ; your choiced home which could turn out to be in a congested area which you had never thought could happen ; your choiced of cars which you could ill-afford to maintain with the rising cost of petrol and maintenance ; and if you happen to be doing business for and by yourself or with others, you wonder if it is the right choice of business for you since its expanding prospects seem to be somewhat limited or too competitive in the market. In short whatever it is that we do with our life, there is always the element of risk involve and that in itself is what life is all about after all !

Watching the world goes by has a double edge to it. If you take life too seriously, you cannot but be full of skepticism and misery. Take for instance the country’s recent General Election when your political party was given a thrashing by the its multiple opponents in areas most unexpected and your party got away with a marginal win as compared to its past history since the country’s Independence. You and your relatives and close friends discussed and debated the issue of this unexpected loss of faith amongst its members which partly contributed to its loss in those major areas and you begin to be affected mentally by this tragedy simply because you realize that your party’s lost grounds is not going to be easily won over again in the forthcoming years without concerted fulhardy and sincere efforts by all concerned. Thus you lose your sleep over them and you become irritable to your immediate surrounding. Is it really worth it after all ? To him, what has happened has happened and it is beyond his capability to help redress the matter when in the first place who is he after all - just an old retired person who is of no importance to the ruling or lost parties. Better for him to just watch and see and when the time comes again to vote again for his party so that it will be the majority winner to form the government. His role would be to ensure that he and his immediate family do indeed cast their votes to their choiced political party. Life after all will go on unabated unless something drastic or tragic should happen. He feels blessed to be in a country which enjoys almost absolute peace and harmony which has all along benefited all his children. What else could he ask !

Here at his small house garden, life seems peaceful. Nature itself teaches him that. Let it stay !