Where I came from ……………..
Not being to speak Tamil ( my mother tongue ) had never quite
bothered me when I was in my pre-teen years. It only sunk in when I was
growing out of my teens and into my twenties. I had known ( since I was
twelve ) that my mother is not born in Singapore and neither is my eldest
maternal uncle. Both were born in Jakarta, Indonesia. I grew up conversing
with my maternal grandparents in Malay and I still do. As for my paternal
parents, they have both passed away. My grandmother only last year and my
grandfather in 1995.
My mother cannot speak Tamil so naturally she never spoke to my
brother and me. My father ( he’s Indian ) is able to speak the language but
never taught my brother and me.
I had always wondered about my family roots. I was curious as to how
my maternal grandparents met and what made them come to Singapore.
Interviewing my grandmother threw up quite an interesting past…………
My paternal grandfather _ Muthu Karapan- was born in Coimbutur ( a
small town in India ) - which I had the opportunity to visit in 1991 when I
was visiting the country - in 1923. He has no recollection of who his parents
were or whether he had any siblings. He says they died when he was very
young and he was then put under the care of his uncle. At the age of twelve,
he left his hometown and followed this same uncle to Malaysia. He does not
remember well what happened after that but all he told me was that he had
joined the British army by the time he turned 17 or 18 -he remained a soldier
thereafter, until the year he chose to come to Singapore. At the age of
twenty, he was sent to Jakarta.
My grandmother, Meenachi , was born in Jakarta in 1931 and was
living in a house on a street called Mataraman Road. She was living with her
father, an elder sister and her mother ( my great grandmother ) who was
Indonesian by race. Her father ( my great grandfather ) was an Indian from
Pondicherry, India. His name was Krishnasamy. Being a strict man, my
grandmother never enquired as to why he left his motherland and chose to
reside in Jakarta. My grandmother was 16 when my grandfather heard that
my great grandfather was looking for a groom for his daughters. Then, he
and another soldier friend, went to my grandmother’s house. My great
grandfather was initially very hesitant to allow my grandfather to marry his
daughter. According to my grandmother, they were two other men who
wanted to marry her. One was an Indonesian and the other was a Dutch man
by the name of Henry – the Dutch was in Indonesia at that time. My great
grandfather was adamant that my grandmother married an Indian but he was
as I had said hesitant to allow the marriage as he had insisted on wanting to
know about my grandfather’s parentage and caste. It was my grandfather’s
determination to marry my grandmother, that made my great grandfather
relent and my grandmother saw my grandfather for the first time only on the
eve of the wedding. She was told by her father that the man before her was
to be her husband and that was that ! According to my grandmother, my
grandfather had paid many visits to the house but my great grandfather had
never given him the permission to see my grandmother, not that is until all
was settled and she was to marry him!!
My grandparents got married in 1947, when my grandmother was 16
and my grandfather was 23. The photograph of my great grandparents are
included in the attachment, and so too, the wedding photograph of my
grandparents wedding. The individual pictures of my grandparents were
taken shortly after they arrived in Singapore. At the time the picture was
taken, my grandfather was 25 and my grandmother was 21.
After the marriage, my grandmother lived together with her husband
at the soldiers’ quarters. She became expectant with my mother shortly
afterwards in 1948 followed by my uncle, two years later -all this while they
staying in Jakarta. It was only in 1952, just before their third child was born
– my aunt - that they decided to come to Singapore. My grandmother is
never quite sure why they had decided on the move but she remembers
vaguely that the situation in Jakarta was not quite politically stable. They
remembered hearing of riots and fights and this prompted my grandfather, at
the instigation of a friend to leave the country. Documents were hurriedly
made and my grandmother remembers taking a KLM flight to Singapore.
Her elder sister was already her and she and her husband provided a
temporary home to my grandparents until they found a house in of their own
in Joo Chiat. This was followed by another shift to a house in Boscome
Road a few years after that.
My grandparents have 7 children in all my mother being the eldest.
She says that she has many happy childhood memories of this house in
Boscome Road. My youngest uncle- my mother’s youngest brother was born
in 1966.
My grandparents shifted to a flat in Jalan Batu sometime in the
1960s. When their fourth child – another uncle was born - my grandfather
started work in ESSO as a tank truck driver. He remained on the job for 25
years until he retired in the 1980s. My maternal grandparents now stay with
their two youngest boys in a flat in Bedok Reservoir.
My late paternal grandfather - Thitipan Arumugam - too was from
India. He was born in a town in India called Trichy in 1908. He too left his
country at the young age of 13 and came to Singapore, on a junk ship and
took about a month to arrive. H worked odd-jobs but took up night class to
learn English. This was to prove useful as armed with this knowledge, he
found work in the then PWD – Public Works Department – as a handyman.
He worked his way up as became a charge-man, a kind of supervisor.
My late paternal grandmother was born in 1913 in Singapore. Her
name was Sinniah Somoo Ammal Hers was rather a sad childhood as her
father had died when she was young. Her mother, my great grandmother
however, remarried and had 3 sons from this second marriage. My
grandmother had no formal schooling and like any typical Indian girl of that
time was made to do the housework while her brothers worked. As fate
would have it, my grandfather went for lunch rather frequently at a friend’s
house . None of my uncles seemed to know how exactly this came about but
my eldest paternal uncle mentioned that my grandmother worked as a
kitchen helper in that particular house.
It was at one such luncheon that marriage was suggested between my
grandmother and my grandfather. My grandmother was only fifteen and my
grandfather was twenty-one, when they got married in a traditional Hindu
marriage. My grandmother bore 15 children – two of whom died at
childbirth. One the 13, my father was the sixth child and the fourth son.
My paternal grandparents first stayed in Upper Wilkie Road. They
then shifted to Mt Emily a few years later. It was at this time that my
grandparents reared cows. They kept several and my father and his four
brothers used to have to milk them every morning before they went to
school. They then had to send this milk to shops and restaurants along
Serangoon Road, the most famous of which is “ Anada Bhawan”. With the
money that came from this, my grandmother bought a house in Serangoon
gardens where they stayed until the late 1990s.
My parents – Arumugam Logaumania Deluger, born in 1940, and
Kamala Muthu Karapan, born in 1948, met when my mother was eighteen
and my father was twenty-six. (There is an attached picture of my parents all
dressed and ready to attend their wedding dinner). There courtship lasted for
three years before they paternal grandparents agreed to the marriage. This
was because they did not like the fact that my mother was not a traditional
Indian per see as my grandmother was at least part Indonesian.
My parents got married on December 6th 1969 and I was born on 22nd
October 1970. I have only one younger brother who,born a year later.
I am not very bothered at not being able to speak Tamil though I
would want my children to know the language. I am very proud of my
heritage and I will always be – for I did get the best of “two countries”.