I had played this moment in my mind for weeks. I had imagined it exactly to be the way it was. It was night and our plane was now flying over the hills and plains of Pakistan. Specks of light could be seen from the houses that clustered together in villages every few miles or so. I plugged in my earphones for the first time that night.
It was the beautiful voice of Maher Zain crooning Allahi Allah Kiya Karo.
And for the first time, it dawned on me how real this moment was. It was surreal. I had to hold back the sudden, overwhelming urge to break down and cry.
There it was again - the longing i had for my late grandfather Syed Hayat Shah. It must have been in his memory that we made this trip.
My grandfather was born in 1917. He came to Singapore and served with the Police Force, first at the HMS Sembawang Naval Base and then later at the Army Depot. He married my grandmother Halimah bte Syed Nadar Shah sometime in 1950. Together they had seven children, one of which passed away in infancy.
There was no doubt that life was difficult for them, as it must have been for so many.
Whatever else we knew of him was limited. He passed away in 1969 at the age of 52.
Whenever i asked my mother or any of her siblings about their father, the answers are almost always accompanied with tears. Sometimes i get the impression that their love for their father is one tinged with much sadness, and the longing to remember him. My mother was not yet 14 when he passed away. My eldest uncle was sixteen when he brought home his half-conscious and dying father in his arms.
It was in March 1969. My uncle told me once that he just didn't feel good that particular day and skipped school to visit my grandfather. He was then a guard at Connell House - a rest house and club for British sailors. One of the other guards there - an elderly Malay man - informed my uncle that my grandfather had been unwell for the past few days and that he was in the washroom, coughing too much. When my uncle managed to break open the door lock, he found my grandfather lying on the floor half-conscious.
My uncle actually took him back home. I have thought about it many times before. I imagine what it must have been like, for a boy sixteen years old, the eldest son in the family, supporting his father on his shoulder as they waited for a bus.
Those were difficult times; a time where people could not easily afford taxis. A time where a sixteen year old boy had to drag his semi-conscious father on a bus all the away back home to Nee Soon - some sixteen kilometers away.
It was difficult not to like my grandfather, even for someone who never met him. For the most part of his life here in Singapore after he left the Police Force, my grandfather stayed in a small dirt house built by a Chinese neighbour who took pity on him. There was no flooring, just dried mud. And there was no bed, only a single plank on the ground to lay on.
Before he passed away, he moved to Nee Soon where my great-grandfather Syed Nadar Shah had once lived. Living there was my grandmother's sister Bibi, a widow who not only took care of her four children, but also often my mother and her five other siblings. A small house was built for him and my grandmother.
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| My grandfather Hayat Shah with his six children and three nieces (the daughters of Bibi and Syed Gulab Shah) in 1965. This photo was taken less than 4 years before he passed away and was sent home to his brother Syed Muslim Shah. |
The times when he came home from work, he would call out to his children. He would bring for them food. What they didn't know then was that he often didn't eat himself. My uncle described him as a big-hearted person whose whole life was for his children - that as long as they were happy, he was happy.
I have yet to meet a person who had something bad to say about my grandfather. He was patient, even with my grandmother who was often temperamental due to her psychological condition. She had witnessed her suitor fatally stabbed in front of her eyes just before they were to be solemnised. She was only nineteen then. But that's another story for another time.
As the plane finally touched down, i looked to my mother. "First time in all our lives," I said to her.
"Kalau tak pasal Abbas, tak lah Mami datang sini."
"Kalau tak pasal bapak Mami, kita dua-dua tak akan ada sini.."
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| I told my mother, "If it wasn't for him, neither of us will be here [in Pakistan]" |
