An Arranged Marriage

Newly Weds

A Family of Four

In the 1940s

Girls were not allowed to choose their spouses

One day they could be engaged to a sweetheart

The next day they could be married off to a brat

So whenever her marriage hit the rocks

Ma would evoke a secret spot

A bamboo thicket at the edge of Orange Grove Road

A favourite rendezvous with her fiancé, a Javanese bloke

With that wistful, faraway look

She bemoaned the fact

That her first love was thwarted

By her father’s lack of foresight

How she wished she could turn back the clock

And not stopped by Ustaz Jalal’s abode

After a photo session at a studio in Joo Chiat Road

When she and her brother, Pom

Suddenly had a craving for Wak Jenab’s lontong

As soon as they got off the trishaw

Pa sighted Ma in her white Cheongsam

Hair crimped and styled ala ‘Nona dari Shanghai’

Her moon-shaped face luminous and charming

Never had he seen in all his years of sailing

A damsel who set his heart a quivering

Seconds after their shadows were gone

Pa persuaded his godfather to ask for Ma’s hand

Upon Ustaz Jalal’s recommendation

Granpa Mat hastily broke off Ma’s engagement

Pa had charmed the socks off both the elderly men

With his pious family background

And deep knowledge of Islam

It’s not everyday that a Javanese family from Kendal

Receive a proposal from a progeny of an almost Royal

Grateful that God Almighty had showered his Blessings

Granpa Mat hastened to prepare the wedding

It was mid ‘42

Just a few months before

The Japanese Kempetei had cycled down

500 kilometres from Kota Baru, Kelantan

To catch the BMA with their pants down

In the renowned Battle of Singapore

And turned it into Syonan-to

Where their flag, the Rising Sun soared

While the Brits and Aussies shuddered

At the fate of their foot soldiers

Either tortured at the infamous Changi Jail

Or sent to labour at the notorious Death Railway 

Granpa Mat sighed with relief

Since the timely offer

Meant he didn’t have to hide his teen-aged daughter

Up in the attic or in the bunker no longer

In spite of the Japanese Occupation

Ma’s family didn’t compromise on fashion

The bride was dressed in a kebaya moden

Enhanced by a sweetheart neckline

And on the pelamin, a raised dais with a velvet divan

She sat next to a groom she had never known

Though from her veiled gaze

He looked pretty sharp in a beige suit and black fez

Eighteen months later

Ma gave birth to eldest brother

Pa named him Muhammad Hatta

After the first Vice President of Indonesia

By that time
There was a near famine
Caused by a food shortage
Prices of basic items sky-rocketed
And the value of the banana notes plummeted
Tapioca, yams and sweet potatoes were planted
At first, as supplements to rice

But later, as staple themselves      
      

Pa was ingenious

He picked up some Japanese

Soon he was hired as a radio operator based in Bukit Tinggi

The new command centre for the Nippon 25th Army

Some 500 kilometres from Padang, the capital of Western Sumatera

There the family stayed ‘til the Japs’ defeat two years later

In the cool hill station
Clasped between two volcanic mountains
The dormant Singgalang and the active Marapi
It peered over Lake Maninjau and Harau Valley
Ma learned to prepare spicy Padang dishes
And immersed herself in Indonesian literature
In May ’45, she produced her first daughter
And four months later, 
The Yankees bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki 

    Which forced the Nippons to their knees