Things of the past

I write this so that it will not fade away. My childhood and my past that many can't associate and imagine now. Life was much different then. I was a kid growing up in the village and rubber estate. My grandfather was a rubber estate manager. Not a very big estate, but big enough to have a hundred or so workers. I grew up amongst the two-jobs villagers. In the morning they would go tap rubber and in the afternoon go and tend to their rice fields. I played with their kids and ate at their house. I don't know what happened to them now, but I would always remember that every end of Ramadan, my grandfather would load us all kids ( those who happened to be playing with me at the time) in his black Morris Minor to town to get new dresses and had our hair done (karan/permed). Some parents did not like their girls came home with a new hairstyle and a new dress (gown hehehe). However, my friends liked them. I think those girls are grandmothers now. I always wonder if they remember those good times we shared.
I only remember all the good times I had with my grandparents. I don't really remember where my parents were, but I learnt later that my father was working somewhere else and since my mother was still young, and could not cope with two babies, they left me with my grandparents. Much later, my parents came back and lived nearby and I enjoyed having my sister around.
I must have been a spoilt child because I owned a lot of toys compared to my other friends. I had beautiful lacy gowns and a few pairs of shoes. Once I thought I was rich because I found a few suit cases of duit jepun or duit pokok pisang in a store room. I was disappointed when I took to the kedai, that it was tak laku. I must be 5 or 6 yrs old. So my sister and I played kedai-kedai with the money.
Life in the estate can be quite fun. I remember, when a plot of rubber trees were being replanted, it was like a pesta.The villagers would ask permission to grow vegetables and such. There would be water melons patch, chillies, ubi kemili (ubi keling) and all sort of vegetables were grown by the villagers. I guess those cash crops brought side income. When harvesting water melons, it was like a village party. We would all go there and ate what water melons we can get our hands on. Another good time was when it was time to harvest ubi kemili. We are paid 20 sen per gantang to "korek ubi". We made some pocket money. I wonder if the same thing is still going on in rubber estates. My grandmother grew some real big pumpkins and I love sayur lemak labu merah. I love it cooked with shrimps until today. My grandmother sold some of them too.
Those were the days