Freedom is priceless

This reader lived through World War II and the Japanese occupation of Malaya.

ONE thing I learned from my parents, and throughout my education, is that history is important in understanding the present. Each year, we celebrate Hari Merdeka, our National Day, to reflect on how far we have come as a nation.

Sometimes I feel that most people have lost the idea of National Day and simply celebrate it because it is a public holiday. For me, National Day is a day to remember those who have lived before us and what they endured, lived through and fought for, so that we can be where we are today. National Day should always be celebrated with its historical significance in mind.

I was born in 1929 to an immigrant Bengali father and a Peranakan mother, and they lived in Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan.

My father was raised in Dhaka, India, qualified in the medical field in Burma (now known as Myanmar), and moved to Singapore where he worked as a general practitioner in a hospital. Subsequently, he moved to Port Dickson in Seremban where he had opened his own clinic and dispensary.

According to my father, it was the beginning of a severe economic downturn in Malaya even as the Great Depression affected the international economy during the 1930s. The scale of human suffering was immense, and had a dramatic effect on Malaya’s economic growth. Workers were laid off, and many, especially Indian plantation labourers, were repatriated. Reductions in wages led to a decline in living standards.

In 1935, when I was six, my father registered me at a Tamil school for three years. Thereafter, I was transferred to a vocational primary school where I commenced my first year. Before World War II broke out, my parents sent me to a Christian mission school in Seremban until I completed Primary 4. I was required to study both French and later Japanese, as part of my educational curriculum. I completed my Secondary 2 and thereafter was brought home rather suddenly, when my biological mother passed away.

The Japanese Invasion of Malaya began just after midnight on Dec 8, 1941. World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted six years. By early February 1941, the Japanese had occupied the Malay Peninsula and Singapore. As the war progressed, all three ethnic communities began to suffer deprivations from increasingly severe rationing and a lack of resources.

Where once rice and other staple food, cooking oil and provisions were readily available for consumption and within reach, the Japanese administration prohibited the import and export of all forms of edible products and raw materials. However, my neighbours, who were mostly Chinese and Indian immigrants who previously worked in the British rubber estates as labourers (and now deprived of a living), shared all their knowledge on food preservation and vegetable cultivation.

My family may not have had much to eat but we shared everything with our neighbours and sometimes even strangers who were looking for work, living from hand to mouth.

At a young age, I learned how to cook a variety of meals with our own homemade coconut oil, over wooden fires with large black woks. Tapioca was steamed or grated and eaten with hot chilli sambal; pumpkin was mashed and mixed with tapioca to make cutlets; turnips were shredded and eaten raw or cooked with wildboar meat; sweet potatoes were boiled and eaten with a little salt or sugar.

On rare occasions, my father who was sought after for his medical treatment, was given some wild chicken and green corn or bananas from the jungle. My foster mother, who was a qualified pharmacist from India, taught us how to pickle mangoes, onions and green lemons through the fermentation process. She also helped my father to deliver babies and make herbal medicines to treat the patients’ open wounds and blisters.

Rice and flour gunny sacks were converted into cotton shorts or sarongs and sewed by hand. Without electricity, we used palm oil sparingly to light up our old home and slept under mosquito nets which were provided by the Red Cross to keep away sandflies. On festive occasions, my father would entertain us all by playing his gramophone, harmonium and accordion with his agile fingers.

Life was very simple yet fulfilling even though we feared for our own lives every day. The Japanese remained in occupation until their surrender to the Allies in 1945. There began renewed faith that a new world of opportunities would open up, and everyone would have reliable options waiting to be explored and dreams to be actualised without fear or favour.

Independence, to me, was about making my own choices and decisions regarding my ambition to be a nurse in 1945. I applied to be a trainee nurse at the General Hospital a year later. My selection was based on the fact that I could fluently speak seven different languages and dialects: Cantonese, Hakka, Teochew, Hindi, Tamil, Japanese and Bahasa Melayu.

With the freedom to practise my skill came huge responsibilities that would earn the respect of my parents, peers and associates. I realised how lucky I was to have outlived a war that took the lives of so many in this country.

War teaches us to appreciate the simple things we take for granted and, most importantly, the value of the human spirit. My generation had the resilience and tenacity to overcome all odds, for freedom’s sake. We all looked forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way, freedom from want, and finally freedom from fear.

When you find yourself in a situation way beyond your control, all you can do is to follow the instinct to survive.

Realising how precious life is, I have earnestly raised my own children to uphold their dignity with patience at all times, because freedom is priceless.

I also know that our freedom is not free if those privileges are constantly abused by people. It is an honourable remembrance (and we should remind all generations to come) about the relentless struggle of our forefathers who not only endured public humiliation, unjustifiable prison time, racial discrimination, brutality and killing by the oppressors.

Let us not forget that our nation was also built by a generation of people who endured a time we cannot imagine today. Each of us is given the choice and responsibility to improve our lives without infringing on the rights and liberty of others. The results of our work belong not to us, but to the children of the next generation.