THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

Farming to Feed Hundreds 259
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Farming to Feed Hundreds (1943-45)
Having been dismissed from the Japanese Volunteer Army Malai Giyu
Gun, I returned to my father’s house in Matang once again. He had
already fetched my wife Mariah from Lumut in a timber lorry. So, my
uncomplaining wife and children moved, yet another time. Although
Ibrahim Yaakub had, through KMM member Captain Abdul Karim
Rashid, advised me to resume my job at the Japanese timber company in
Lumut, I chose to be unemployed. I was certain the well-informed
Malayan People’s Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA) guerrillas around
Lumut had got wind of my Singapore Malai Giyu Gun sojourn and I still
treasured my life.
Only months earlier I was earning a stable income. Now, I was
unemployed again. Who was to be blamed? Was it my fate? Or was it
God’s plan? My struggling father, whose pension had ceased over two
years ago, advised us to move to Batu 20, Batu Kurau, Perak where my
forester brother Alli had secured a 20-acre plot of undeveloped land. I
told my wife, “I cannot afford to eat tapioca any more. My legs are getting
weaker by the day. At this rate, I may soon not be able to walk. Let us
move to Batu 20 and plant rice.” With my father’s blessings, my wife,
our three young children and I rode in a smelly bullock cart the 25 miles
to Batu 20. We were accompanied only by our ragged bedrolls, pots and
pans. In Batu 20, we set up home by the graceful River Ara in a battered
hut on stilts. It had flimsy woven bertam walls, a leaking attap roof and
split-bamboo floor strips tied with rattan, as nails were no longer available.
The river was always swift and clear. After a heavy downpour, baung,
tilan, tengas, lampan and other fish abounded. On many a day, I sat on a
small stool by its bank to fish.
The very kind 1 villagers dropped in to get to know us and to give us
some fruits and vegetables. As we were ‘town-folks’ many offered advice
on planting and maintaining various crops. I received these tips without
once mentioning that the person they were volunteering their advice to
was a former agricultural lecturer. As my legs were weak, my wife, who