THE MEMOIRS OF MUSTAPHA HUSSAIN - Malaysia Today

354 Memoirs of Mustapha Hussain
proletarians of the area. He was the one who encouraged poor trishawpullers
to buy my wares. These same trishaw-pullers fought to send me
home free of charge at the end of each night. Later, Saaim recounted his
deep sorrow to see me, an educated Malay, hawking food. Saaim has
passed away, but his satay business is now run by his children in Penang.
He could speak some English with a very pronounced ‘r’, much like a
Scotsman. To repay his friendship, for a year, I supported his son’s studies
in an English school even though I was financially unstable.
One of my former students was so sorry to see me hawking food that
he donated $10 (a princely sum then) to my daughter, but she returned
the money. Two or three other students visited me at home, but most kept
away from me for fear of the implications. I was a former detainee; to
them, criminal and political offences were the same. This was in 1947,
and Malaya was still a colony. When one student pretended not to see
me, I was hurt. But years later, when I was living a much better life and
was visiting former student Wan Abdul Aziz (former Chief Minister of
Pahang), this student took my wife and children for a treat. I think he
pretended not to see us because he could not bear to see his former
lecturer and his daughter vending food by the roadside.
Our fate then was what locals might describe as ‘one foot already in
the drain’. I felt deeply wounded and humiliated when Malay Government
Servants, their pockets full of back pay, bought food by pointing at the
goods with their canes. Their children could eat whatever they wished
and could spend weekends watching movies, whereas my children enjoyed
nothing. My eldest girl (then only twelve) and I stayed awake late
into the night working hard to earn a pittance.
Some Malays refused to look my way, muttering under their breath,
“Serves him right! He thinks he can oppose the white man! See what has
happened?” Some distant relatives looked down on us and kept away. But
every cloud has a silver lining; some sympathetic friends remained, and
to this day I remember everyone’s reaction. My friends then were sataysellers,
trishaw-pullers and car-washers – all proletarians living underneath
other people’s homes, renting rooms no better than holes. They
were also my customers. That was my life day in and day out, but I
managed to spend some time and energy for the MNP until it was banned
by the British Government.
Tengah Restaurant (1948-52)
In 1948, with my brief experience selling boiled and grilled squid, I
gathered the courage to rent three stalls at the Sunday Market. I was no