The old house at Titi Siam 1

There was this old wooden house in Lorong Titi Siam. It stood on stilts and had long picture windows with stained glass. The windows were all around the front portion of the house, otherwise known as the living room. It was a typical Malay wooden house,painted with oil (cat minyak), the house elongated to the back evidencing additional rooms that were added as the family grew.

I grew up in that house, along with two teenaged aunties (Makcik and Chu), an uncle (Teh), an older cousin (Abg Mansor) and a pair of loving grandparents (Maktok and Tok Abah). Sometimes my younger brother would be there too when Tok Langgar who took care of him had some other place to go.

My earliest memories was the smell of the coffee beans being roasted, sounds of the occasional bickering among the siblings, smell of grandma's cooking and smell of her kain batik when she opens her wardrobe.

There was a lesung kaki/ hindik , a simple contraption of a leg pounder used to separate the paddy husks from rice grain. It was located on the ground below the living room. I could never understand why the two aunties found it tiresome, I enjoyed the thing tremendously going up and down, BOOM BOOM BOOM! (Teh was forever MIA from all household chores as he was the Kolej's star sepak takraw player and was always away somewhere. He was also busy keeping up to his reputation as the local romeo)

(That is not Teh, Abg Mansor or my younger brother. The hindik we had was much bigger and longer. It has long gone and the pic was kidnapped from the net)

(Here's how it looks close up. I would climb and sit astride the long wooden pole when someone was doing the pounding..feels like riding a horse!)

Grandma was the best cook in the world. Early mornings would find us tucking into her home made kuih. Some days it would be kuih cara made in her buah' ceghemai' brass mould, on other days lepat pisang, seri muka, kuih lapis and the list goes on. Any kuih she made, would all be divided up equally between us in small plates, so that nobody would have to protest of getting less than the other person.

(I salivate just looking at the pics, and my heart feels heavy with memories of maktok preparing all these for us)

Sometimes it would be nasi goreng; a tasteful fried rice kampong style, where she would finish up all the leftover from previous days dishes.

But her best breakfast treat would be roti canai, yes..home made roti canai. The crispiness of the outside hides very soft layers inside!

It was where my brother, a sister and I were born. A small river ran in front of the property. In those days it was wide and deep enough for a small sampan to pass, peddling fresh kepah (a type of shellfish) that taste great in a curry.





Living near a river, albeit a small one, had its own story. Those days, I recall that there was talk of hantu ayaq (Kedah dialect for Hantu Air or water Ghost). But that story would have to be continued.

For the meantime here are the faces etched lovingly and forever in my memory. Al Fatihah to my long gone grandparents, but never far from my heart.

(The year was circa 1963, seated from left my mum with younger brother on her lap, Tok Abah, yours truly with very little hair on her head, Mak tok, Abg Mansor, Chu.
Standing from left is makcik and Teh. We were sitting in a typical yester years pose in front of the house at Titi Siam)