When we came back from the US, I was still just three years old. We moved into my grandmother’s house in Kuang, a wooden home set off several paces from the main kampung road, right across from the local masjid. One of my greatest sadnesses is that when I try to envision that kampung house in my mind, all I can see now is that wide expanse where the wooden house used to be, and the stone-hewed bungalow which now stands where, many years ago, my late grandmother used to tend to her mangosteen orchard at the back of her kampung home.
Her husband had passed on when I was very young, and so many of my childhood memories was really filled with memories on Nenek. She was the third wife, and she gave her husband three sons; my father was the middle child. My mother tells me that my father was his mother’s favourite son, and so when fate had destined that I was born first of all his mother’s grandchildren, I quickly became my grandmother’s favourite. I am not sure if this is indeed true, but when I do think of my paternal Nenek, a warm glow of overwhelming and enveloping love is what always comes to mind.
My memories of Nenek, I suppose like most Malaysian memories, would revolve around food. Even after my parents had divorced, my mother would insist that we visit Nenek from time to time, and everytime we made the trek to Kuang via Old Klang Road, I remember Nenek would be there to greet us with a bowl full of bahulu and hot piping Nescafe susu. And when they were in season, there would be buckets of mangosteens waiting for us when we arrived.
I am a fussy eater – always have been, but I was especially difficult as a child. I had some inexplicable aversion to most local fruits – my friends used to say that my refusal to eat the durian should be a basis for withdrawing my Malaysian citizenship!
The fact of the matter was that I was not very fond of fruits at all – and the only fruits I would eat, after much cajoling, would be oranges or apples or watermelons. Until today, I have very little time for papayas or jackfruit or even duku or langsat. On a good day, maybe rambutans.
But mangosteens? They’ll always have a special place in my heart. They will always remind me of Kuang, of that kampung house, my Nenek and my childhood.