I’ve always loved life, irrespective of all the ups and downs that have filled my journey.
— Lata Mangeshkar, Indian playback singer
Sometimes when I think of where I began and where I have travelled since, it seems almost like I have lived in parallel universes within one lifespan.
Growing up in a little corner of Ipoh, Perak, I was a typical wide-eyed kampung girl with strict parents, with a pre-determined life. I always, however, dreamed of a life fraught with adventures and as Belle sang in Beauty & The Beast “I want much more than this provincial life.”
However.
“Girls should be seen and not heard” was my mother’s favourite admonition. Laughing loudly was also frowned upon. This was such a dilemma because I did not know how else to laugh. I practised dainty laughs but I always ended up guffawing “like a man” when the jokes were too funny.
I also failed spectacularly in hanging my head shyly with delicate, upward glances and coy smiles which was considered the ideal body language for women then. I forgetfully strode into every room with my head held high, shoulders back and a glance that surveyed the room as if I owned it, much to my mother’s consternation. “Don’t look arrogant and proud,” she would chastise. And “Don’t walk like a man!”
Years later when I entered a national beauty pageant (and won it), the choreographer had the same problem with me — he literally had to teach me how to walk like a woman. He would flail his hands in agony at my ‘manly’ walk … so it was credit to him when I sashayed all lady-like to win the pageant and represented Malaysia in Russia.
Another dreaded millstone phrase was “A girl’s place is in the kitchen”. I had no love for the kitchen at all. I felt it relegated me to one of the many utensils hanging in there, most of which I still have not bothered to know how to use even now.
I wanted to sit out there in the living room and hear what the visitors had to say and to listen to their stories. I wanted to be alive and in the thick of action, not some background noise.
I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon because as a kid, I saw myself as a saviour of stray cats and dogs.
But my dad, who was so strict he would not let me even wear pants (because it’s a boy thing, it seems) refused — “It’s not a job for a girl.” I would hear that line again later in a very heart-breaking way.
It took all of my will to fight hard against the crumbling of my soul inside me — to stop society from shaping what I was to be, and instead shape myself from the core of who I was and what I wanted to be.
I somehow ended up studying Physics in University Malaya — a wildflower in a lecture room full of boys. No kitchens, just labs. And I could wear pants. Plus point? I could guffaw like the boys.
I hardly attended lectures, I was so busy catching up on life and all it had to offer in KL — The Big Apple. My tutors shook their heads at me and predicted that I would fail every single subject.
Unfortunately for them, I was the anomaly who didn’t. I graduated with second class upper (I still say first class was for bookworms) and when Schlumberger the prestigious oilfield services company came calling at our university looking to pick up the best amongst us to be their field engineers, I jumped at the chance to be auditioned.
We had to send in our details and write an essay and every single guy applied because this was the dream job. I was surprised to be the only one picked, over the obviously more qualified guys for whom Physics was their life. I strongly suspect it was my essay that got me picked, and you will find out later in upcoming columns how this pertinent point plays an important role in how life found a way to give you what you need, and not necessarily what you want.
We had to undergo training for one week in Medan, and sit for exams every single day of that week. It was tiresome and yet, I passed and was selected.
What was to be the happiest day of my life and my most defining moment turned into a nightmare when my mother refused to let me go. My dad had passed away by then, so she repeated his words “This is not a job for a woman. Why can’t you just be a teacher? Stay here.”
I was made to feel guilty, ashamed of decisions I was making that benefited only me, and my sense of responsibility to her overcame my desire for that great adventure.
So I stayed, got a teaching job, got married and taught Physics and Mathematics for pre-university students.
But the flame for adventure still burnt strong deep inside …
Join me next week, as I tell you how the kampung girl decided to sell her house to start a business she had no clue about.
- The writer is the CEO of IBR Asia Group, founder of VOICE OF ASEAN and chairwoman of DEWI of MAICCI (Malaysian Associated Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry)
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune.
