Les Bicyclettes de Chendering

This is a snapshot from the past, as if you haven't already noticed. It hasn't been retouched to show the effects of time on memory. But the smiles are still there, and the pervading happiness and is the young lad walking in the middle of the photo wearing a songkok? Could this have been Hari Raya day?

This was afternoon, judging from the shadows, in Chendering, near the house of Cikgu Zainon Mahmud. And I am grateful to someone who will only identify himself as Chorekdaggarik, for having sent me this fascinating photo of two carefree cycling ladies and happy children at play in a village on the Trengganu shore.

Chorekdaggarik tells me that the lady cycling ahead, the one with the fetching scarf tied around her neck, is his auntie. "My father was at this time a teacher at the Kuala Ibai school," he says, "and my auntie loved to cycle in the open space around my father's house."

There is some uncertainty about the year this photo was taken. Chorekdaggarik brackets it between 1943 and 1948, but could it have been taken much later, say in the late 1950s?

When GUiT was published and the location of the house in the cover photo was discussed, I had to admit that I hadn't a clue as it was taken from a photo library. And then someone I met in London came with valuable information. The house, in Marang, is no longer there as the sea has reclaimed the area. "I know this for sure as my wife's family lived in a neighbouring house," he said.

Perhaps someone will now come and tell me about Cikgu Zainon Mahmud, and where she taught, for 'cikgu' is a teacher as we all know. Perhaps the lad with the songkok will write us an email, and the little girl seen running into the picture in the rear will do that too. And what are the children doing around the coconut tree? It looks to me like they are playing the game of to.

Heritage Is Just Some Dead Wood

We are one by one tearing down our precious heritage – the latest act of vandalism was in Chendering of the lovelorn song, a picnic area for us town-born kids, and home of the Masjid Raja. The last was the subject of this latest mindless act: the Masjid was pulled down by a demolition squad sent in by the authorities, just as the Istana Kolam was, in recent times, when officialdom sent in the hackers and the wreckers and took yet another bit of our past. They will re-build Chendering beach too into a mile-wide 'heritage' pedestrian McMall to keep up with the times if they can find purchasers for the load of sand that’s scattered about, but you just wait, just as they had to sell an old piece of Masjid Raja because there were no takers - was the Trengganu Museum asked? - when it was just lying there amid broken bits of old rubble and shattered bits of carvings and glass, and the tearful remains of old Trengganu, they too will sell Chendering beach to the highest bidder to make way for concrete.

The gem that has emerged from it all is this glib quote from a man purporting to be the State Religious Affairs Department Commissioner — and I shall give you his name — he is Datuk Shaikh Harun Shaikh Ismail. And this is what he said (as reported by the New Straits Times, but I’m putting back the quotes):

”I am not aware of the history behind Masjid Raja.”

The man has so many titles he should be given another one, but I shall not stoop so low as to name it.
This brings to mind an old Irish Earl (of Galway?) who burnt down an old ecclesiastical palace. When asked why, his answer was pat: “I thought the Archbishop was inside!” In our case the Religious Commissioner would have said, "I didn't know that History was sitting in there, mate!"

Well, so farewell then Masjid Raja, you were just an old mosque with some unique design features and was the house of Tengku Seriwa Raja Tengku Abdullah who bequeathed it to the people of Chendering for their place of worship. Mosques can be built with a ton of bricks and money from the state coffers and by hefty contractors all ready for the job. The new mosque will accommodate 2,000 people, said our state panjandrum; so two-thousand reasons then why the old Masjid Raja should be demolished.

Sad.

Photo: New Straits Times