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A Sikh
journey: From Punjab to Malaya
Himanshu Bhatt
This
new historical novel chronicles the little-known story of the
pioneering Sikhs in Malaya and the emotional process of attachment
towards their new homeland.
Some time in the 1920s, a widower farmer from a village in the
Indian province of Punjab travelled to Malaya with his son and
daughter, seeking a better life and fortune. Arjan Singh ended up in
Rawang and found himself making a laborious living by breaking
charcoal for the furnace in a powerhouse.
In his spare time, he reared cattle. His son, Bachan Singh, would
later move to Prai to work as a labourer in the pier, and his
daughter-in-law Balwant Kaur would tend the herd in Kampung Teluk.
Little did Arjan suspect then that his struggle would one day be
told to the world by his own grandson, through a scholarly work of
literature.
The
Enchanted Prison, a novel by Malkiat Singh Lopo, chronicles the
early hardships, predicaments and successes of the Sikhs who, like
other communities, helped propel Malaysia to the modern
industrialised land it is today.
“We
had a tough life,” recalls Malkiat, 65, of his family’s past.
“Our early generations suffered. So they knew education was
important. That is why their children progressed rather fast.” Based
on historical facts, The Enchanted Prison expresses in a fictional
plot the conditions in India and Malaya from 1873 to 1937.
“Malaya was the first country outside the Indian subcontinent that
Sikhs emigrated to,” the retired school teacher explains at his home
in Seberang Jaya, Penang.
“It
was referred to as the golden cage or a heavenly prison.
“It
was a prison because one was so enchanted by this foreign country
that you were unable to return to your ownhomeland.” Malkiat’s book
describes how early immigrants underwent a transformation through an
emotional process of attachment that made them devoted to Malaya.
“When the first immigrants came here, they viewed Punjab with
nostalgia and longing. But when they returned there years later, it
had become a strange country!” Most of the early Sikh immigrants
were needed by the British colonial government. While many belonged
to the army and police, a steady stream of other occupations also
grew — milkmen, cattle farmers, guards, craftsmen, collies and
tailors.
Through fiction, Malkiat recreates a past
 universe
borne out of a deeply endeared imagination. There is a keenness for
detail that makes the old world come alive in the mind of the modern
reader.
The novel is replete with images — the steam journey from Calcutta
to Rangoon to Penang; the bachelor’s kongsi for contract workers;
the labour work they undertook; their common kitchen; the activities
at the railway; the expansion of roads and the building of houses.
Through such images, Malkiat brings out the ethos of the pioneers
and their very experiences for the current generations of
Malaysians.
Though specific to a particular ethnic community, the novel is
easily one of the most insightful works of historical literature to
have come out of Malaysia in the last few years.
Malkiat
has an intimate grasp of the idiosyncrasies and mores of the early
Sikh explorers in Malaya’s rural frontiers.
Ironically, Malkiat has never set foot in Punjab. Despite this, he
has authored several books, including the Sikhs in Malaysia series
which he co-wrote with his wife, Mukhtiar Kaur.
Malkiat
has always known there is no commercial revenue forthcoming from his
research.
In
fact, The Enchanted Prison was originally written in 1972, but was
not published due to lack of funding until recently, when his old
friend Hari Singh took up the project.
“It
is a labour of love,” says Malkiat.
Malkiat
used to write for the Singapore-based Punjabi paper Navjiwan Weekly
and the KLbased Pardesi Khalsa Sevak — both now defunct.
 When the latter closed in 1960, he began writing a column called Lopo Kalam (Lopo writes) for Malaya Samachar, the only local Punjabi
periodical.
Known as an eccentric, his collections of old photos, patchwork
quilts and traditional dolls have been displayed in exhibitions
around the country.
“I
have even compiled about 2,000 words from the Malay language that
are also used in Punjabi,” he says proudly.
Absorbed by Punjabi folk songs (“the vocabulary is inspiring, the
music can move you”), Malkiat is planning a major project for next
year to coincide with the third centenary of the installation of the
Guru Granth Sahib.
Large portions of his novel are engrossed with elaborate
descriptions of weddings and even a couple of funerals — all serving
to show the vibrancy of the culture then with its rituals and
orthodoxy, its fashions and cuisine.
What makes the work particularly precious is that its fiction is
craftily condensed as a commentary of major historical episodes of
the period.
Malkiat weaves real incidents, both well-known and obscure, into an
imaginary plot.
Even as it alludes to the glories of the old Sikh kingdom in India,
the book dispenses much readable information — with real anecdotes
and accounts — on facts like the Malay States Guides, tours by Sikh
saints and freedom fighters to Malaya, journals and accounts left by
travellers from that era and the politics that took place.
A
sequel which deals with the period 1937 to 1955 is in the offing. Malkiat calls it an “adoption period” that was affected by Punjab’s
partition between India and Pakistan, and the prospects of Merdeka.
In
February, he suffered a third heart attack. The hospital he was
warded at for a whole month was teeming with a steady stream of
well-wishers.
“They are more than blood relations,” he says of his old friends.
“They are leftovers from a generation that is slowly diminishing.”
(Courtesy The New Straits Times)
9 May, 2007
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