Father’s Day: Remembering My Father - Krishnan Peter Pereira
Just barely after Mother’s day event, Father’s Day
celebration too followed suit. What an amazing world of `theme branding’ as
part of the grander commercialization scheme of strategy to pull wool out from
public’s eyes to depart all their hard earned savings and getting them indulge
in celebrating yet another `cool’, emotion stirring economic activity whilst
entertaining conveniently, scheming or nicely naming it - ``Happy Father’s
Day'', undoubtedly appreciating all the fathers around the world in a polite
way.
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My father was born in Mersing, Johor, a fisherman village,
town, and east of Johor. It was a coastal town on South China Sea. He was sort of reserved man. I
don’t have much information about his childhood days, nevertheless. I knew that
he was a Eurasian - blend of few sub-ethnic Indian and Portuguese blood. His
father’s ancestors are mainly sailors from Portugal, who are famous for their
seafaring adventures to Far East lands. His father’s roots could be traced to
Malacca’s Portuguese settlements, Madras, Pondicherry, and Kerala and back to
Portugal.
His father’s name is Peter Pereira, a Eurasian Roman
Catholic - mix parentage - Portugese,Tamil and Malayalam. I was told that my
grandfather had died when he was just barely 7 years old. His late father
married to my grandma, a Tamilian / Indian ethnic and they had 5 children. He
was so attached to his hometown that my father used to travel often back to
Mersing, even though he lived in Segamat almost all his entire life. He is
basically a man of no words when he is in his `equilibrium state’’.
He has the ability to speak in many Chinese dialects as a
result from working at a very young age in a motor vehicle workshop.
Disinterested in studies, he joined as a car mechanic apprentice at a Chinese owned
garage at the age of 6 and subsequently picked up the ability to converse in
many Chinese dialects such as Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin as well as Indian
ethnic dialects, namely Malayalam, Tamil, and Telegu.
He joined PWD (Public Works Department), JKR, a ``fitter
mechanic’’ and remained as a JKR’s workshop foreman till his retirement. His
early work postings were in Johor Bahru, Mersing’s Tanjung Gemuk, Chaah,
Kuantan and finally settled in Segamat.
A highly skilled worker, he gets many work assignments, as far as from
Singapore and Penang. Sadly, he never had the chance to see his life through without seeing his grandchildren. He passed away just after his first year of
work retirement before reaching age of 57. I was working in Singapore when he had his last breath at
Sultanah Aminah’s Hospital, Johor Bharu.
My rapport with my father was a little subdued and hardly a
warm one! Somewhat I always felt I was not in tune’ with his characters and in
that it makes us not close at most of the times. Rarely spoke to him, except
when there are subject matters needed to be discussed. The conversation would
not last more than a few minutes long. My admiration about him confined within
the frame of his work skills and multilingual spoken language ability.
To some extent, I learned many lessons from him from a different
perspective. Why things are meant to be in that way? Could things be different
from how I envisaged it to be then, especially in a father and son
relationship? I may never have the chance to understand him and he too may
never know how I expected him to be different and how things would have been
good if he had that extra ability to push us up in the ladder of life.
Unlike as compared to a special kind of inner bond created
between a mother and son in most relationships, father and son bonds are
somewhat difficult to be explained. It is not just mere feeling sentiments, but
a glutinously telepathic inner force bond that acted in a certain manner that
actually binds. Let’s that remain, as it was then and now. I hold my palm together,
tight and offer my silent prayers. May his soul rest in peace.....and whisper
slowly - ` Happy Father's Day'.
