Bargadi to Brisbane

  

"Bargadi to Brisbane" The life of Dr. Mukhtiar Singh Sidhu
(written by Dr. Mukhtiar Singh Sidhu)

 

Contents:

1. Introduction

2. India to Singapore: 1937-1941

3. The Japanese Occupation: 1942- 1945

4. Scholastic Life: 1946-1962

5. Medical Career: 1963-1976

6. Life in Australia 1976 to present

 

Introduction

Singapore's Orchard Road is known throughout the world as a grand shopping arcade that's lined with stores selling the best-known luxury brands  in the world - from the most expensive perfumes to the fanciest of watches. It is one of the biggest tourists draws in Singapore.

For me to begin this brief biography of my life with a reference to Orchard Road may seem somewhat of an anomaly given that I've never lived in Orchard Road nor do I have any particular connection to it.

But decades before Orchard Road became a household name, there was another street similarly lined with shops in the poor working class neighbourhood of the Naval Base in the north of Singapore. This street was known as "Jalan Kedai", which, when literally translated into English meant "Street of Shops".

And it is in the vicinity of Jalan Kedai that I spent the better part of my schooling years. And it is the community of Sembawang to which I continue to remain most connected till today. This is so despite my having left not just Sembawang but Singapore in 1976. I share a certain emotional communion with the community of Sembawang which I find difficult to express in words.

This connection of mine to Sembawang is known to all those who know me well, including the friends who have been urging me to write my memoirs for quite a while. As one of the oldest Sikhs from Sembawang and one of the surviving “Naval Base Boys”, I consider it an honor and a privilege to write this brief biography.

I lived in Sembawang from 1941 till 1963, mostly in Jalan Kedai area. Unlike Orchard Road however, Jalan Kedai was not an upper middle-class neighbourhood that catered to those looking to buy expensive watches and name brand clothing. It catered to the everyday needs of the local residents with shops selling vegetables and spices. The residents there were all employed by the British to work in the Naval Base that had been built by the British during the1930's.

The British were wonderful employers who looked after the needs of their employees and housed them in blocks. And it was in one these blocks that I was raised. This was Block 86 where my father, Mr. Hakam Singh, my mother, my younger sister Sawaran and I lived.

Before I discuss about my life in the Jalan Kedai, I shall provide a brief background on how I ended up there. For this, I plan to present this blog in 5 separate parts or sections as follows:

2 : INDIA TO SINGAPORE (1937-41)

My father Hakam Singh (1908-1997) was born in India in a farming family in a small village in the state of Punjab, called Sukhanand, which is in the district of Moga. That is where he grew up and got married to my mother Harnam Kaur.

He did not have much of an education as education was not a priority during the time when he was growing up. Most villages did not even have schools. Farming was the primary source of income back then in the Punjab, as it is even until today.

My father quickly realised that the little land that he would inherit would hardly be enough to generate enough income for him to raise a family.

He began to look for opportunities to give his family a better life and soon came to know that the British were looking for individuals who were willing to work for them in the army or police in British colonies.

Fortunately, he had a sister who was already in living in Singapore and that was a good enough reason for him to consider moving to Singapore. But he had no money to travel to Singapore nor did he have any land that he could sell to raise funds. The only possession that he had was a cow, which he decided to sell for fifty rupees to buy his passage to Singapore. This was in 1935 when he was barely 27 years old.

    Upon arrival in Singapore, he stayed with his sister who was married to a policeman. During the few weeks that he spent with them, they tried to persuade him to join the police force. He however refused, saying that he wanted his time after work to be his, and did not want to end up saluting officers after working hours! He felt that a life in uniform was not for him as there would be pressure from his seniors at all times.

As there were no other suitable jobs available in Singapore, he travelled to Kuala Lumpur, and began doing manual work in a tin mine. It was hard work, but he was able to accumulate some savings.

After a couple of years, he returned to his village in Punjab as most men used to do during those days.

When my father returned to his village he was almost thirty years old, and still single. During those days, it was customary for parents to get their children married during their early twenties. By those standards, my father's marriage was long overdue. His parents accordingly wasted no time in finding him a bride and they did not have to go very far to do that.

My mother, Harnam Kaur (1912-1985) was the only child and was born and raised in the nearby village of Bargadi, which was just twelve km away from my father's village of Sukhanand. Her mother had died at the time of her birth, and she was raised by members of her extended family.

Soon after getting married, my father returned to Kuala Lumpur leaving my mother behind in India.

During those days, very few men could afford to bring their wives and families with them to Singapore or Malaya, due to the cost and the uncertainty of getting a job that paid well enough to raise their family. What most of them did was to work for a few years in Singapore and return to India after that to arrange for their wives and children to join them in Singapore.

As was the tradition during those days in the Punjab, women would return to their own village just before delivery and give birth there.

I was born in my mother's village of Bargadi. As no birth certificates were issued in India during those days, the exact date of my birth is unknown. The date of birth that appears in all my official records could very well be off not just by a few days or weeks but even by a few months! 

My father was in Kuala Lumpur when I was born. While in Kuala Lumpur, he got wind  that the British were in the  process of setting a Naval Base in Singapore and that they needed workers to work for them in the Naval Base. He wasted no time in moving back to Singapore very quickly got employed as a trainee crane driver by the British in the Naval Base. Within a year or so he became a fully-fledged crane diver at the new dry dock in Naval Base.

He drove the biggest crane (a 30 tonner), which was very high and as my father too was tall, his friends gave him the name of "panjang" which was the closest word in Malay to refer to someone as "lanky". He continued to work on the very same crane till he retired in 1968.

By 1941 my father had managed to save enough money to pay for the passage for my mother and me to travel from India to Singapore. We travelled on the SS Rajula and arrived in the Naval Base in November1941

 We were extremely fortunate to be able to board the ship in India as this was the last ship to leave India before the Japanese attacked Malaya and Singapore. The Japanese invaded Malaya in December 1941, and they were in Singapore by February 1942.

After the Japanese attacked and occupied Singapore in February 1942, they hired my father to do the same work and after the Japanese surrendered and left Singapore in September 1945, he got reinstated to do the same work by the British on the very same crane.

Part 2: The period during the Japanese Occupation

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