What I Miss About Naval Base By Ranee Somasundaram

 What I Miss About Naval Base

 The “village vibrancy”! The sounds and sense of our Base which was our whole world then. From the time your neighbours get up and prepare to go to work...be it at the dockyard, home or school, the radios that would be switched on early morning would be left on the whole day, everyone listening to Chinese, Malay, Tamil, English, Hindi and Malayalam songs...in the mornings the sounds of your neighbours bathing, mothers shouting out to children to wake up...the routines of the housewives and children after fathers left for work. 

Then would come the lull after the hustle and bustle for a couple of hours after lunch, when tired mums would be taking their siestas and the not so tired little ones sitting on the steps “networking” which were the cause of differences amongst the neighbours! 

Then would come the buzz again when afternoon tea, dinners and breakfasts (for the following morning), would be prepared till the siren went off at 4.00 pm when you see the workers heading home, and by which time housewives and all the children wherever they were and whatever they were up to, would be back home and looking fresh after their baths.

How this routine would change during school holidays where we, the children, had the passport to play the whole day...badminton, rounders, hockey, police and thieves, monopoly, scrabble!

We heard neighbours, husband/wife and sibling quarrel and make-up...we knew all the happy and sad news.

When we saw tents going up, there would be anxious curiosity...was there going to a wedding or had one of Chinese neighbours passed away.

Festivals...Chinese New Year, Christmas, Hari Raya Puasa, Onam and Deepavali would bring different kinds of excitement because it would mean weeks before the festivals, respective families would start “spring cleaning”, making and baking goodies and on the actual day of the festival, the children would be taking trays of goodies to their neighbours and receiving gifts and angpows in return... all bygones forgotten in the true festive spirit of giving and receiving, and needless to say the sound of fire crackers in the background! 

Everyone was included in each other’s lives and festivals...friendships were made and broken...food was shared and savoured such diversity and inclusivity I haven’t seen or experienced since.

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