Anna and the King - 1999

Anna and the King

“So are you Anna?” was the one liner email that I received from my cousin Sashi in India when I had written to my cousins there that I was selected to act in this movie.

I was a little confused because I had written in great detail as to the role I was playing and the names of my very famous co-stars so I was a little irritated and replied “Hey cousin, read my email carefully and you will know the answer”. He wrote back “so are you Anna?”  Irritation level hit 10 on the Richter scale and I ignored his email.

5 years later when I visited India sitting in his dining room having tea with him, he asked me why I did not reply to his email. I had no clue as to what he was referring to. “I sent you an email asking if you were Anna!” “Well if you watched the movie you would have seen that I played Anna’s maid, Bebee” I replied. That sent him reeling on the floor laughing hysterically. I just sat there starring at him and finally when he regained composed he said still sniggering “Shanthi, I asked you if you were playing the role of the  elephant?” “Huh?” was my response. I found out that my cousin was being cheeky when he wrote me that one liner. ‘Anna’ (pronounced ‘aanaa’ in Malayalam) means elephant.

I swatted his head with a newspaper and he teased no more!!

Getting the role of Bebee- the nanny to Anna’s son- was something I never ever imagined would be part of my CV. How many actors in Malaysia can claim to have acted in a Hollywood movie of this magnitude? Well….we did have over 2000 Malaysians who played extras in the movie but that doesn’t count! I got a major minor role!!! And I would act along side Jodie Foster cast as Anna even though she didn’t look anything like an elephant and Chow Yuen Fatt, a mega star in the Chinese film industry cast as the King.

I went for the first audition with 9 million other people who got called for casting as well.

I met the casting director Priscila John

NOT FINISHED

The Cards that Life deals us - 1997

The Cards that Life deals us.

March 5^th 97- The whole night was spent tossing and turning. Finally I got out of bed at 3.30am. My breasts were feeling very sore. I put it down to usual symptoms just before my period was due. The rest of the day was spent in misery. I was feeling extremely lethargic and weak. I didn’t eat very much. I didn’t have an appetite the whole day. Later in the evening when I was taking my bath I found that I couldn’t touch any part of my breasts. Both breasts were hard and very sensitive to the slightest touch. I was 39 years old. “I have breast cancer!” I thought aloud.

It is a little known fact but all Indians are aspiring doctors able to diagnose any given symptom!

I called the one person whose judgment I trusted; my sister. She confirmed it was breast cancer (remember she’s Indian too!)  Told me to seek medical attention immediately but since no Gynecologist clinics were open at that time of the night, I forced myself to get to bed for that much needed rest.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep much that night either, psyching myself up for the worse. Headed to Ampang Puteri at 8.00am.The receptionist said they had 4 gynecologists; 1 male and 3 women and I needed to make an appointment in advance before consultation.

“I need an appointment TODAY!” I didn’t want to delay treatment any further. I had read and heard from various sources that breast cancer can be treated if detected early.

“The only one available at such short notice is Dr Azahar, the male doctor. Most women prefer a female doctor for ‘womenly matters” That’s fine!” I sighed with relief. I was not picky whether it was a male or female groping my breasts as long as it was ‘A’ doctor. Making my way to his office I passed the other female gynecologists’ offices. There were at least 20 women waiting in every room. At mine there were 8.

Soon I was sitting opposite him telling him my concerns.

He had an extremely gentle demeanor and in a way I was actually glad that he was the one who was going to break the bad news to me. He listened to my prognosis, diagnosis and course of treatment (remember, I’m Indian) very attentively. He then asked me if I was willing to take a pregnancy test.

I laughed and with great conviction said “No, I cannot be pregnant”

I then went on to tell him my medical history.

In October 1979 while studying in Canada, I became very ill. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong; I complained of severe shooting pain in my legs that left me at most times incapacitated; debilitated to the extent that I couldn’t walk even to the washroom. I will always be very grateful to my university mates; Danya, Tonia and my very dear friend, Sandie Krasin- who saw me through these difficult times.  I was admitted to the hospital almost on a weekly basis over the next 3 months. Besides my physical inhibitions, my condition was also affecting my mental state of mind. I missed a lot of my classes and was finding it difficult catching up with the work. I went through every known test and it all came up ‘zilch! NO KNOWN CAUSE! I went to different doctors in various hospitals but they were all equally dumb founded. At one of these visits, a Doctor said that my symptoms were psychosomatic and I needed psychiatric help. I began to believe that maybe it WAS all in my head until my former housemate Sylvia (a nurse) insisted that I see her family doctor. It has been a while since all this happened, so I can’t recall as to how he discovered that it was an ectopic pregnancy. It might have been a scan. He scheduled me for an operation the very next day because if the ‘growth’ was not removed it would get bigger, rupture and poison my system- i.e. I would die!  After removing the right fallopian tube, there was a lot of scarring in my left fallopian tube caused by medication and previous treatments.

Jan 10^th 1980 (my birthday) I was told “You will never be able to conceive!” I was devastated!

For days, weeks, months even stretching to years, I was thrown into deep depths of depression every time I recalled these words.

“What’s the use of getting married then?” “Why would anyone want to marry me?” “My life is over!” “If I did get married would my husband be willing to adopt?” “Will I be able to love and accept an adopted child as my own? These were just a few among a truckload of thoughts that kept filling my mind during these dark days. Consequently many of my relationships with men suffered. I resigned myself to a life without husband or child.

In retrospect; I was only 20 when this happened. I viewed the situation very naively and was full of hatred for life’s unfairness.

Coming back to Dr A. He listened very patiently and still insisted that I take a pregnancy test. “What about my breasts? “Aren’t you going to examine them first?” I enquired. “All in due course! Let me rule out pregnancy first”. He took a sample of my urine and told me to wait in his waiting room. The 15 minute wait for the results seemed like an eternity.

Finally back in his room, I tried to read his face- no hint of what I was about to hear!

He was very calm when he said “I don’t know if this is good news or bad news, but you are pregnant!” My jaw dropped straight to the floor!

“Me? Pregnant? No! I have breast cancer!”

He told me to undress, put on a gown so he could do an ultrasound scan and show me the growing fetus.

“Me? Pregnant? NO! I have breast cancer!”

He said the scan would be able to tell how far into the pregnancy I was.

“ME? PREGNANT? NO! I HAVE BREAST CANCER!”

Even though this was the only phrase going through my head, I changed and lay on his examining table. He spread cold gel on my tummy and rubbed it with a torch like object. Immediately I could see my uterus on the screen and ‘a moving mass’. He started measuring various parts of this ‘mass’ off  the screen and concluded that I was already close to 3 months in my pregnancy.

3 MONTHS?!

“Me? Pregnant? No! I have breast cancer!” thoughts were replaced with “OH S***!! A breast cancer diagnosis would be a lot easier to deal with!”

When I finally calmed down (I am an actor AND an Indian, so I was quite the drama queen)

Dr Azahar told me that I should go home and digest all that had happened (if only it was that easy to make this go away). He said to come back within a week since the first trimester of the pregnancy was coming to an end. If I wanted to terminate the pregnancy, I would need to do it quickly.

I went home in a daze looking at my tummy the whole time until I reached home. I fell on my bed and cried buckets. So many thoughts kept racing through my head; How was I was going to deal with this? Was I going to be able to financially support me AND a child? How do I break the news to my parents? How would they react to this news?

This took a good part of the day and only by nightfall did I call my sister. She was silent at first and then asked me what I was going to do. I told her I hadn’t the foggiest idea and got ready for bed. “Sleeping on it might help” Lying there I kept rubbing my tummy and it felt so surreal knowing that I had a living ‘person’ inside of me. I felt it move (I know that this is not possible but I DID feel it move!). Tears rolled down my cheeks but this time it was tears of JOY! All these years I had yearned for a child and now I was actually having one. I started to imagine all the things we would do together; the birthday parties that I would organize for him/her, the story telling sessions, the games we would play, the cooking, the cleaning, the candle stick making!- I had it all planned out. With those pleasant thoughts I soon drifted into a deep sleep.

Breaking the news to my parents; they were in India for about 4 months visiting relatives when all this happened. Mum came back first. When I told her she was overjoyed. She was going to have a grandchild to dote on. Dad got back soon after. I was already in my 6^th month but funnily enough I was not ‘looking pregnant’ just ‘fat!’ My tummy was a slight ‘bump’.

Telling Dad was the hardest for me. He being a respected elder in the community and I was not sure how he would react to the news. I couldn’t bring myself to talk to him in case it got too emotional so I opted to write him a letter: it was 10 pages long with me rambling on and on about how I would understand if he did not approve etc.

It was a Sunday when I went to my family home. My Dad was at the temple so I left the letter on his desk. I then sat on the sofa to watch some TV. My Dad came home shortly after. I decided to get on home because I didn’t want to be around when he read the letter. Just as I was about to leave, a strange thing happened. I was still on the sofa when Dad came towards me, bent down and kissed my tummy and told me he loved me. I come from a family who is very open and loving so kisses and hugs were common. This action in itself was not what was strange. It was the fact that he kissed me on my tummy. I froze! I looked at my sister. She froze! I thought “Did he already know? How?” I quickly got up and left. An hour later my phone rang and I saw it was from my family home. For the second time that day I froze. I dreaded answering it because I did not know what my Dad’s reaction would be. As the ‘Gods’ were with me on this one, my Dad said he was supportive of my decision to keep the baby and not to worry about what the community had to say as it only concerned us. He like my mum was ecstatic that he was going to be a grandfather. It is funny what parents want at the end of the day; a grandchild!

Due to my advanced age at pregnancy which sometimes has its own set of complications Dr A scheduled monthly check-ups so that, should there be any, he would have been able to address them quickly. My due date was Oct 16^th. In my 4^th month check up I wanted to know the sex of the child. It was a boy. I thought it was important that when I was talking to the fetus I would not confuse the child and give him/her a complex. The circumstances were hard enough as it was and didn’t want to add trauma to it all.

My pregnancy was a breeze and I enjoyed every waking and sleeping moment. I called him Hariharan –a combination of Lord Krishna and Lord Shiva’s names. I also was an avid fan of a world renowned Gazhal singer who shared the same name so thought it was a good choice since just like the miracle of getting pregnant, maybe some talent would miraculously get passed on to my baby. What a strange thought!

I did not suffer from morning sickness (albeit that one day when I felt horrible and thought I had breast cancer) no nausea, no swollen legs, no cravings for special foods other than the ones I had even BEFORE the pregnancy. However I was concerned that I did not ‘look’ the part. I was not ‘showing’ like some of the women I met in Dr A’s waiting room that at 3 or 4 months in their pregnancy looked like they had swallowed a beach ball and waddled around like ducks. Dr A reassured me that there was nothing amiss. He said I had an inverted uterus – an inverted uterus??? What the hell does that mean? I ‘ll have a BUMP on my back?!!!

This fact alone had its advantages!

Nobody suspected that I was with child. I carried on with my work without any prying inquisitive questions from anyone.

I shot a TV soap opera called “The City of the Rich”. I played a nurse who was conniving and delved in the black market trade of selling new born babies born out of wedlock to rich folks who could not have one of their own. To this day the producers don’t know the irony of that story line.

I acted in “Kuala Selangor”. Manomaniam played my drunken husband who was the ‘mandor’ (leader of the workers) of the rubber estate. In one scene he had to slap me on my face and I had to fall to the ground. We did many takes; he always ‘slapping’ close to my face (being the TV medium you can ‘cheat’ the slapping) but there was one take when his hand landed hard on my cheek sending me reeling to the floor. No prizes for guessing which take was selected! When I got back I was so worried that I had somehow hurt ‘little’ Hari. I hadn’t told anyone at the set that I was 8 months pregnant. I made an appointment to see Dr A the next day just to be sure and all was well!

I was paranoid about telling too many people. I thought it would jinx the pregnancy so I only informed people on a ‘need to know bases’.

The first were all of my working colleagues at Instant Café Theatre Company. They were so supportive, loving and above all, non-judgmental. They became very protective over me and made sure that it was not too strenuous for me when performing at shows from then on. Patrick (Teoh) told me that if I gave birth on the scheduled date, he and my son would share the same birthday. Wow! More talent rubbing off on my son!

I continued with my daily routine, doing shows, attending plays and going to various functions.

Oct 16th- Lead up to this day was filled with joy and trepidation; However on the day itself, I went into a deep sleep as soon as an epidural was administered and was snoring away. (to the readers-Give me a break! I hadn’t slept for over 36 hours) It was so loud that some of the other mothers in their respective delivery cubicles were getting annoyed and complained to the nurses. My poor sister who was my birthing partner tried to stop the ‘thunderous sounds’ but was at wit’s end. She was also very tired as she had been with me at the hospital for over 13 hours. She did what any human would have done in that situation; she went to the canteen to have tea!

Little after 7pm, she came back to a flurry of activity. The nurses had been trying to wake me up for more than half an hour. They were highly distressed because I had become violent and started hitting them and in a low exorcist voice said “GO AWAY! LEAVE ME ALONE! I WANT TO SLEEP!”  Dilation was 10cm and my son was ready to make his exit.

The nurses told my sister she was their last resort and pleaded with her to get me up. She started shaking me and yelling “SHANTHI!WAKE UP! YOU HAVE TO GIVE BIRTH NOW!

I think if I hadn’t woken up it would have been the first time in the history of the world where a mother slept through child birth! (Hmm..I wonder if that would have gotten me into the Guinness World of Records!)

“SHANTHI! IF YOU DON’T WAKE UP I WILL SLAP YOU, OKAY!’ did the trick. I sat up wide eyed with my sister glaring down on me.

 Dr A arrived minutes later accompanied by his wife who was also a gynecologist.

‘Would you mind if I stayed and assisted the delivery?” she asked with a sweet smile on her face. TWO doctors! “Of course not! Why should I as long as I am only charged one fee!” I replied with an equally sweet smile.

All that rehearsing of the birthing process earlier in the day went straight out the window.

Three pushes and he slid out the birth canal like in a slide; WHOOSH! Weight: 7.5kg. Date: Oct 16^th 1997 Time: 8.55pm. He arrived as scheduled!

Ahhh! FINALLY I can get some sleep!

At the time of this writing, Hari is 13 years, and 8 days.

I guess we never know what cards life will deal us!

Chicken or the egg? - 1978

This is a published story - Readings from Readings - 2011
http://www.timeoutkl.com/toklgallery/10-easy-to-read-adult-books/pic/1083/page/1


The summer of 1978 saw me spending it in Toronto. A good friend of mine, Charlie and I were both here for the summer; he from Guelph University in Guelph, Ontario and I from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec. We both needed a place to stay so we decided to share a flat to cut down on costs.

There were two tiny basement apartments in this house we viewed, with a tiny living room, a tiny kitchen, one tiny bathroom and two tiny bedrooms. The apartment hardly got any daylight but the rent was cheap, so it worked for the two of us. I believe our landlord’s architect designed this for the dwarfs from Snow White.

Our neighbours in the next tiny apartment were Nina and May, two lovely Singaporean girls studying in York University in Toronto.

That summer was very hard on all of us financially. No summer job for any of us since we were all on a student visa; everyone depending on our parents/guardians for funds; monies from them was not going to be forthcoming that summer for reasons I can’t recall!

By mid summer, we were all so broke that we started visiting all our married friends in Toronto and the nearby suburbs under the pretext of ‘just dropping in to see how you are’. We made sure it was close to dinner time and they still being practitioners of Malaysian hospitality even though they were now Canadians would invite us to stay for dinner- a lovely Malaysian custom that I hope will always live on! We, however, never took their hospitality for granted and made sure that the visit to each of their homes was kept to once a week and never on weekends which was very sacred to them- spending time with their families. They had become Canadian in that respect.

One Sunday morning, (I remember that day very clearly as if it was yesterday!) I went out to get the morning paper that usually was left outside our front door, up one flight of stairs to sunlight!

When I opened the door, I was stunned for a few minutes. Our paper was there as usual, but at the side of the building next to the door, lying in a perfect semi-circle were 5 eggs!!!

My immediate reaction? I looked up to the skies above with a resounding “THANK YOU DEAR LORD!” Since I figured the Lord didn’t run his own errands he would have used some human delivery method (did Fed Ex deliver on a Sunday?)

I ventured out on to the road and nearby surrounding areas. Not seeing anyone out and about at 6.30am, I was convinced it was the Lord himself who hand delivered them! A MIGHTY reach! But why in a semi-circle though? THAT did strike me a little odd, but who was I to question the mysterious ways the Lord works and thought….. “Perhaps, so as not to crack them?”

I carefully wrapped and carried the eggs in the newspaper, making sure none of those ‘God-ly’ eggs got cracked before their time.

I was overjoyed that I could now add this new item to our existing provisions in the flat which comprised of half a pot of cooked rice, 4 slices of bread, a quarter tub of Parkay margarine, half a bottle of jam, 4 potatoes, 2 onions and 3 cloves of garlic.

Later that morning, a few of our friends were going to drop by and we were all going to head to a park which was within walking distance just to ‘lepak’ (hang out), an activity that didn’t cost any money.

I thought I would surprise them all and make some fried rice as a treat and set out the ingredients for the dish; 4 potatoes, 2 onions, 3 cloves of garlic, half a pot of day old rice from the fridge, two tablespoons of Parkay margarine and of course God sent ingredient – the eggs! I used 4 of them.

I cut everything up and fried the whole lot together….tasted for salt and pepper and set it out on the dining table. Charlie was up by then but for some reason, I didn’t tell him about my treasure find.

When our friends came over I served them the fried rice which was being wolfed down very quickly. While feasting, one of them commented on how come there were eggs in the rice. You see, they were regulars at our apartment and knew what our pantry consisted of.  It was then that I told them about my morning discovery ….5 eggs neatly arranged in a semi-circle exactly 2 cm away from each other. The one minute silence that followed was deafening!

Immediately after the silence there was a CRASH! They simultaneously dropped their cutlery on their plates and looked at me with their jaws dropping to the floor.

 “What!”  Theresa exclaimed! “You found 5 eggs in a semi-circle outside the house, cooked it and now we are eating it”. I must say I was a little unnerved by their adverse reaction and managed a meek “Yes!”

I have never in my life (all 19 at that time) seen such a violent reaction –some started throwing up, others were forcing themselves to throw up while screaming hysterically. “How could you do that?” “What were you thinking of?” “Are you mad?” were the some of the sentences I remember being shouted out.

When some calm finally settled in, I asked them what I had done wrong. One of my friends, Karam, said that the eggs had a spell cast on them!

The eggs had a spell cast on them?

He went on to explain that it was common knowledge (obviously it was not that common because this was the first time I was hearing that piece of knowledge) that this was how black magic spells were cast –through eggs! The person practicing black magic would put a spell on eggs and whoever ate them would then be under a spell! AND it was for life!

Everyone there seemed to be privy to this common knowledge and agreed with him.

Just so you know, the whole lot of us in that room was studying various disciplines like medicine, engineering, IT, computer science, marketing, and business management in reputable universities in Ontario and Quebec.

My ‘Learned’ friends thought they were now under a spell because they had eaten the eggs!

What a load of crap! Now why would ANYONE want to put a spell on us especially since none of us were from well to do families coupled with the fact that we were presently BROKE! What would they gain from that? We had nothing!

I then donned my ‘I know better’ look and in an angelic voice went on to explain my theory of how the eggs were hand delivered by God himself because HE knew we were all starving, had no money to buy groceries and that it had been a while since we cooked a good meal. Hence he sent us this ‘gift’. They in turn asked why the Lord would send us 5 eggs placed in a semi-circle (a black magic sign)….now like I said earlier, THAT fact puzzled me too!

I dismissed the question and went on to say…. “He couldn’t send us chickens, could He? How on earth would we be able to feed the chickens when we can hardly feed ourselves? So he sent us eggs-immediately consumable protein!”

Nobody believed me of course and mayhem set in once again with everyone talking all at once and it centered on BLACK MAGIC!

To shut them up, I asked in my booming voice, “Okay, so what do we do now?”

Theresa asked me how many eggs I had used for the fried rice. “Four!” I said.

“You mean there is one more left?” she said with hope in her voice.

“Yes!” I said.

“Then we have to go and get the last one blessed!” she said without any hesitation.

Everyone started getting all excited with the prospect that there was now a way to be redeemed from this black magic spell.

Hmm! Blessing an egg? How ridiculous is that I thought! But trying to appease them, replied “Okay!”  I could tell that it was the only way that I could convince them that I was not Satan bent on making the rest of their lives a living Hell!

Being a Sunday we knew the church around the corner of our flat would have morning services so we headed on there. No one in the group cared that NONE of us besides Theresa was a Christian. So there we were; a bunch of Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and Atheists all set to go to church. Maybe it did dawn on them but I guess the foremost thing on their mind was to get out rid of this spell and it didn’t matter which religion did it for them.

Theresa had been to that church before for services and knew the priest - Father Johnson. I carefully wrapped the egg and carried it. No one else wanted to touch it in case they were cast into a deeper spell.

Not to overwhelm him and crowd his office, we thought it best if only Theresa and I (the guilty one) go in to see him in his room. The others remained outside and we left the door slightly ajar so that they too could hear whatever that transpired.

Theresa started with the devilish version of how we were all now under a black magic spell and that we were here with the last egg to get it blessed. She told him that eating the ‘blessed’ egg was the only way they were going to get ‘de-spelled’.

I then went on to give my divinely version of how the eggs were delivered to us by the Lord himself.

Father Johnson listened patiently without saying a word. However he was covering part of his face and mouth with his hands. His shoulders were moving up and down from time to time during the storytelling session.

No! It can’t be!

Yes! I was right!  He was laughing and trying to hide it. I then started laughing as well thinking of how incredulous this whole episode must have sounded to him!

Theresa was not amused!

On sensing this Father Johnson sobered up, wiping tears from his eyes and said “I’m sorry, but in all my years as a priest I have never once been asked to bless an egg! I don’t believe any of you are under a spell, but if it will make you all feel better, I will ‘bless’ the egg, “There’s always the first time for everything I guess” he ended with a murmur!

 I honestly was beginning to like this priest and thought that it was very nice of him to do this even though he thought we were working up a frenzy over nothing (read that as ‘They are mad!’). I carefully took the egg out of the newspaper and handed it over to him. He held a rosary in his right hand and started saying some prayers over the egg and on Theresa’s insistence threw some holy water on it for good measure. When the ‘blessing’ ceremony was over, he gave me back the egg and told us not to worry as whatever spell we were under was now history.

We all headed back home in dead silence!

Once home I fried the solitary egg and divided it into 10 portions for the congregation awaiting the blessed ‘food’. I did not take a portion since I was still adamant that it was food from God. They all downed their teensy weensy ‘blessed’ portions very quickly and went on home, feeling it was best to keep the ‘lepaking’ (hanging out) in the park for another time, since the whole episode left an ‘eggy’ taste in their mouth.

After they left, I heated up the rest of the fried rice and had it for lunch!

To this day I strongly believe they were sent by the Almighty. It still however remains a mystery to me why He left them in a semi-circle! Any theories?

Je m'appelle Shanthini - 1973

‘Je m’appelle Shanthini!’ You must admit- it sounds far more lyrical than ‘My name is Shanthini!’

My sister, Suki, for quite some time had been toying with the idea of enrolling in French lessons as she was very fascinated with the language. I certainly did not share her enthusiasm because my brain which was already on overdrive with school subjects was telling me ‘why on earth would you want to take up ANOTHER studying subject? And a foreign one at that! Didn’t we have enough on our plate already?’ I was having a lot of trouble with the Malay language- didn’t that count as a foreign language? That was more than my fair share of ‘foreignness’ my lill’ole brain could handle.

My parents however were very happy to hear that she wanted to study French when she approached them with the idea, but there was a snag. They were not keen that she would have to take public transport all the way to St John’s secondary school on her own (she was 12 and I was 10 ½ ) to attend these classes. The solution was simple; the BOTH of us would be enrolled for French class.

Come to think of it I ended up doing a lot of things in my life because of this pattern of thought from my parents…piano classes, ballet, ‘barathanatyam’ Tamil language classes, the list goes on. I am now a ‘Jill of all trades’!

Being used to this train of thought from my parents, this time I was ready with my own arguments as to why I wasn’t going to do it:

1) How often would we actually get to use French in our daily life - zero!

2) How many people did we know who spoke or even had the remotest idea of the language- zero!

These unfortunately did not hold water with my parents. I later found out that the French language was the choice when it came to picking one if you had to of most children….. I should correct that statement ….. The French language was the choice when it came to picking one if you had to of most parents for their children when they wanted them to learn a foreign language here in Malaysia. My sister was one of the rare species since it was the child wanting to learn.

In retrospect, I wonder what was going through her head. Maybe it was the fact that we would be a minority in our community with the knowledge of a foreign language? Or maybe it was the fact that we could perhaps b**** about other people in French and no one would be the wiser? Difin’t wfe havfaf thfhe f’f lanfanguafage?  For those of you who didn’t understand that line…..it is ‘F’ language…..didn’t it serve the same purpose? Or maybe one day we would need it to order exotic sounding dishes found only in French cuisine? You must agree Oeufs en Cocotte with Sauce Au Cari conjures up a much more appetising meal than what it really is - baked eggs with cream! Or maybe it was the fact it was the language spoken by the fashionable people of ‘Gay Pari’ in the magazines she read that had the ladies always portrayed with a long cigarette holders with a ‘Jitane’ cigarette at the end of it? How cool was that! Or maybe because the people she saw on TV who were French were always very debonair, bourgeois aristocrats and somehow she was under the illusion that she would also become one if she acquired the language? Okay enough of the maybes. The fact still remained that I had to take it as well.

I must admit I soon became fascinated and attracted to the melodious lilt and the ‘upper class’ feel it had when spoken (correctly of course). It was far more alluring than learning German (which was the class in the other room that was being taught at the same time)! German with its guttural sounds ‘Ach(k) tung! REALLY!!! It sounded like words that would come out of a person who was constipated! (to all my German friends reading this …please note that I now know different, so do not send me any hate mail!)

Anyway every Saturday from 10am to 12 noon my sister and I were at Saint Johns Secondary Boys School for lessons with Mr. Boudville along with 15 other students from different schools.

It was quite a trek getting there. We had to take the # 72 bus from Overseas Union Garden to Klang Bus Stand, then a one kilometer walk to board the next bus from Pudu Bus station to St Johns school. The whole journey took us about an hour and a half so it really was a very big effort on our part to make it to these extra curriculum classes every week. Now I understand why my parents wanted me to be there with her because some of the people hanging around these bus stops were rather shady looking characters of dubious distinction!

Mr. Boudville was a very strict, no nonsense sort of man in his 50’s. Although he was Eurasian, he was very at ease when he kept spewing out the foreign words, which I presumed to be French. He was a tough task master and expected all his students to revise the rest of the week, the chapters that he covered each Saturday. My sister who always was on top of her studies revised her French lessons everyday as instructed. I on the other hand had a more relaxed approach. I mean, really! The French were supposed to have a laid back attitude on life so how difficult can learning their language be? A little ‘je suis’ here and a  little ‘je suis’ there while sitting in the bus every Saturday morning was definitely in keeping with their kind of lifestyle…right?

Strangely enough I did not encounter any problems during classes. Of course having my sister sit next to me whispering the answers whenever I was called on in class was probably the reason why I was able to ‘fool’ Mr. Boudville.

Here are two more techniques that will come in handy for those of you who don’t want to be called on in class to answer the teacher’s questions.

First technique; bury your face in your book and don’t look up….remember no eye contact….that is when the teachers pick you to answer.

Second technique - drop a pencil/eraser/sharpener….anything that is on the table so once again there is no eye contact. While you are busy picking up the objects some poor soul other than yourself will be called on.

We learnt to count- une deux trios (one two three etc)

We learnt to ask – ‘how many’ – ‘combien la’

We learnt what we were - ‘eleve’ – students

We learnt classroom – classe

We learnt ‘in the classroom’- dan la sale de class’