She tells me that she knows this place relatively well. It hasn't changed, she says, since the days she hopped on and off the train that would take her to and from out of the country to upcountry.
These were the days before Independence, she reminds me, and there was just one country and so it was easier to just get on the train and go to wherever you needed to go.
She came from the east coast of Malaya.
Well, technically, she was born in the old country and then her parents migrated down to the Malayan east coast and so she and her brother followed them and they stayed there in a village which was also where she got registered as an 'alien'.
How long the family stayed there Miss Brown doesn't know. It is all very blurred to her. The family made a return trip to the old country, then after some time had passed, back down they came again- to the same village- but with one member less in the party.
Her father had passed on in the old country.
She was probably around six or seven then.
From then on, it was her mother, her brother and her. Miss Brown tells me that her mother was a tough cookie. Widowed with two children in a country not her own, she did the best that she could,
The elder child was sent to stay with relatives 600km away whilst the younger stayed with her. Eventually, when the younger reached school going age, she was also sent to stay with the same relative 600km away. She hardly saw her mother except on occasions, and few those occasions were.
Miss Brown doesn't know whether she was happier arriving at the platform, or when leaving it. Neither can she remember whether anyone picked her up from the platform up north, or down south. Maybe she made her own way to the shop house where she lived. Maybe she had a relative who picked her up. Whether there were anyone waiting outside these gates ready to welcome her, she doesn't say. Neither does she say how she felt after she stepped through those gates and left the city behind. There were people sometimes, she says, but most of the train trips she took by herself.
Six Hundred Kilometers. A girl of nine, ten, eleven. By Herself.
Not so commonplace it was those days for children to travel without chaperones but because *they had to*, even less commonplace it is these days. No young girl can take a train ride of 600km without feeling something throughout the journey. No young girl can be separated from the presence of her parent without feeling all alone and insecure- even if she were going to relatives. No young girl can feel nothing when living with relatives who treat your sibling slightly differently from you.
Is it no wonder then that Miss Brown still retains the streak of independence that was formulated during her early days?
Is it no wonder too that her ability to cope with events- whatever they may- remains one of her strong suits, so much so that age has developed it into stubbornness?
Is it no wonder that she chose mentors to emulate and learn from and defined a set of values and beliefs that she called her own, thereby leaving the room to disregard others' opinions?
And is it no wonder that emotional anchors still remain as important to her as they have always been?
When you're by yourself, when you've no one to turn to, when you have no support whatsoever, it is to yourself that you look to. When you have no one else about you and everyone near is either uncaring, nonchalant, or far away, you seek solace and solutions in what you already know or own. Meaning it is to your own heart (or head) that you listen to... and if your heart and head tells you that it's right, you can afford to let nothing else matter.
Miss Brown remembers the countryside with fondness. She remembers the river. She remembers playing in the wet fields. She remembers following the other children in the village to catch frogs (or some sort of small animal). She remembers the monsoons. Place her in a space surrounded by trees and a heavy rainstorm and she's back in the countryside again.
The solitary train rides didn't take that away from her.