The journey in life is never a straight line (PART 9)

My father now had no choice but to buy me that motorcycle he had promised me. And I became the ‘King of the Road’. My father received countless complaints from the police and I crashed 12 times during the first two years. My father was so pissed he told me if I want to race then go race in the Malaysian Grand Prix. And in 1968 I did, with my father as my ‘pit crew’ and timekeeper.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

I had my first girlfriend when I was nine. Well, it was not actually a girlfriend in the hold-hands sort of way. It was more like I would hand her a love letter in class and she would hand it to the teacher.

If you were to ask me when I would consider as my most embarrassing moment in life, I would probably have to reply that that would be when my teacher showed my love letter to another teacher and they both looked at me and giggled.

I was in the Alice Smith School at that time (then behind the Agong’s palace and near NAAFI) and the girl of my dream was Sarah Chin. Alice Smith was a Kwailoschool and there were only three Asians in that school, two Chinese and oneChap Chong Kui, me.

Invariably, my parents were informed about my ‘indiscretion’. I still remember the beam on my father’s face as he told my mother, “That’s my son,” and she responded with, “A chip of the old block, for sure.”

It was then that I received my first lesson in philosophy: right and wrong are subjective and mere perceptions.

Actually, my father was more buddy than dad to me. For example, when I raced in my first Grand Prix in 1968 (the Malaysian Grand Prix), my father was my timekeeper. As I did my practice laps, he would record each lap with a stopwatch.

In another incident, my class teacher in VI (Victoria Institution), Miss Siew, who also taught us English, complained to my father that every day I sleep in class. There was not a single day she did not catch me sleeping.

My father came home to tell me about the meeting he had with Miss Siew and about her complaint regarding me perpetually sleeping in class all day long. “Miss Siew is so pretty,” said my father, “I just can’t understand how you can sleep when she teaches.”

I never did understand the relationship between the first part of that statement and the second part.

When I took Marina (now my wife) out on our first date, my father chauffeured the car to take us to the dance (since I was only 17 and did not yet have a driving licence -- although I already had a motorcycle licence). He insisted that I sit behind with Marina, who was then 14, like how it should be when you are chauffeur-driven to a dance and are on your first date.

He then fetched us after the dance and when we reached Marina’s house in Brickfields he stopped the car on the corner and did not drive right up to the house.

Marina got out of the car and after the usual exchange of pleasantries she was about to close the car door and walk off when my father said to me, “You are not going to allow her to walk all alone are you? Go walk her to the door.”

I was too dumb to realise that my father was giving us some privacy so that I could attempt a good night kiss or something like that. It did puzzle me at first as to why he stopped the car so far from the house.

Anyway, I was not really too interested in girls after that very embarrassing disaster involving the love letter. My real passion was motorcycles.

I rode my first motorcycle when I was ten, a Honda Cub 50cc. This was when I visited my grandfather during the school holidays, who was then the Governor of Penang. I blasted down the Residency grounds and my grandfather was furious. He called motorcyclists ‘temporary citizens’, probably meaning they die too early.

I kept bugging my father to buy me a motorcycle and after constant nagging he said he would get me one only if I were to pass my LCE (form three) exams. I don’t think he expected me to pass my LCE exams because the headmaster, Murugesu, had written in my report card ‘the least likely to succeed’. Furthermore, other than perpetually sleeping in class, I failed all my monthly tests and trial exams

When the results came out and were displayed on the notice board, my father scanned through the list of ‘fails’ but could not find my name. He then looked at the ‘C’ list and still could not find my name. The ‘B’ list also did not reveal my name.

“Did you sit for the exam or not?” my father asked me. I then asked him to look at the ‘A’ list and he gave a grunt that sounded like ‘hmph’ or something like that. However, lo and behold, my name was on the ‘A’ list.

“How the hell did you do that?” my father asked, “Did you cheat?” He could not understand how, from primary school right up to form three, my school reports were so bad and yet I passed both my 11-plus (standard six) and LCE exams and got ‘A’ on both occasions.

It was then that my father probably realised that I was not one for academic excellence but put me through the test and I will sail through with very little effort.

My father now had no choice but to buy me that motorcycle he had promised me. And I became the ‘King of the Road’. My father received countless complaints from the police and I crashed 12 times during the first two years. My father was so pissed he told me if I want to race then go race in the Malaysian Grand Prix. And in 1968 I did, with my father as my ‘pit crew’ and timekeeper.

In 1968 I was already ‘going steady’ with Marina and she refused to support me or go see me race. In fact, she was very angry with my father for encouraging me. When I crashed and broke my left wrist my father drove to Marina’s house to inform her that I was in the University Hospital.

Marina refused to go see me in hospital and my father had to beg her, “Please lah. He is in great pain. Go visit him in hospital.” Marina finally agreed but only so that she could gloat and tell me, “I told you so.” Until today, “I told you so” is my favourite phrase, in case many of you have not realised this by now.

Marina was fiercely anti-motorcycle. It took a year before she would agree to climb onto the back of my motorcycle. She realised that to love me means you have to also love my motorcycle. Our wedding vows were probably the only one that went “To love, honour and obey Raja Petra Kamarudin and his motorcycle and till death do you part.”

I suppose Marina’s main concern was that the ‘till death do you part’ part of that vow may come earlier than planned if you only know two speeds -- full speed and full stop.

Actually, Marina and I met quite accidentally, almost literally, when I almost knocked her down with my motorcycle. I was tearing down the road at full speed and she was running across the road to catch her school bus. I hit the brakes and skidded while missing her by inches. She let fly with a few choice four-letter words (and I don’t mean U-M-N-O) and I shouted, “Stupid girl! Nak mati ke?”

I suppose most people will relate their story of love at first sight while ours was love at first fight.

TO BE CONTINUED