My Father’s Untold Story

By Rosaly Puthucheary

“I remember I adored my father in my youth and wanted to be like him when I grew up. Now I am eighty- five years going into eighty-six. I can’t say I am anything like him. When I was a child, life was different. Being one of the ten children made life more complex. I was the seventh child and the third daughter. So, I barely knew my father. He was always there in the house commanding respect. No one was given any especial attention. But everyone received care and love. In documenting his life, I had to rely on my memory of the things I absorbed form a distance. A word, a phrase, a comment, said during events.” Rosaly Puthucheary, teacher, writer, poet, mother, sister, daughter.
“There is something cathartic about reading one’s own family in relation to historical events that define the psyche of a Nation, it simply gives greater context to our own existence.” Sanjay C Kuttan, writer, poet, son.
“A riveting story of a young man with big dreams who arrives in Singapore from Kerala in the early 1900s.” Dr Anitha Devi Pillai, Senior Lecturer, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Nov 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781543767384

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Copyright © 2021 by Rosaly Puthucheary.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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CONTENTS

Preface

Foreword

The Sculptured Memory of My Father

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 Departure from Malabar Coast

Chapter 2 Arrival in Singapore

Chapter 3 Learning Languages

Chapter 4 Moving to Muar

Chapter 5 Figure in a Saree

Chapter 6 Part of the Bargain

Chapter 7 House near the Prison

Chapter 8 House with a Farm

Photo Album

Chapter 9 Missing the Bullet

Chapter 10 House with an Attic

Chapter 11 House next to a Pomelo tree

Chapter 12 House on the Hill

Chapter 13 House at Jalan Omari

Chapter 14 Conflict of Ideas

Chapter 15 House on the Slope

Chapter 16 House at 17C Jalan Dapat

Family Trees

About The Author + List Books

For

all my

nephews, nieces,

grand-nephews, grand-nieces,

great grand-nephews, great grand-nieces,

my two sons, Sanjay and Sharaad,

my two grandsons, Kyran and Sachi;

and

to all their spouses that married into the family

creating a colourful family portrait.

PREFACE

W hen I started this journey to document my father, Joseph Chacko Puthucheary’s life, it was not without a certain amount of hesitation and a little trepidation. My father died in 1956. Although I was about twenty years of age and studying in Kota Bahru at a teachers’ training College, I was hardly out of my teens and without any clue about life.

I remember I adored my father in my youth and wanted to be like him when I grew up. Now I am eighty-five years going into eighty-six. I can’t say I am anything like him, so when I was asked to document his journey, I hesitated in fear of criticism from my family if I misrepresented my father. When I was a child, life was different. Being one of the ten children made life more complex. I was the seventh child and the third daughter. So, I barely knew my father. He was always there in the house commanding respect. No one was given any especial attention. But everyone received care and love.

In documenting his life, I had to rely on my memory of the things I absorbed form a distance. A word, a phrase, a comment, said in the course of events. I remember my mother saying that we are called Nasaranis, that means we were Saint Thomas Christians who used Syriac as their liturgical language. I remember my grandmother saying the service in the church was in Syriac when I was about eight.

My mother would mention in passing events during the second world war. Once she mentioned that the Japanese shot Dr Luther and Dr Doraisamy. She also told us that my father was at the signing of the surrender in Singapore as an interpreter. However, when trying to document the incident I had to check with my brother Dom who was then seven years old when my mother took him with her to the Custom Office, in Johor Bahru which had been converted into the headquarters of the Kempeitai in 1942.

I remember meeting Dr Tanaka, a Japanese doctor in 1945 when he came for dinner to our place after the Japanese surrender, however I am not privy to my father’s earlier relationship with him. Therefore, I have taken the liberty to imagine and compose the dialogue that would have happened prior to the dinner that evening.

Another memory jolt was around the time I was at the Teacher’s Training College, Kota Bahru, where a chance meeting with the son of the Malay teacher a fellow trainee said to me, My father taught your father Malay.

Therefore, this is not a real biography but my representation of my father through both the recollection of my memories and imagination of the possibilities surrounding events related or recalled by others taking into consideration of my knowledge of the person, his family and friends and his times.

Rosaly J Puthucheary

7th child of Joseph Chacko Puthucheary

FOREWORD

R osaly Puthucheary’s ‘My Father’s Untold Story’ is a riveting read. Spanning more than sixty years, it tells the story of a young couple, the multilingual Joseph Chacko Puthucheary and spunky Kunyum Marthri as well as their children’s early lives in Malaya.

In fact, Kunyum Marthri emerges as my second favourite person in this book. She’s bold and clearly a woman ahead of her times. She knew exactly what she wanted and needed from choosing her life partner to walking into enemy lines to save her husband. It is evident that the strong-willed Joseph Puthucheary had met his match in his better half.

It takes a skilful writer to weave a powerful narrative that leaves the reader with longing for more. Rosaly Puthucheary is clearly an excellent storyteller who can make the characters jump out at you from the pages and come alive – leaving the readers yearning to know a little more about what happened next to Joseph’s and Kunyum’s children. The book isn’t just a biography of a charming young lad from Kerala who seeks his fortune in Singapore. It is also a document rich in details about the landscapes, events that shaped the early years of Singapore, especially of the pre-war and war years, and the background of Syrian Christian families in Singapore. There really is something for everyone in this book. The book will transport you back in time.

Dr Anitha Devi Pillai,

Senior Lecturer, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University

THE SCULPTURED MEMORY

OF MY FATHER

I n my house I have a bust of my father, cast in plaster of Paris, molded by his friend after his death. His friend was from Kerala who was with him in the local University in Aluva, Kerala, India. I only knew him by his surname Tharakan. He was an artist, and a poet who wrote in Malayalam and English. He was somewhat a Bohemian bachelor who frequently visited my father and stayed with us sometimes for several days.

There is a side to my father which confounded most people who knew him. That is, his generosity to his friends who needed help. He welcomed any of his friends who for some reason or other did not have a job or a house to live in. There was one gentleman who stayed with us for about 10 years. He had only one duty which my father assigned to him, and that was teaching mathematics to James, Elizabeth and George when they were growing up, and when he eventually got an employment, he ended up becoming a millionaire. Tharakan, on the hand seemed to have no fixed abode, only friends who accommodated him.

While he was in our house, Tharakan used to write poetry in Malayalam and English. He used to read them to my father. I witnessed this, and what was interesting, now that I recollect, was how intense my father and Tharakan were in their discussions.

On one occasion, sometime in the 1950’s, Tharakan wrote a poem about freedom for Malaysia, and gave it to my father. I remember my father suggesting that he should sculpt Tunku Abdul Rahman, and I believe he had sculpted him. Where and what has happened to it has not been recorded according to my knowledge.

The sculpture of my father was done in the garage of my father’s house in Jalan Dapat at Johor Bahru. The clay was brought to the house by my youngest brother Francis, who assisted Tharakan in this molding of my father’s bust. I remember my brother going to a hill not far from the house, digging the clay and bringing it back to the house. He contributed more than bringing the clay and shaping my father’s sculpture. He helped to create a brilliant sculpture; it not only captures the physique of my father but also portrays his personality. I am fortunate to have inherited it, and it has pride of place in my house on a pedestal.

My father was a complex man with many sides to him. He was a brilliant mathematician and a linguist who had great interest in history. The conversations he had with his friends and his children were about events of the day tied to a historical understanding. I had eavesdropped on many occasions when he was in intense discussion about events and the history of events. I am deeply grateful for that opportunity. His views on China also were inspiring and sparked my curiosity.

There is a charming story of how my mother met my father. My mother came from a small town north of Cochin called Aluva. It was a resort town, and her father, a businessman, had a house at mid-level of a hill that belonged to my mother’s grandfather. My mother was one of three sisters. The house was located on the way to the Teachers’ college.

My father and his college mates studied at Teachers’ college in Aluva, and one day my mother heard them discussing the events of the day. She told her father that the darkest boy among the college students sounded very intelligent and she would like to marry a man like him. My grandfather approached his family and in the dowry settlement, he undertook to pay my father’s college fees. This is a charming story that I had heard my mother repeat several times. Her pride was that she managed to marry an intelligent man.

Dominic Joseph Puthucheary,

5th child of Joseph Chacko Puthucheary

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I t took me two years to research and write about Joseph Chacko Puthucheary and I have many people to thank for their help and assistance along the way.

I must thank my dear friend Choh Hoon for typing out the first draft. Without her help I would not have been able to work on my documentation.

My thanks also go out to the grandson of my father’s nephew, Justine Puthuserry, who supplied me with information on my father’s early life.

I have to thank my niece Shyam, who suggested that I should write the documentary.

However, my deepest gratitude goes out to my dear friend Phillip Conn for reading my first draft. His continuous interest in my writing gave me the courage to carry on with my research.

I am most grateful to my son Sanjay C. Kuttan for