By Rashid Yusof

Part Two was published on Feb 26. Zubaidah Aziz has since celebrated, in KL, both Hari Raya Aidil Fitri and Aidil Adha, plus her birthday, before returning to Berlin on July 4.

We have been communicating from Jan 8, on WhatsApp, functioning as a vibrant mode of interview. Questions are typed out on WhatsApp and she would write out proper replies only for the Q&A to taper off throughout her 100-day stay in KL. She was simply too busy. 

This reporter first met Zubaidah Aziz on April 6, when she was the standout speaker at an institution in Lembah Pantai, a venue not a million miles away from Angkasapuri. 

Zubaidah Aziz with the ApaKhabar team at the Institute of Teacher Education, International Languages Campus in Lembah Pantai on April 6

Some 50 years ago, she was riding the Mini Bus from her place in Bukit Keramat to Bangkok Bank, the launcher of her daily trips, with friends, to her workplace, the Angkasapuri.   

Her father Aziz Ishak, then, a retired Minister and journalist, would stride along Persiaran Gurney to get his copy of the daily newspaper. The father had another mission. At 7. 35am or thereabouts, the Mini Bus taking daughter Zubaidah Aziz to work would enter his screen.  “He would go Baby! Baby!”.

The eldest sister, Rahmah, 80, was a teacher at Convent Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands. Another sister Zaharah also taught at the school. She married Zainal Thamby. The couple still live in Cameron Highlands, a nice bungalow is their residence. Rahmah is back in KL She sticks to the endearing Baby for Zubaidah Aziz

Back to the Mini Bus ride along Persiaran Gurney some 50 years ago.

 “I had to reciprocate (the father’s Baby! Baby! screeches) to my embarrassment. The other passengers would be looking in my direction.”  

Snapshots of Previous  Narrative

ApaKhabar treats the Berlin series with a degree of amazement.  It shows.  The launcher is Padang Gajah near Kuala Terong in Perak. One hundred years ago, Ishak Ahmad, a fisheries officer, moved to Singapore. He authored a book and was a decorated fisheries official. His son Yusof Ishak went on to be the first president of Singapore. His brother Aziz Ishak was Malaysia’s first agriculture Minister, who was incarcerated under ISA in 1965. 

Jalan Hale

 Zubaidah Aziz told ApaKhabar from Berlin, on Feb 18,  that she was insistent on visiting the Jalan Hale house which was the office of Utusan Melayu some 70 years ago. “I am bent on going to Jalan Hale, speaking to the owner and enquiring if they have pictures of the original house…’memang cantik sungguh rumah tu.”

She has vivid recollections of the house. The Jambu tree. The owner of the house. “A civil servant with a big family. Many sons. They were living in the Government quarters, so the Jalan Hale house was rented to Utusan.”

She knew that the house next door has turned into a medical centre. She proceeded to make a listing of the house occupants  – Encik Gu Sa’aed, Abang Razak, Abang Aziz, Kak Saa’dah, Mariam, Doyah and Rabatul Adauwiyah. From Berlin, Zubaidah Aziz has been strategising. Step One would be to get in touch with Doyah!

On March 28, twelve days after arriving from Berlin, Zubaidah Aziz decided to circumvent this. She drove to the 91Jalan Hale which was the Utusan office. It has been renumbered, 83. Jalan Hale is now Jalan Raja Abdullah.

 “It was chained and locked. Stubborn me; I rattled the chain against the gate, launching into loud Salams”.

She remembers Non (Zainal Abidin), one of the sons of the owner of Jalan Hale house-cum-Utusan office.  

As a ýoung girl, she treasured those morning trips to the airport in Sungai Besi to collect Utusan copies arriving from Singapore. Aziz Ishak fastidiously filed away pages and articles for reference. 

On his travels, Aziz Ishak would buy skirts for his daughters and for Maureen Oh, the daughter of his school friend, Oh Kwee Liang. “During school holidays, Maureen would join us for trips to Port Dickson, Fraser’s Hill.” 

To her amazement, the occupants of the Jalan Hale house went “Baby..Baby” on sighting the visitor. Zainal Abidin or Non, the friend of her late elder brother, Zakaria, lives at the Jalan Hale House with his wife and two sisters, Rokiah Mohd Ibrahim and Fatimah Mohd Ibrahim. “The three siblings sat around the couch area and we chatted about the old days. It was as if I revisited my old home. Even the Jambu tree is still there”.

Jalan Hale House. 

Siblings Rokiah  (capturing the Wefie), Fatimah and Zainal Abidin with Zubaidah Aziz on March 28

Rokiah Ibrahim has been kindly filling in additional bits whenever ApaKhabar sought them, via Zubaidah Aziz. “Non” is Utara-speak for Zainal Abidin. Utara-speak is similarly prevalent among the Ishak Ahmad clan. Sven-Amin, Zubaidah Aziz’s son, has faithfully observed the Northern dialect.

Rokiah Ibrahim, from the Jalan Hale house family, responded to a simple question about their parents. “Yes, Bapak from Taiping/Parit Buntar and Mak from Anak Bukit, Alor Star.”

Utusan, Gerald Templer

Sir Gerald Templer, the British High Commissioner, had in 1953 “summoned” Aziz Ishak for the tone of his coverage in Utusan of Queen Elizabeth 11’s coronation. Zubaidah Aziz shared this story with the Lembah Pantai trainee teachers on April 6. “Foreign dignitaries attending the Coronation look weary. They were told to turn up early for the Coronation”. Aziz Ishak, in his reporting, included the deflated postures of the VVIPs in his Utusan piece. This story-telling attempt by ApaKhabar is by no means a definitive account of history. Readers could trawl existing material on this episode. There were other descriptions and explainers as to what triggered Gerald Templar’s tirade against Aziz Ishak following his London journalism assignment.

Zubaidah Aziz was a little kid then. In the intervening years, the father, Aziz Ishak recounted the story to his children many times.

Aziz Ishak, indeed, went eyeball-to-eyeball with Gerald Templer who berated him, deriding the journalist. “Aziz You Rat” was the eventual  Straits Times heading, quoting Gerald Templer verbatim.

Aziz Ishak wasn’t going to be timid. During this encounter with Gerald Templar, he threatened to file a complaint. This episode is being cited, still.

In an article Aziz Ishak – the brave journalist who stood up to the “Tiger of Malaya” Gerald Templer,  published by Aliran on Sept 14 2020, Veloo Saminathan recounted Templer’s bluster. The British High Commissioner apparently described the journalist as “a rat, and a rotten journalist whose name stinks in South East Asia”. 

Now,  soothing reflections. 

Zubaidah Aziz’s eldest son, Zulkarnian who recently presented his mother with a new phone, was born in 1968. He was brought up by Zubaidah’s parents.  Zubaidah Aziz described her mother Wan Samsiah Pawanteh as a tower of strength for Aziz Ishak. “She would trim his moustache, check his necktie”. Zulkarnian rated his grandmother as “the most patient person in the whole world.” It was Wan Samsiah’s great wish that she should raise Zulkarnian. His brother, Mohamad Zubin, was born in 1973. Zubaidah Aziz is a great fan of Maestro Zubin Mehta “Bapa asked why didn’t you name him Picasso?”. 

Baby would hand-wash her father’s white shirts, “fine in texture which he wore to attend Parliament”.

Retention Power

There isn’t a great deal of journalism required in narrating this story. Zubaidah Aziz has this spectacular retention power. Names of relatives and neighbours of the distant past would be spelt faultlessly. There was this odd typo, the perpetrator was her new phone. 

Remembering the Jalan Hale days. A 1954 photo

Standing back row

Abdul Aziz Ishak carrying Raziah, and Datu’ Kampo Radhjo

Seated middle row (from left):

Abdul Karim Gendut, Oh Kwee Liang (Aziz’s schoolmate Raffles at Istitution, our family friend, Samani and Zabha

Seated on the floor:

Ali Munawar, unknown, Dahari Ali, Rushdin, and Jamaluddin Dawi

Children at the door:

Zulkifli Abdul Aziz, cousin, Zainal Abidin Ahmad Murad Nasaruddin, Zubaidah Abdul Aziz and Zaleha Ahmad Murad Nasaruddin (whose father authored ” Nyawa Dihujung Pedang”)

As for the setting of Jalan Hale office, her description will now be shared here, verbatim.

“First, the stairs that lead to the front veranda. You enter the Utusan office. On the left is the Editor’s desk, with a big vintage typewriter. A black, old-fashioned telephone with a long, black table.

“The door with curtain. There were three more wooden tables with heavy typewriters for the reporters.

“They type their reports using double paper, a carbon in between.

“We, five children, were in the big room, to the left were our parents. There were two windows on our side, and one window on our parents’ side. A big door with wooden steps heads to dining, mengaji, pangkin area and a fridge.

“There was another room downstairs, beside it the garage. A door on the left led us out to the ground. It exists still …but no pangkin(a low  raised platform made from wooden planks).”

A famous uncle of Zubaidah Aziz and her son, Sven-Amin, too, share this photographic memory.

Her uncle Tan Sri Wan Suleiman Pawanteh showcased this trait. Wan Suleiman was one of the six judges dismissed or suspended following a decision by a tribunal in 1988. Twenty years later the Government announced an ex-gratia payment and the resumption of their pension. Wan Suleiman had passed away by then. “My uncle, Wan Suleiman, told me he had a double promotion in primary and secondary school. He completed his Form Six in a year instead of the usual two.”

There was this moment when Zubaidah Aziz magically remembered the phone number of a Government bungalow at Jalan Bellamy in which Wan Suleiman’s younger brother, Wan Yahya was staying at.

Wan Yahya Pawanteh served as a High Court judge in Melaka for 11 years. He was on a break when he called Aziz Ishak and gave him the phone number of this Jalan Bellamy residence. Aziz Ishak wrote it down on a piece of paper. Soon the number went missing. Zubaidah Aziz had listened in to the phone conversation-bit when the Jalan Bellamy house’s number was read out. So she told the father “Tak pa, Baby cuba”. The father was taken aback. “Hang nak cuba?”. Baby went into deep focus mode and actually recounted the number.

Vicky Raja is the daughter of Mrs Raja who tutored Zubaidah Aziz as she was preparing for her Standard Six exams. Vicky, the tuition teacher’s daughter, launched this prey where she would stealthily bite Zubaidah’s feet and a range of similar torturous pranks. Many years later Vicky showed up at Aziz Ishak’s Taman TAR house, wishing to deliver flowers to Zubaidah Aziz who was then with TV3. Zubaidah told the visitor “You must be Vicky Raja”. The father later went “mana hang tau muka Vicky?”.

Traversing her recollections, Zubaidah Aziz singled out Aziz Ishak’s foodie trait. “He brings back recipes from his travels and Mak cooks them.” A particular dish inspires this lasting memory – Foul  Medames from Egypt.  

Batu Uban, Roots of pre-Francis Light Era; and, Batu Maung Arrest, 1965

Leaping over the chronological order, we shall take a peek at this police raid. Aziz Ishak and a few family members were at their Batu Maung house on elevated grounds overlooking the sea. The police mission was to arrest Aziz Ishak and deliver him, from the Penang house to the Taiping prison. There were a number of  Internal Security Act arrests in this period. Family members overheard the police party chatting with an individual observing that the nice house must have been the fruit of corruption. Chatting with ApaKhabar at Restoran Rasyid outside Ampang Point on July 2, Zubaidah Aziz said the father had to, at a point, sell a house in Gombak to fund his election campaign. 

In Batu Maung (1965), Aziz Ishak requested that he not be handcuffed and that he be excused, momentarily, to perform his prayers. Aziz Ishak eventually wrote the book Special  Guest: The Detention in Malaysia of an ex-Cabinet Minister, Oxford University Press (1977). Six years later Aziz Ishak authored the book Mencari Bako (1983). Prof Murad Merican, a member of the clan, discussed this book in an article on Jan 24 2021. Aziz Ishak had befriended Thaharuddin Ahmad in Singapore before Aziz was transferred, in 1948, to KL, where  Utusan Melayu operated out of the Jalan Hale House. Thaharuddin was the Antara correspondent in Singapore in the immediate post-World War 11 period. He was later based at the Indonesian Consulate in Penang. Aziz Ishak and Thaharuddin would travel to Medan and onwards to places like Pagar Ruyon g to trace his Minangkabau roots, in 1975. Penang’s Batu Uban was a Minangkabau settlement during the pre-Francis Light days. Part Two of this Berlin series offered a quick backdrop to Ishak Ahmad-Yusof Ishak-Aziz Ishak’s ancestry. Sheikh Abdul Rahman Al Baghdadi arrived in Kuala Terong from Batu Uban in 1877 with his two sons-in-law – Ahmad Abdullah and Mohamad Fakir, scions of the Minangkabau clan who had settled in Batu Uban. Ahmad Abdullah is the grandfather of Aziz Ishak and great-grandfather of Prof Murad Merican and Zubaidah Aziz.