The House on Bear Mountain

Deliverance

The year was 1966. My father had come to an agreement with his friend … to pool their resources … and built a house on the friend's land in Bear Mountain. It was at the end of the village … that lay on the slopes of the mountain … which was at that time … in a remote part of Malacca. There was no electric … or water supply. We used kerosene lamps … and for water drew it from a well … a short distance away.

 

There were some homes behind the house … and then it was acres of rubber plantation … before the forest. The main road ran in front of the house … leading from Malacca town … to the Golf Country Club … and zoo … located another 3 miles in the hinterland. Across the road … the farms began … with rows of vegetables … a pig sty … and the farmers' homes on one side. I was 12 years of age … and it was the beginning of my puberty … that extended from the home onto the world.

 

 I hadn't settled down well in the place. The night gloom … and the stars … made for a busy imagination of fears … that included growing up … facing the world … and leaving my mother's apron strings. It produced a feeling of solitude … that combined with the new home experience … away from everything else. Then one night … I dreamt a dark shadow … that burst onto me. In his hands he carried … a stalk of dried palm leaves tied together … for a torch. He then lit it … and it burst into flames … causing me to gasp in my sleep at the sight.

 

It was symptomatic of what I was to experience as a powerful trial in the following years … when I was hauled up to the police station … threatened with a beating … jail sentence … and warnings. It arose out of … a quarrel with my father's friend next door. My father had since died … and there was the loss of relation with his friend's family that grew each day. It broke into a fracas one day … and he had launched a police report to say I had threatened his life … and to burn his house. I never did any such thing.

 

The police sergeant came over the next day … on his bicycle … questioned me … and then asked me to accompany him to the station. We walked the entire distance … along the main road … as he pushed his bicycle along side. I could see that he was getting into a rage … and was hurling abusives at me. The incident coincided with the May 1969 race riots in the country … and that certainly fanned the flames of my own experience.

 

The police station was a single room affair … with three tables. He stood me in the middle of it … and charged me with the accusations. I had denied it all … amidst his threats … to beat the confession out of me. After about an hour of the interrogation … he let me go home. I was 15 years of age then … and at a time when psychologists say … the sexual energy comes into full blossom … the following year. It didn't get a chance to do that. The intimidation … the male aggression of a man in authority … who could do anything by law … caused me to withdraw into an isolation. My personality development from there … essentially followed a pattern of being introverted … in my thoughts.

 

I never had much of an opportunity to go back there again in my memories … and it painted a negative view of law enforcement for some years. But I saw the movie presentation … ' The Passion of the Christ ' … in 2004 … and felt a strange hush descend on me. It led me to the door of my own incarceration. In the scene where the Christ is questioned by Pilate … I looked into the eyes of the actor playing the role of the Christ … and I saw myself. ' What is the truth?' Pilate seemed to be asking.

It was the beginning of a new age … in the early years accompanying 1 bce. The days of the old testament … the laws of Manu … the tenets of the Vasudeva … the Holy Roman Emperor ... that described the unseverable relations between man and God … were coming to a close. It didn't give in easily to the new thoughts of man … emerging over the horizon. The following 2000 years saw the fall of the Roman empire … the re-unification of India … the advent of the state constitution … as Magna Carta … the unification of England … the rise of mother worship … and the birth of science … academia … modern cities … and then the computer.

 

My family had moved out of the Bear Mountain area … after the incident. But recently in 2005 … I returned to rent a room in the area after the separation from the wife. The house was no longer there. On inquiry I came to learn that … my father's friend's family had also moved out later. The house had been left vacant … some drug addicts had moved in to squat … and one night … a lighted candle had fallen … and burnt the house down.

 

On a fine evening … since I returned … I took a walk along the road … with the memory of the walk with the police sergeant … to the police station. I got to the gate of the station … and realized that it had been renovated … into something much bigger. I stood there for a while … and let my memories of the past experience … take shape. I wanted to deal with whatever it was … and not turn away everytime I was reminded of it.

 

Its a thriving university village today … with some new chic shops lining its streets. There's a Baptist church … in one of the shoplots … and I went to it one day … sat in the pew … and mumbled some words of thanks … for the help I had received … in dealing with something … that had haunted me … my entire working career. I felt a perceptible sense of relief at the experience. It brought me back into contact with my adolescent.

 

I've been living here the past 10 years … and as it turned out … its also the place where I came to experience the greatest awakenings to the life of understanding. My concern these many years … was about the adolescent in me. But in making contact with him … he says … it was him … who put me through my trial. Noticing my puzzlement … he tells me that … the old world was an age of enhanced adolescents … as they practiced their devotion to the father.

 

I thought it logical to view the world's experiences that way … and allowed myself a jaunt into its suggestions. It occurred to me … that the changes man made … must have had a major impact on the devotion of the older ages … to God the father. He suggests … in the mythical nature of muses … that … it was a father idea … much like what I am today. In breaking down the old … he insists that man will have to create a replacement. Then he smiles at me … in the strange light of understanding … that accompanies the peace of creation. I'll have to look at it again.