A story from 1995 from my NS days

I have been prompted to talk about this issue further to my recent exchange with Kampongboy on my previous topic. Allow me to quote myself on one of my responses to him:

I am good at getting along with people and am a very convincing liar. It's like... I knew how to offer compliments to my superiors in the army, so they would like me - even though deep down inside, I despised them (regulars, bah!) but I knew how to sound sincere because it was important to be in their good books. It's my first taste of office politics and I learnt so quickly. My nephew is crippled by his autism - his social skills are ZERO. How on earth is he going to figure out things like that? Groan. The more I think about it, the more I despair.

What I think of when I remember my army days: hutan

I am wondering, is my evaluation above somewhat pessimistic? Or am I flattering myself? Is it possible to get through life like a bull in a china shop - or is it absolutely vital to be sensitive to those around you? On that note, I'd just like to share with you a story from my army days - it's something that I encountered as a 19 year old whilst I was in the army. The names have been changed obviously so no one can be identified and in any case, all this happened way back in 1995 - an awfully long time ago. I learnt how to cope with these situations pretty much on my own, with no other references apart from what I have seen on TV/movies. There is a dark side to being a convincing liar that goes far beyond paying compliments to superior officers in the army.

Here's my story, we're going way back to 1995. Here's a music video from 1995 to set the mood, how many of you remember this hauntingly beautiful song by Shreyl Crow from that year?

In my unit, I worked for this Singaporean-Indian guy - let's call him Staff Sergeant Deepak (obviously not his real name). He was married with a daughter but he had a string of 'girlfriends' - these were usually Indonesian ladies who were working in Singapore. Deepak had a weakness for Indonesian women and he spoke Malay remarkably well. Now this was back in 1995 - some people had pagers but very few people could afford mobile phones then. So his Indonesian girlfriends used to call the office all the time and the phone would always be passed to me because his Indonesian girlfriends barely spoke English and Deepak didn't want to take their calls. I didn't know much about them or what they were doing in Singapore (or if they were based somewhere nearly like Batam or Bintan) - it was not my place to ask questions. Such was my SAF mentality - don't ask questions. Jangan bertanya soalan. 

I do speak some Malay - I'm not fluent but I get by. I got to chat with one of his girlfriends quite a bit that year. Let's call her Fatima (I won't use her real name). I never asked her to divulge any information about herself, but I could sense this loneliness in her voice. It was the same old questions, "Where is Deepak? Tell him I want to see him. Please, tell him to call me." I was instructed to use the usual excuse to fob her off, "Military exercise. Deepak is in the hutan." 

Deepak is in the hutan... he's in the forest. 

Fatima laughed when she heard my usual excuses about there being no phones in the hutan - I think I am a good actor but I don't think she believed me, that's why she laughed. Maybe it was just the uneasy laugh that one does to break the tension when one is uncomfortable - it wasn't the kind of "hahaha that's a great joke" kind of laugh. The irony was that Deepak would always be sat next to me, listening in to the conversation and when I didn't know the word in Malay, he would scribble it down on the note pad for me. I wondered if Fatima ever smelt a rat - how I could struggle to come up with the word in Malay for something like "Thursday" and then suddenly, I would "remember", aha, it is "Khamis". Sometimes he would page his girlfriends and I was instructed to pass them messages when they called back - these usually were instructions on where Deepak wanted to meet them for dates. There was more than one of these Indonesian ladies - but it was mostly Fatima. 

Sometimes he would take the call and chat with her and would even make dates with her - but they were infrequent. Don't forget - Deepak was married (he may still be today) and he was obliged to go home to his wife and daughter when he left the camp. His wife knew nothing about his affairs with these Indonesian girlfriends and his wife would call the camp too. He wasn't particularly warm with his wife - they spoke in Tamil so I didn't understand enough, but the tone was not affectionate and it was often about their daughter. I would hear her name repeated over and over again. 

Should I have said something to Deepak's wife? 

Our unit would sometimes hold casual celebrations - usually on the eve of public holidays. These were low-key events, where we would finish work a bit early and beer would be handed out. Often there will be some food, courtesy of Deepak's wife. She would drive to the camp - there would be all kinds of Indian food: curry, rice, samosas, pratas, popadoms or keropok, sweets. She would also make other dishes like mee siam, grilled chicken wings, spring rolls, gado-gado and cakes - ah yes, she was a great cook. I remember helping her carry the food from the car and helping her pack up each time. She liked me more than the others as I always made an effort to be nice to her - the men would just eat her food and drink her beer - without as much as saying "thanks" to her. Sometimes she stayed for the celebrations - other times she would simply drop the food off and then come back in the evening to pick up the containers. I made sure she got back every single container the food came in.

Deepak trusted me not to say a word to his wife - I never did. I suppose I felt bad about it then - she probably wouldn't have believed me even if I told her everything I knew. It would get me into so much trouble with Deepak - it was unthinkable. So I just kept quiet and didn't say anything to her. One afternoon, Fatima called up crying - Deepak took the call and there was a very heated argument in Malay. He then said he had to go. I was to call his wife and tell her that he would not be coming home as there was an emergency at the camp - and then I was then to tell everyone else that Deepak's daughter has been taken ill and he had to rush home to take her to the doctor.  

Deepak thought I didn't understand or know what had happened... but I did.

Yup, only I knew the truth. In fact, I knew more than Deepak thought I knew - you see, Deepak thinks that my Malay sucks and I can only manage very basic conversational Malay. I mispronounce words, I make basic mistakes and if I didn't know the word in Malay, I would use English instead so even a sentence like, "Awak mau pergi berenang dengan kita besok?" would turn into "Awak wanna pergi swimming dengan kita tomorrow?" This is often known as Manglish = Malay + English.  But what he didn't realize was that I understood a lot more than I could speak in Malay - my brain was good at unscrambling foreign languages and I could often fill in the gaps by figuring out the missing words from the context.  Really, it wasn't hard to figure this one out at all. Here's the word of the day: mengandung.

Fatima was pregnant. He offered her money to get rid of the baby - she said no, he was furious. He offered her even more money but it was not what she wanted to hear. I wondered if she even realized that he was already married. Anyway, as he left that afternoon, there was a real sense of desperation in his voice as he gave me those instructions. I didn't question him, I merely said, "I understand, I'll take care of things here, just go." Poker face. Just another day in the office for me - it's my job. I obeyed orders and did as I was told.

Did I do the right thing in covering up for Deepak?

I don't know what happened with Fatima after that. She stopped calling. And no, I didn't have the kind of friendship with Deepak that gave me the liberty to ask him what happened - this was the army. For some bizarre reason (unbeknownst to me), Deepak chose to make me a part of his web of deceit. Maybe he saw me as the kind of soldier who would simply follow orders and not question his judgement or morals - or he thought I was the kind of person who wouldn't have a problem with his choices. Perhaps it was just my ability to speak some Malay which put me in that position - had there been anyone else in my unit at that time who spoke Malay better than me, who knows? In any case, he was right. He never asked me how I felt about the situation. I was curious, but it wasn't my right to ask. 

A few weeks passed without Fatima calling - then one day I picked up the phone. The woman spoke in heavily accented English and asked for Deepak. I figured she was Indonesian or Malay. Fatima came to mind instantly and a number of thoughts flashed through my mind - instead I just asked Deepak if he wanted to take the call. He laughed and shook his head, so I said to her, "Deepak is not here now. Deepak sekarang tak yang sini. He's in the forest today - dia hari ini di hutan." She laughed. "Saya Minah. (I am Minah.) Apa kahbar?"

I sighed. Here we go again. I wanted to say, "No Minah, he is bad news. Don't end up like Fatima. You don't wanna get hurt. Please girl, you shouldn't call him again, he's bad for you." 

No Minah, stay away from him, you'll get hurt...

But no. I didn't say anything - Deepak was within ear shot of course, grinning like a Cheshire cat, knowing exactly whom it was on the phone. Here we go again. What ever happened to Minah? I don't know - I was transferred to another unit within a few months, I ran into Deepak a couple of times after that, but the conversations were shallow and I never raised the subject of his girlfriends.  I hope Minah didn't get hurt the way Fatima did. Who knows. Maybe she did and there would be another girlfriend after that and after that etc. 

I remember telling my mother about the whole story, she dismissed it. At first she said, "Married men can have friends with women too - your father knows loads of other women friends. I don't forbid him from making friends with other women just because we're married." Then I went into more sordid details and she didn't believe me, "don't be silly, you know your Malay is not very good lah, maybe you misheard him - even I struggle with understanding Malay when they speak very quickly and my Malay is much better than yours." 

My mother didn't believe my Malay was good enough...

I suppose my mother couldn't believe that her son was being placed in that kind of position - I was meant to be doing the noble act of protecting and defending her beloved country, not helping Deepak have affairs behind his wife's back. It was all too much for her to accept. That was not what she had in mind when she sent her son to NS - so she blocked it out of her mind and dismissed the whole story out of hand. Do I feel bad about the part I played? Not really, if I may be blunt. It sounds like a terrible thing to say, in light of what has happened in Delhi and Singapore recently, but when one is in NS, the normal rules of society don't apply. You take care of yourself first and foremost, you don't worry about other people - so Deepak's wife, Fatima and Minah, I'm sorry, but I wasn't in a position to help any of you then. They paid the price for falling for the wrong guy - at the tender age of 19, that was my initiation into the world of adultery. To be blunt, I was mildly amused and entertained by it all - it was like watching a bad movie about a sleazy man cheating on his wife. It was a good distraction from the boring tasks that I had to do in my unit. 

Was I rewarded for my co-operation? I am still not sure - I think Deepak was reasonably fair with me, I know loads of guys who had a far worse time in NS compared to myself and I had a reasonably peaceful time working for Deepak for about a year. I was granted time off to represent Singapore at the 1995 Asian-Pacific Gymnastics Championships in Malaysia (rather than have to use my own leave entitlement). Certainly, I wasn't bullied by anyone when I worked for Deepak (I suppose he protected me from that) - which was pretty good going given what the SAF is like. Then again, I know of others who were treated well during their NS without having to be complicit in anything like that. I guess what I was more afraid of was what might happen if I didn't do as I was told by Deepak. Welcome to the real world where everything is messy and confusing. It was time to grow up and become an adult.

Was I rewarded for my co-operation?

Here's the only thing I don't get - Deepak. Good grief. With three women in his life like that, you'd think he'd be good looking and charming, but oh no. He's not. He's out of shape, has a handlebar moustache and smells of this nasty mix of sweat and chemicals all the time. Oh and he has this strange obsession with paint - okay, it's part of his job to know about different paints but since he can't talk about his girlfriends with me, he talks to me about paint. Matex paints of all things - it was often a monologue since I know nothing about industrial paints. Did he talk about paint with his wife and girlfriends too? Who knows. What did they see in him? He was sleaze personified and his wife seemed like a decent woman who deserved better, much better.  Such is life.

So there you go - that's my story for today. Everything is true - apart from the names which have been changed - the only detail which I have kept is Deepak's obsession with Matex paints. Heck, there can't be that many Singaporean-Indian regulars in the SAF with an obsession with Matex paints but we're going back nearly 20 years. If you have had similar experiences in NS, please let me know - I have a couple of other stories to share and if you liked this one, you may want to check this one out too.

Matex paint.