The Malacca Chetty Story

THE MALACCA CHETTY STORY By Gerald F Pillay FOREWORD This is Chapter 2 of “A Loving & Speculative Chronicle of Francis Joseph Pillay (My Dad), told against the long and colourful passage of the Chetty Malacca community through the history of Malacca” The main story is still being written. Chapter 2 centres on our identity, that we are Chetty Malacca. The history of the community is our history. This chronicle therefore includes a recount of the origins and progress of the Chetty Malacca, from the Sultanate through to Portuguese and Dutch times and finally to British times. Using the Internet as my source, my objective has been to piece together a sufficiently coherent narrative, so that we may understand ourselves by looking at the Chetty Malacca through the telescope of time. It got longer as I found exciting new material. It has ended up as a substantial narrative on its own. While the facts can be found in separate places, assembling the story in one document is new, more so as it includes information released as recently as December 2010 and some data not in print before. For the non-family reader, this would be the most meaningful part, and may be read on its own. I have decided to release it to the public. I cannot say when I shall finish the main story. I hope this release will interest readers to look at it when completed. The story of Odiang of course reflects and continues the more recent history of the community, but told in terms of the events of one family. Throughout, there is interconnection with different groups of the Chetty Malacca community both in Malacca and later in Singapore. It will be relevant for the full picture, especially of the post-world War II period and for Diaspora.(I have left the short first chapter in, to give the flavour of the whole. No need to read it The historical coverage is not comprehensive, nor intended to be. This is also not a work of scholarship. I have not attempted to validate what I found (beyond consistency and common sense) or followed up references. I have not tried to view primary data and source documents, unless they were linked in. I have also not sought to review the historical literature or the considerable research material on Malacca I saw archived in libraries and the academia. Wherever I saw a reference to the Chetty Malacca I did follow it up as far as it would go. Let me record here my indebtedness to the late Mr. B. K. Naiker, whom I knew as Mama (Uncle) Embong since I was old enough to sit on the crossbar of his bicycle, and who pioneered the discovery of our roots1. I am also indebted to Mr. Samuel S. Dhoraisingam for his commendable publication “Peranakan Indians of Singapore and Melaka”, the only such summary history in print (as far as I know.2 . Needless to say I have worked only in English, besides some peripheral information I picked up in Malay. For the benefit of fellow lovers of Malacca and Malayan history, I cannot not mention that the goldmine on the Internet is Sabri Zain’s website entitled “the Sejarah Melayu Library” described in its preface as follows: 1 His posthumous Internet posting on the “Chetti of Malacca” may be found at http://chetti- malacca.blogspot.com/. See also page 23. 2 Published by the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore. 2006, ISBN 981-230-346-4 2 “The Sejarah Melayu Library is perhaps the largest public on-line collection of books and other documents on the history of the Malay archipelago and its surrounding region. Consisting of over 1500 books, academic papers and articles in electronic PDF format, the library is divided into seven broad sections “ http://www.sabrizain.org/malaya/library/index.htm There is no intention to hurt or denigrate any person, community or nationality. Any biases found are entirely mine and I make no apology for them. If in referring to or quoting someone else’s work I have distorted or misinterpreted them, for this I do apologise. Where there was conflict of information, dates or spelling, I chose what seemed reasonable. There has necessarily been a lot of speculation what really happened. Where alternative interpretations could be given for something, I make no excuse for choosing that which threw our ancestors in the most favourable light. Finally, I have not covered the Malay, the Peranakan or the Eurasian components of Malacca’s history, except incidentally to throw into better relief our chief protagonists the Chetty Malacca. There are other obvious gaps. All in all, my aim has been to provide in the time-frame and resources of the exercise a valid overview of the passage of the Chetty Malacca. I have of course been more long-winded about areas of special interest. Most coverage is given to the British period, because most things happened then which had a bearing on my Dad’s and my life, and more information was available than for earlier periods. I welcome comments and inputs from the general reader, the historian and especially my fellow Chetty Malaccans,and the family. Please feel free to add or correct what I have sought to convey. As additions and corrections emerge I hope to incorporate them in subsequent editions of this chronicle. I shall be pleased to acknowledge all contributions. There are other acknowledgements I have to make, but I shall do so in the completedwork. Gerald F Pillay 45 Tessensohn Road Singapore 217662 Email:,<[email protected]> 23 June 2011, Mother’s Birthday * * * Copyright The contents of this document may be extracted or copied for use in other publications, provided due acknowledgement is given to the author and the work. 3 IN MEMORIAM It is with deep sorrow that I have to record here that Sundrum Sanasee, the senior person and head of our branch of the Pillay clan, passed away on 19 Jul 2011 after a brief illness. He was buried on 20 Jul 2011 at the Hindu Cemetery, Choa Chu Kang, Singapore. He will be sadly missed. It was during a visit to him in Mar 11 that he began chatting about our family and my Dad. He urged me to get it down before it all got lost. That‟s what started me off on this. It is a small satisfaction to me that when I visited him again on 4 Jul 11, I was able to hand the very first copy of this work - the initial two chapters, that is. There and then, he began reading it and gave me more inputs. I know he subsequently read and enjoyed the whole thing. RIP 4 For information only, the contents of the final work Contents CHAPTER ABOUT PAGES 1 BEGINNINGS 4 - 5 2 CHETTY MALACCA HISTORY 6 - 41 3 PRE-WAR YEARS 42 – part 5 WAR YEARS & AFTER Not ready 5 SINGPORE YEARS Not ready 5 Chapter One Beginnings - Meringu Lane According to my calculations Nenek Kathai, the grand old lady of our family, was born around 1860, contemporary with the establishment of the Straits Settlements - of Malacca3, Penang and Singapore. We know nothing of her parents or indeed of her husband, only that she had two daughters and lived at No 7 Meringu Lane Tranquerah4, which for purposes of this chronicle was the family seat. Her elder daughter, whose name again remains unforgivably unknown, must have been born in the early 1880s and was married to Sangaran Pillay in the late 1890s. They had only one child, my Dad, born on 23 Dec 1900. According to the senior relatives, Dad‟s mother, my grand-mother, passed away either at child-birth or soon after, and my Dad was brought up by and under the thumb of Nenek Kathai. By all accounts, she did a fine job of it. His name was Odiang, and so he was known by all the elders and contemporaries in the community. When I appeared on the scene I was, proudly, “Anak Odiang”. Dad‟s mother‟s sister was named Letchimy5 @ Periachi. Again, according to my calculations, she would have been born in the 1890s. She married in the second decade of the new century to the great Suppiah Sundrum Pillay, only son of Mak Bola, who lived at 10 Meringu Lane. He was known in the community as Mamat, and outside the community as “Inche Mamat”. By my further reckonings, Periachi was barely in her teens and not yet married when her sister gave birth to Dad. So she must have been living with Nenek Kathai and my Dad. It is safe to presume that Nenek Kathai lived and saw her younger daughter married before she died, which would have been not earlier that around the mid 1920s, when she would have been past 60. There is an as yet unconfirmed story that both Nenek Kathai and Mak Bola were connected in common to a family in Tranquerah. When they moved to Meringu Lane cannot be established for the present. It is safe to assume that Mamat and wife moved into his home at 10 Meringu Lane, directly across the lane, on marriage. And Dad had completed secondary school. My Dad would at this point probably have been working, and might have already established roots in alternative accommodation When my Dad, my mum and I lived for a short while with them, around 1943 following our own vicissitudes during the Japanese Occupation, I sized up their children as follows: daughter Paparthi, 26, eldest son Sanasee 18, daughter Ponoi 17, son Kandan (14), daughter Batak, 13, son Krishna 12 and son Banian 9.

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