In the last 30 years, we have celebrated with a Christmas event in our home about once every ten years or so. The first was when we moved in and invited all neighbours to join our celebration. The second was after we returned from the US after my PhD. The third was after I took optional retirement from the Public Services of Malaysia.
Unfortunately though, I also observed a rising – but worrying – phenomenon over these 30 years. Increasingly, and over time, my Malay neighbours stopped coming to our celebrations at our home. No reasons were explicitly given, but one honest Malay neighbour explained to us that it was because people were not sure if our food was halal and that the Malays were moreover becoming more conservative with religious values.
Therefore, this year I decided to host our Christmas event, not in our home, but in a public place and decided to invite the rest of my Royal Military College (RMC) intakes to celebrate our family’s four generations at this year’s Christmas celebrations. It is not always that anyone can celebrate four generations at the same place and time.
The Legacy of a Father’s Love – This is the title of a book we published to honour our father when he turned 90. Mom was gone by then. It was co-authored by the five siblings, their spouses, and writer Stephen Ng. Even Dr Mahathir Mohamad ( left ) wrote a foreword in it. This month, we the siblings of my parents, celebrate the first of our fourth generation of God’s love in our lives, in Malaysia.
Our heritage from 2,000 years ago is reputed to be Christian. We are called “Mar Thoma Syrian Christians”. This great Indian church was reputed to have been started by St Thomas, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ. Therefore, within our community, every fourth person is a Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – the names of the four gospels as recorded by disciples with those names.
After some generations of a naming culture based on faith and heritage which seeks to also honour both parents, the names begin to repeat themselves, as anyone can imagine. Therefore, within the Christian Malayalee tradition also, we take on Indian ‘pet-names’ at home.
I am called Ravi in my family, so much so, that when a teacher called my official name in Standard One in school, I did not stand up. Then there is a Vijayan, Mohan, Pearly and Petsy. Yet some other families follow a hierarchical naming tradition, wherein the older sibling is called “older brother” in Malayalam, and so also younger siblings – both men and girls – with a similar naming tradition.
The names are all Malayalam words which define the implied meaning and relationships.
One of my RMC intake batch mates confirmed his attendance at the event, but a day before he texted me, asking many questions about our celebration. And rather unfortunately, he and his spouse did not attend our event.
The above question is therefore addressed to him, and I hope to all Malaysian moderate Malay Muslims about what is a Christmas celebration and what is not; especially when about 70 of our 1965 intake are Muslims. We will celebrate 50 years of friendship next year in March and an equally good question is, what are we really celebrating?
Firstly, we celebrate God’s goodness with an attitude and heart of gratitude. As Syrian Christians, we could as well have been in Syria at this time, and found little human reasons to really celebrate. In our specific case, the same Good Lord, by His Grace, has allowed four generations of our nurturing and family growth in Malaysia.
Furthermore, we did not grow up knowing our grandparents; as they lived in India. By the time I first went to visit them in India in 1959, on grandfather was already gone and only grandmother was alive. Therefore, I think our children and their children are especially blessed to be able to have great-grandparents whom they can get to know. Not every child even knows their grandparents.
To me therefore, any celebration is a time of gratitude for the tolerance of a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-faith socio-cultural environment which allows diversity to flourish, and is still able, not only to respect and accept the other, but even more so, to join in with the celebration by the others.
Retelling the story of God’s love
Secondly, my father could not have loved us for three generations in Malaysia by himself. If God’s love was not with him, we would not have made it this far. Let me relate a small story of my father’s love for others.
I remember, the first lesson about God’s love he had taught me through his actions. He donated a stand-fan to our neighbourhood mosque when it was first rebuilt in the mid-60s into a modern brick one in Kampung Raja, Sungai Petani.
What did I learn from the legacy of our father’s love? I learnt that God takes care of his people and showers his love over them through caring actions of loving neighbours. In Kampung Raja, the majority of our neighbours were simple kampung Malays and they simply called my dad, “Pak John”. Pak John happens to also have read the Merdeka speech on Aug 31, 1957 in our secondary school as a representative of the Kedah sultan; i.e. the father, and not the son.
Now, we celebrate 95 years of God’s goodness in the KJ family life with our true friends and neighbours. May God bless Malaysia with more sincere moderate Malaysians like my dad, my neighbours, and friends who also love the same God equally.
Finally, who am I is probably the most important question. My real and true identity does not reside in my external socio-cultural features, as great as they may be. Rather it is located in the presence and sense of my dignity and destiny of God’s calling in my life.
Of course, I am a Malaysian who is Malayalee, a Christian by heritage, and with an extroverted personality, but the real me must be located somewhere in my conscience for what I say, do, and act on behalf of all my neighbours whom God has equally created.
There is a Pakistani author, Bilquis Sheikh, who wrote a book entitled, I dared to call him Father! .
A week ago therefore we hosted a 4G Christmas celebration to honour my father who is 95 years old and also to recognise and celebrate God’s faithfulness and grace in permitting our four generations to live in Malaysia; at one place at the same time. We believe our father has been faithful to his Master, whom we also call Father, and therefore this year he became a great-grandfather when Mikhael Elisha Isaacs was born on Oct 13, 2014.
May God bless Malaysia to remain moderate, and a very Happy New Year to all readers!
