Tuesdays With Bapak
Publisher,Bru Publication
Publication Date,
Format, Paperback
Weight, 420 g
No. of Pages, 380
How did Bapak do all that?
Well, the story was that there was a "go-slow" industrial action by the editorial staff of the Straits Times in Kuala Lumpur.
As Malaysia was still under the emergency laws enforced following the May 13, 1969 riots, the European-dominated management in Singapore thought that the go-slow would definitely end without much ado.
It was illegal, for heaven's sake. So the management thought that they could hold out by asking for arbitration in the Labour Department.
Basically, they were unyielding. They wanted to tire out the journalists, thinking and perhaps, also hoping, that the journalists would eventually give up. Their spirit broken, and their struggle along with it.
They didn't realise that the journalists had Bapak on their side. His sympathies were with them.
Nuraina Samad leads the reader through the ordeal she and her family had to go through when her father was detained under Internal Security Act(ISA) as a political detainee. Through this candid yet insightful account of her growing up in a big family all looking up to the father as a father figure, readers get to know more of Pak Samad as a family man. How his thoughts were, what life values he instilled in his children as well as his favourite pastime in his private life.
The author’s prose is fueled by a mix of wit and colloquial exuberance that makes the reading so enjoyable and delightful. I caught myself laughing and smiling on several accounts, one case being when the Bapak told the policeman ‘ Saman dia… memang laju!’ :-)