The North Borneo Herald. SATURDAY, 1ST OCTOBER 1910. “AHMAT” (A Sketch)

THE NORTH BORNEO HERALD AND THE OFFICIAL GAZETTE

EDUCATIONAL SERIES BY BORNEO HISTORY

No. 19 - VOL.XXVIII. SANDAKAN, SATURDAY, 1ST OCTOBER 1910.

The North Borneo Herald.

SATURDAY, 1ST OCTOBER 1910.

“AHMAT”

(A Sketch)

His name is Ahmat, just one of the countless number of Ahmat in British North Borneo and, like most Ahmat, is a ‘brazen wheel’ of the Service in the humble capacity of an orderly

The world has not dealt gently with Ahmat; his scarred face and sickly build give the lie to his thirty odd years, and of this period it is his boast that over fourteen have been spent “sama prentah”.

Ahmat’s reminiscences of the various “tuans” he has served under would fill a volume in themselves; and in the dim recesses of his kampong home he holds treasures up against the day of adcersity, many age discolored and illegible “surats” which more or less definitely extol what few virtues Ahmat possessed in days of yore. One of these given him by a former D. O. is a source of both pride and perplexity to Ahmat and amusement to the humorous and reads “Ahmat has been with me for three months as ‘boy’—it seems three years. He leaves owing to ill-health, my ill health.”

Ahmat is married, it goes without saying, and has a family of a variable dimensions as occasion demands. The subject of his domestic affairs is ever a painful one to him, his mother-in-law stays with him, and Ahmat appreciates the pleasure of her company as cordially as greater men then he do under similar circumstances.

One of the few pleasures that Ahmat apparently permits himself is the celebrations of various Mahomedan festivals; and in this he makes up for all that is lost to him in the intervening days of chronic impecuniosity and domestic strife. The Bankruptcy Court, or its Eastern substitute, has no terrors for Ahmat in the face of “Hari Raya Hadji” or some other “Hari Besar”. He and his family, down to the one-year-old mite, must be clad in festive attire. His woman-folk must sport “galang tangans” (bracelets) and “chinchins” (rings) of gold redeemed from the Pawnshop though they be for the occasion; and they must “do” the Kampong and Api-Api and “do” it in style too. What matter a debt in the kedeis? Is it not a “Hari Besar” and must not Ahmat, as one of the faithful, maintain the traditions of the auspicious day? Tentu!

Ahmat’s inclination and capacity for work in Office during the day depends a good deal, if not entirely upon the peaceful or otherwise state of his domestic affairs at the hour of his setting out from his home. Should all be well, it is a smiling, seraphic Ahmat that bids you the accustomed “Tabek” at the door. Examine the pens they will all have new nibs on; inkstands will be full; clean blotting-paper is at hand; the waste paper basket is empty, and the thousand and one little attentions to one’s comfort paid that only a well disciplined and experience orderly remembers to do before one come in. Whisper his name and his answering “Tuan” will reach you clear amid the click clack of his noisy typewriter and he himself, a silent, khaki clad figure, be by your desk a second later. You will bless all the Ahmats in creations for the sake of this one soul of perfection of an Ahmat!

Sometimes there is the reverse. Ahmat is listless, sulky and half-awake the day through, while the most trivial of his daily duties will lie untouched till his attention is drawn to the fact. Yell to him and it will be ten minutes before he hears and fifteen before he appears. Send him on an errand and it will be an hour at least before he returns, having doubtless sought the ear of sympathizing friends in his domestic troubles down in the kedeis.

Still, Ahmat, at his best, is a faithful, plodding creature, and there are times he puts on in mind of “old Adam” in Shakespeare’s “As you like it”, whom the dramatist describes as a relic of the good old times.

“When service sweat for duty”,

“Not for Meed”.

Ahmat is dozing outside the office just now with his head leant back against the door, and a burnt-out grass cheroot between his fingers. Hid misty eyes are fixed in dreamland on Mecca, and he is doubtless thinking of that “someday” that will see him free from sordid care, a “Hadji”- with shorn head and white embroidered cap, rich in wives, and hers of “kerbau” and “sapi”—and there let us leave him.

-/ss