Nicknames

When I was growing up in Riverside, there were a few colourful adult characters around, which we children would call without them geting angry. First and foremost we didn't know their names and secondly, the nicknames suited their physical feature which made it very easy to remember.

There was "Botak", a short, bald China man who sold the best ayer nenas and rojak in a narrow tiny chip-of-a-stall at the corner of Lorong Gereja (next to St. Francis Church) and Riverside (Jalan Laksamana now). His stall could only accomodate about 8 adults the most. We, children, were not allowed to cross the road to his stall. So we would stand at the nearest corner to his, across the road in the Custom Quarters compound, and shouted our orders at him, "Botak, ayer nenas dua......" Within minutes Botak or his son would rush across the road with our orders, never once grumbling or with a long face. "Terima kasih, Botak," we would say.

What used to be Botak's famous ayer nenas and rojak stall now behind shutters.

The children would stand at the bottom right corner in the picture and shouted their orders to Botak across the road.

At the other corner of the Church's block was a kopi-tiam shop (kedai kopi lah) facing the Padang Nyiru. Two amiable characters worked here - "Panjang" and "Bongkok". The former, as the name suggested, was tall and lanky. His daily attire was a white, short-sleeved pagoda t-shirt and a loose, white pyjama pants and wooden clogs at his feet. Panjang worked in the kitchen. A man of few words, he made the best roti kahwin and kopi-o beng I've ever tasted. The latter, Bongkok, was the waiter. Bongkok, as the name suggested, was hunched-back and walked with a slight limp. He was also attired like Panjang. An amiable person, always smiling, obliging and liked to tease us, children.

There were others. like Panjang Bombai, Bisu, Gemok and Pak Mat Teropong. Actually it is not proper to call a person such deragotary names. But in the past, nobody made a fuss.

Ah.... the good old days!