Once upon a time

I'm on a roll to share some of my childhood stories... :)

When I was about 4 or 5, we used to stay in another shop lot where the owner stays upstairs (they still do) and there was another family staying in another room downstairs. The owner is Punjabi and the other family is Indian. The Indian family has 2 children, one boy and one girl, just like us. The girl is the same age as me and the boy is much younger; younger than my brother I think. All the shop lots in the town have a well in the middle of the house just like the one that I stayed in later. Since we were so young, the adults had put a bathing tub on top of the well, you know just to cover the opening to prevent people from falling into it.

One afternoon, Indian mama was taking a shower and she heard some kid crying outside and she knew something was wrong. She came out to check and she couldn't find her daughter. The little Indian girl had fell in the well together with the tub! Apparently she climb into the tub and was sitting in it playing till it couldn't support her weights and it fell. That panic everyone! They threw in the container that was used to take the water and let her hung on to the rope so she can be pulled up. Yes she is safe and married with a few kids now.

We were pretty close with both of the families. Sometimes they will take me along to go out jalan-jalan and like wise my parents will bring them along when we go out. We never really keep in touch with the Indian family but still do with the Punjabi family. We still get invited during Deepavali and I love the chapatis that they make.

Later on, the front part of the shop got turn into a mamak restaurant which stinks our room with curry smell. I remember mum had to cover all the furnitures in the room with newspaper each morning when we go out. We didn't stay too long there and moved out shortly after that. But then my dad learn some curry cooking skills from them though. Hheheee...