Nostalgia : Ah neh

A long, long time ago, my Ah ma lived at Holland Drive. My memories of the place there are dulled and there are only a few that I can recall.

Ah ma’s place was a simple 3-room flat, but it was where all my childhood memories began. It was also a place of refuge and safe haven whenever Mom had to work overtime and there was no-one around after I came home from school. I lived at the next block, so it was only a stone’s throw away.

Come weekends, the small flat would be abuzz with people and activities, and the crush of the crowd filled the house with warmth and familiarity. Us cousins would retreat into one of the two rooms to do our stuff and catch up like kids usually do.

I remember once when cousin R (he stayed with Ah ma then) pulled out a tank from under the bed with a snake inside. He told us that he had caught the snake on his way home from school. While all the cousins gathered around to ‘ooh’, ‘ahh’ and ‘eee’ over the snake, he warned us to keep quiet about it in case Ah ma found out. This was probably my first conspiracy involvement. Unfortunately, the conspiracy was short-lived as Ah ma found out about the snake the next day and promptly killed it.

Perhaps the most vivid memories I had of then was the mama shop at the void deck. I know now that some people called mama shops as ‘kek-I tiam’ or minimarts, but to us then, we all knew it as ‘ah neh’. And anyone who was tending the shop, male or female, young or old, would be fondly referred to as ‘ah neh’.

‘Ah neh’ sold everything from bars of soap to scrubbing brushes, from melted and re-frozen paddle pop ice cream to nail clippers.

I remember some weekend nights when an auntie would sponsor after dinner treats at ‘ah neh’. An impromptu leader within the cousin gang would wave the ten dollar note jubilantly in the air while shouting ‘who wants to go ah-neh with me?’ The result was a whole flock of kids following behind like mice to pied piper.

With our slippers slapping behind one after another, we would make our way down to 'ah-neh' to buy our choices of toys or treats. I would usually choose a pastel coloured paddle pop or a twin-stick chocolate ice cream. I always had fond memories of those short trips to ‘ah neh’ as it was a great cause of excitement and joy to me then.

After Ah ma moved and the cousinly trips to ‘ah-neh’ stopped, I still had ample opportunities to patronise ‘ah-neh’ after school. And sometimes, I would go downstairs with sister to buy stuffs. She liked to buy the packets of ‘bee bee’, while I especially liked the ‘ka ka’ or Hiro cakes. On occasions, I would buy the 50c tikam-tikam, only to realise upon ripping open the little black packets, that I got crappy stuff (again).

Mom would also send me down during her culinary emergencies to get condiments like a bottle of soya sauce or a few cloves of garlic.

‘Ah-neh’ was also a safety net to me. On days when I got home later from school and the void deck was quiet and devoid of human activities, I walked home surer knowing that if anything happened, ‘ah-neh’ was just around the corner.

As I grew up and progressed to more ‘atas’ supermarkets like NTUC and Fitzpatrick (later re-named as Cold Storage), my jaunts to ‘ah-neh’ halted altogether. (In part, also because the lure of the tikam packets no longer held for me). ‘Ah neh’ still remained a familiar sight even after I moved out after marriage.

Looking back, ‘ah-neh’ was a powerful word to me. It was a place, an event, a person, a safety net. It was a link to my childhood, the crowded visits to Ah ma’s house and carefree days with my cousins. Even though we did not personally know 'ah neh', the amalgamation of my many trips there gave it a familiar neighbourhood feel. It was only in recent times, when the shutters of ‘ah neh’ were pulled shut with no signs of re-opening that the need to write about this part of my childhood came about so strongly. These already distant memories seem to be pulled even further away with ‘ah neh’s closing.

While I am still holding out hope that ‘ah neh’ may re-open one day, I will also have to be prepared that this link to my childhood and the fond and nostalgic memories that come along with it will disappear soon. The presence of mama shops have already been dwindling as the years pass by. In meantime, I shall walk into those random remaining mama shops whenever that dose of nostalgia hits me. 

Well then, who wants to go ‘ah neh’ with me?