“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
– Nelson Mandela, a prominent South African anti-apartheid revolutionary, political leader, and philanthropist who served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999
IMAGINE telling your parents that you never asked to be born or demanding to know why they brought you into this world. Then imagine their response.
I knew someone who dared to pose that very question – and here’s the thought-provoking story.
Meet Aron. He was born long before my time, “before the Japanese came” – our shorthand for the Second World War – but I knew him well through the stories of my elders, especially my favourite relative, Uncle Sulas.
Now, hold tight. This is a tale of resilience, hilarity, and jungle adventures – a story stitched together with hardship, humour, and heart.
A Village Ringed by Jungle
Picture a remote rice-farming community in the early 1950s, tucked among wetlands and embraced on one side by humming, endless rainforest and on the other by a winding, glass-clear river. Ours was a village so small it was not worth marking on any respectable map.
The nearest tarred road was more than 10 miles away, reached only by a twisting jungle path about as dependable as a chicken attempting a long-haul flight.
Life here was what you might call a lottery. You either survived, or you didn’t. Meals were rice from the paddies, fish from the streams, fruit picked straight from the jungle – all held together by grit, luck, and sheer stubbornness.
As for healthcare, there was allegedly a government clinic somewhere in the distance, but it was far away and, truth be told, irrelevant.
If you fell ill, you prayed. If you broke a bone, you bound it with bamboo splints and hoped. And if you survived childbirth?
Well, you became a legend.
The Female Daredevil
Among the people of the village lived Unti, a neighbour of my grandmother, about five houses down. She was a force of nature.
Known for carrying an entire sack of rice on her head, chasing down rogue chickens, and climbing coconut trees faster than most men, she seemed fearless – until one day fate proved otherwise.
While crossing a bamboo bridge to the paddies, the structure gave way beneath her. She grasped at a handrail, but the rattan vine came loose.
She fell heavily, striking the mud with the sound of something breaking. Villagers found her sprawled like a bird with clipped wings.
With no doctor in reach, the only person they could summon was the village midwife who doubled as the local “healer”, armed with little more than a week of First Aid training. She examined Unti’s dislocated pelvis and grimaced. “This is bad. Better pray.”
And that was that. Unti was carried home to her stilt house, where she lay for weeks on a rattan mat, staring at the roof, while the village speculated whether she’d ever walk again.
Treatments were a mix of herbal compresses, foul-smelling poultices, and ritual chanting – brave attempts, but powerless against misaligned and broken bones.
The prevailing view? Unti would never walk properly.
As for children? “Impossible,” the midwife said flatly, avoiding eye contact with Unti or any of her family members.
Enter Tukam
A few years later, Tukam appeared on the scene. He wasn’t a fairytale hero: just a young farmer in well-worn trousers, with a ready grin, a gift for fishing, and enough patience to do what others could not.
Most men shied away from Unti’s sharp tongue and unquenchable spirit, but not him.
“She’s like a wild jungle cat,” he once explained. “You just need to approach her the right way.”
The result? They married. Tukam built her a new stilt house and even carved a wooden cradle “just in case”.
Life was simple – farming, fishing, laughing, quarrelling, but still missing one thing: children. The cradle stayed empty, neighbours whispered, and the midwife’s pronouncement seemed painfully true.
A Jungle Miracle
Years passed. Unti threw herself into farming; Tukam to fishing and hunting. Then one morning, Unti awoke queasy.
She assumed the tapioca had soured, or perhaps Tukam’s fish stew had betrayed her.
But the weeks stretched on, and she realised it was not stale food troubling her – it was a baby.
The village erupted in astonishment. Neighbours brought offerings of eggs and coconuts. They rubbed her belly for luck.
The very midwife who had declared her barren now muttered about “mysterious forces” and “benevolent jungle spirits” and treated Unti like a walking miracle.
The Belly-Kicker
From the start, Aron made his presence felt. He turned somersaults, kicked endlessly, and writhed so much that one night, Tukam seriously considered calling for an exorcist.
But Unti and Tukam loved it all – every kick, every hiccup, every alien ripple of life pressing beneath her skin. After years of doubt, it was proof that he was real, that he belonged.
A Birth of Chaos
When it was finally time for Aron to be born, you’d think things would go smoothly, right? Ha! Nope. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.
First, Unti’s water broke at the most inconvenient time possible. She was halfway through making ‘ayam pansuh’ when – splash! Her water instantly flooded the small kitchen.
Tukam rushed to find a little tin basin they had gotten ready for the purpose, only to realise he had forgotten it somewhere.
He ran all over the place looking for it while Unti yelled instructions like a drill sergeant.
The midwife asked Unti how far apart her contractions were, and she just glared at the poor woman and said, “How should I know? They hurt, okay?!”
After hours of chaos, screaming, and a lot of very creative swearing from Unti, Aron finally entered the world. The midwife held him up like he was the Lion King while he let out a cry that sounded like, “I’m here!”
The Boy Who Questioned Everything
Aron grew. And one day, at 12, exasperated after being told to fetch water yet again, he exploded:
“I never asked to be born!”
Unti, with her sharp wit, was not the sort of woman who would crumble under a philosophical inquiry from her 12-year-old son.
Standing there, pounding rice, she delivered her response as if it were as obvious as the sun rising.
“Of course, you didn’t ask to be born. How could you? You didn’t exist!” she retorted, her tone a mix of exasperation and amusement.
Aron, nursing his pre-teen angst, wasn’t so easily pacified. “Then why did you bring me into this world?” he pressed.
Unti paused, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand. She squinted at her son, her expression softening.
“Let me tell you something,” she began, her voice quieter now but no less firm. “We didn’t just bring you into this world. You fought to be here.”
Tukam, ever the pragmatist, had his own take on the matter. When Aron later brought up the “Why was I born?” question to him, Tukam simply shrugged and said, “Because we wanted you. Simple as that.”
“But what if you didn’t want me?” Aron asked, pushing the philosophical envelope.
Tukam chuckled, his laughter rumbling like distant thunder.
“Oh, we always wanted you, Aron. Even before we knew you could exist. And once we knew, there was no going back. You were ours, and we were yours.”
The Cycle Continues
Years later, when the light in his hair had begun to silver and laughter lines etched themselves around his eyes, Aron found the past folding neatly into the present. His own child, curious and contemplative, looked up at him one quiet evening and asked the very same question that had once troubled his younger self:
“Dad, why did you and Mum bring me into this world?”
For a moment, Aron was silent, the weight of the moment sinking in. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face — not the fleeting grin of amusement, but something warmer, more knowing, as though he were passing on a truth both tender and timeless.
“Because”, he said gently, “we wanted to share this world with someone who could make it brighter simply by existing. Someone whose presence would change the air, soften the edges, and remind us of joy in its purest form. That someone is you.”
The child’s eyes widened, a quiet wonder sparking within them, and in that instant, everything seemed to fall into place.
And so, the cycle of love endured. In a world so often unpredictable, raw, and absurd, it remained the one constant – the quiet force that made all the struggles bearable, and every fleeting moment infinitely worthwhile.
The views expressed here are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Sarawak Tribune. The writer can be reached at hayhenlin@gmail.com.
