Love & Struggle: Beyond The Rubber Estates

Author: Dave Anthony
New Pb364 pp.
Subjects: Fiction, History & Biography, Malaysia
Condition: Good
Publisher: Gerakbudaya
Published: 2012
This love story unfolds against the historical canvas of British Malaya with the migration of Desa from India to the rubber plantation of Perak on the eve of the Second World War. Desa quickly learned the hard facts of colonial economy when he and a few others went on strike to protest the withholding of their wages. They were baptized by gunfire and death in their ranks.

The novel is more than the love story of Desa and Janeki, though theirs is a riveting love especially when both search for the other up and down the length of the Death Railway from northern Malaya through the Isthmus of Kra, Thailand up to Burma. The tension of the search, the fear of bypassing each other.

The novel is crammed with little known historical details of the times – especially of the Indian estate community in Malaya, for example, the nationalist Indians’ flirtation with the INA (Indian National Army) and working class Indians’ vital role in the MPAJA’s rural campaigns.

The love story of Desa and Janeki is narrated against the backdrop of an alternative history of Malaya – herein lies the value of this novel. One learns the alternative pre-war, war and post-war history of Malaya through this novel. There are also vivid descriptions of culture, religion, language, geography and scenery.

Dave Anthony has worked extensively with the rubber tapping community throughout the length and breadth of Peninsula Malaysia. He was the editor of Olivillaku, the first popular church magazine in Malaysia in Tamil. He set up a communication centre and a production house producing video magazines and docu-dramas. He lives in Petaling Jaya, Malaysia with his wife and two sons.