Everything's Arranged

  

Everything's Arranged by Siew-Yue Killingley

Siew-Yue Killingley (née Leong) was born in Kuala Lumpur on 17th December 1940. Siew-Yue grew up in a family nurtured in the Chinese classics. She began writing short stories in English while still at school.

‘Everything's Arranged’ is about arranged marriages practiced by the Indian communities. The belief and traditions affects their daily lives. The story is centered on Rukumani, a young maiden from the Ceylonese Tamil community whose family has settled in Malaya. Probably her father or grandfather was brought to this land by the British those days. Though Rukumani, is sent to study in the university (`MU' as stated in the story ), the thinking of her parents is just like how it was back in their motherland, Sri Lanka. The Ceylonese, however educated, still hold to their tradition, beliefs and family values so adamantly. Education failed to change their thinking. Social life is a taboo for their young sons what more for a daughter.

            In this story, it infused the traditional food of Malay like curry. This can be shown in the lines:  “…she did not really enjoy the cold rice and curry, but…”. Although the curry is the traditional food of Malay, the Indian also like it.

The writer mentioned about Rukumani’s friends, Amy Wong and Johnny Chew whom help her to pass the love letter showed that the social relationship among the multi racial in the community. It also showed the different cultures in different races which was shown in the lines: “…envying the more fortunate couples, especially the Chinese ones, who went about openly holding hands.”

            Siew Yue projected the text by including the local slang “lah”, “ah”. These can be cited from the story: “…He's a joker, so sure tell my father I send love letters. But still, try lah!”