I CAUGHT up recently with Datuk Amar Puan Sri Jamilah Anu, the widow of the late Tan Sri Adenan Satem, Sarawak's fifth chief minister.
Successor as elected representative in the State Assembly to her husband's Tanjung Datu constituency at the western-most extremity of Sarawak when the latter passed on not long after winning his own mandate to lead the state, Jamilah has now served almost a full term as assemblywoman.
It is not uncommon in many democracies for a widow or a close family member to step into the political void left unexpectedly by a larger-than-life political figure. Here in eastern Malaysia, Toh Puan Rahimah Stephens, widow of Tun Fuad Stephens, similarly stepped into his shoes when the then Sabah chief minister died in an air crash in 1976.
When we met, Jamilah was her typically down-to-earth, cheery self — a huge political asset to her more personally reserved husband when they together sat atop the state's political totem pole. Him as that leadership icon he has since grown to become while she acted with verve and gusto the role of a supportive and admiring political wife.
Tales abound of lavish spreads laid out by Jamilah for prime ministers or just more lowly government officials called for meetings at "Damai Jaya", her sprawling private residence with mature durian trees and stunning views of the South China Sea.
Four and a half years after Adenan's demise, the residence bears all the evidence as if he is still around: photographs and memorabilia on walls and almost every table or cabinet top and — testament to the late chief minister's voracious appetite for reading — bookshelves everywhere overflowing with heavy, hard-bound and paperback volumes, mostly, but not all, on politics and history.
So what has it been like, the transformation from political wife, always by the side or in the background, to standing all on her own, a political star in her own right, for Jamilah? Despite Jamilah's self-deprecating description of herself as just an ordinary girl from Bau, near Kuching, who found love and married into destiny to become a chief minister's wife, she is obviously no ordinary assemblywoman.
My appointment was slotted right after one of Jamilah's routine rounds to her constituency, a two-to-three-hour road trip from her home, to check in on progress of projects and preparedness in the Covid-19 response among her constituents.
The focus on the people was passed down in rather painstaking fashion from Adenan. Jamilah recalled the time when her husband would return from his regular constituency visits, clutching a bag of rotting fish. She would ask why he was bringing home rotting fish.
Throw it away if you must, he would admonish. He would go on to explain how he was going to hand over some cash to a villager he met so the villager could buy some fresh chickens for his family and, in return, he was given the bag of fish. It was an act of kindness infused with an abiding sense of wanting to preserve the villager's personal dignity!
Jamilah also recounted how an environmental award from a local university Adenan had received was particularly meaningful and appropriate. In her usual animated way, she pointed to her durian trees and how, in a fit of momentary anger, had told Adenan she wanted to shoot the monkeys ravishing them. The former chief minister had then rhetorically asked who were the real interlopers in the area.
Jamilah had only recently dared open some treasured mementoes, which inevitably brought back a flood of memories of Adenan, including a video of him belting out a ballad to her on their wedding anniversary.
The life and work of the political-wife-turned-politician are now, above all, a labour of love in honour of a husband and much-admired Sarawak leader.
The writer views developments in the nation, region and wider world from his vantage point in Kuching, Sarawak
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect those of the New Straits Times