Man’s hunt for family history turns into heritage project on Seletar kampung

SINGAPORE – Mr Rustam Shariq Mujtaba’s patchwork heritage is a reflection of Singapore – his paternal grandparents came from Nalanda, north India, and China’s Fujian province, while his maternal grandmother hailed from Semabok in Melaka.

Mr Rustam knew his maternal grandfather was born in Singapore, but for a long time, he did not know where exactly on the island he grew up.

“I couldn’t point to a village in Singapore and say, ‘this is where (he) came from’,” he said.

This matter drove the 28-year-old data analyst to start a heritage project to trace his family’s roots and tell stories of that kampung.

Mr Rustam would find out from a distant relative that his maternal grandfather came from Kampong Pos, a village that even his mother had not heard of.

Located in Seletar, its residents were displaced by a British Royal Air Force camp in the 1900s, said Mr Rustam.

Some would go on to settle in Kampong Tongkang Pechah, located around today’s Fernvale neighbourhood in Sengkang. The village existed from around the 1930s to the 1970s and was taken over for pig farming after that, according to Mr Rustam’s research.

The village – believed to be named after a broken vessel in Sungei Punggol, which ran near the village – inspired the name for his heritage project, Project Broken Barges.

Its goal is to unearth and document the history of Kampong Tongkang Pechah and the larger Seletar area. Mr Rustam started interviewing former residents in late 2023 and has been publishing their stories online.

So far, he and other project volunteers have put up 10 articles on online publishing platform Medium, with Yio Chu Kang, Seletar Hills and Jalan Kayu among the areas featured.

Mr Rustam, who lived in a Housing Board flat in Pasir Ris in his younger years, said he grew up thinking HDB living was the norm.

“But no, (my parents and grandparents) said ‘this is not normal at all, we have changed so much in the past decades, and we used to live in a village’ – that to me was unfathomable... and I think it is important to record and impart that change in Singapore is not only constant, it is rampant,” he added.

His mother would tell him stories of leisurely rowing a sampan (small boat) down Sungei Punggol to catch fish and clams, and how fruit and vegetables that people buy in supermarkets today – kangkung, bok choy and papayas – were free, grown on kampung land.

These stories of an idyllic life will quickly be forgotten if they are not recorded, said Mr Rustam, pointing out that many former kampung dwellers are in their golden years.

Mr Rustam, who has no background in historical research, has pursued Project Broken Barges under the mentorship of cultural and historical geographer Hamzah Muzaini, an associate professor at the National University of Singapore.

The National Heritage Board (NHB) linked up the two after the amateur historian reached out to the Singapore Government Partnerships Office (SGPO) in October 2023 for help with the project.

The SGPO, which was

officially launched in January 2024

, assesses ground-up initiatives by citizens that have a community impact for potential government support.

Mr Rustam was put in touch with the NHB and the People’s Association by SGPO, and the office helped publicise his project in hopes of reaching former Kampong Tongkang Pechah residents.

The project was given

a grant by the National Youth Council, in partnership with NHB

, which Mr Rustam has used to host his interviewees for meals, as well as pay for artificial intelligence services used for the project such as transcription, translation and creation of images that accompany published stories.

Part of the grant will support a panel discussion on Seletar and community heritage that Mr Rustam will moderate at Fernvale Community Club on April 26.

Dr Hamzah said projects like Mr Rustam’s help to extend public knowledge and understanding of Singapore’s history.

“There is so much history out there to be uncovered,” he noted, pointing out that formal research by academics cannot pursue everything.

“Having said that, community research should also be critically approached, and while it may be nice to romanticise these projects, they will have to be subjected to the same rigour as any academic historical work,” he added.

Mr Rustam is working with the community club to have a mural there that recalls Kampong Tongkang Pechah’s history.

“That would be a crowning achievement for this project, and for me personally,” he said.

“I started this project with a very clear aim. Nobody knows about Kampong Tongkang Pechah or the history of this land, so when I’m done with it, people should know. And the best way is to have a physical reminder.”