Father and Daughter Reunion

I didn't have much time to spend with Durra, my eldest daughter, eventhough she is currently on a three-month semester break. She spent the first two months swotting up her books on a short semester just to get another subject out of the way. After the completion of the short semester, she came back to spend the rest of the semester break at home. That was the original plan.

First day at home, she was out looking for a job and managed to get one as a barcode inspector at a factory in Prai. She spent a night at home and had to move out the next day to bunk up with one of her friends because the job was to start immediately the next day and our house is not on the bas kilang route.

Yesterday was her off-day and it was one of those rare moments we got to spend time together. We had meals together and tried to catch up on the father and daughter conversations. We talked about her university life, her siblings, what the grandma had been up to, her job at the factory, etc. She told me about pathetic attitude of the full-time factory hands and took pride in being able to motivate an 18-year old girl at the factory into considering further studies. In return, I passed on to her some wisdom of the elders, particularly on what it takes to partition the harddisk of her laptop. Yes, we did spend some quality time, me and my girl.

She is starting on an early morning shift on Monday, so she had to go back to her friend's place last night. As I drove her back to her friend's place in Pinang Tunggal I offered my blue Kristar for her to use as I knew moving about on the vast campus can be quite an effort. She thought for a while, shook her head and declared that she couldn't.

Durra explained that she had two close friends at the university. They do things and go places together, on foot or by public transport. If she were to accept my offer, she could only take one friend riding pillion. It wouldn't be fair, she reasoned. So, the Kristar stays with me. I was overwhelmed with unexplainable feelings as we drove through her friend's front gate and as we hugged and kissed each other goodbye.

Raised her right, didn't I?

The Man Doesn't Sing No More

Last Saturday I was lucky to be able to attend the Jaringan 11 Hi-Tea at the Wisma DBKL in Kuala Lumpur. "Jaringan 11" is a networking fraternity of the 11th batch of students -- the Class of '72 -- of Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Ipoh. It was exciting and the atmosphere was full of anticipation because the organisers had announced earlier that many of our long lost brothers were attending for the first time after more than three decades!

The gathering was also held to honour two of our Jaringan members who were made datuks recently. One was Dato' Fadzil Khir (refer my earlier posting titled "New Dato on the Block") and the other was Datuk Nasir Ahmad who was awarded the title just a couple of weeks before the Hi-Tea took place. There are already several datuks in the fraternity; a few more datuks on the Jaringan and they'd be able to form a splinter group.

I was more excited in meeting Dex, my former dorm-mate and classmate who taught me how to play the guitar. I still can't play the guitar until now but that has nothing to do with him at all. Dex was a very talented singer and musician who could play any song just by listening to it once. I remember how I used to take a small transistor radio to his place whenever I heard my favourite songs playing and Dex would give me the complete chords immediately after the song ended. All these while putting on our school uniforms, getting ready for class.

There was an inter-class talentime competition in 1971 when we were in Form Four. Our class was represented by Dex, Nasir Ahmad (now Datuk), Azimuddin Mohd Isa and another person who I can't quite recall. A few week before the competition, Dex would sneak to the assembly hall after class and play around with the school piano. The group surprised everyone during the competition when Dex rolled out the old piano and started playing as if he had been playing it all his life. The group won, of course.

I met Dex again in Subang Jaya where he ran an advertising company during the late 80s. I noticed that he has an electronic keyboard in his office. "Music makes the soul tender, everyone should learn to appreciate and play music," he told me back then. It sort of whacked me in the face because I still could not play the guitar.

So when the MC invited Dex to sing us a song during the Hi-Tea, I could sense even the DBKL Enforcement Combo boys anticipated that they were going to accompany a guru, a musical pundit. A moment of silence fell among the crowd of old classmates as Dex walked over to the microphone. I remember I sat frozen, gripping on the edges of my chair waiting to be overwhelmed by nostalgia of the good old days.

Then he spoke: I'm sorry, friends. That was history. I don't sing anymore.

What a disappointment! He is not Shamsuddin "Dex" Long anymore, he even changed his name to Shariff Shamsuddin Long now. Eventhough Kamal livened up the party with his rendition of a Jamal Abdillah number and Datuk Mohd Noor ended the function with "My Way", the gathering would have been memorable if Dex had sung. For old time's sake.


1986 GATHERING.
Back Row: Pakcik (second from left); Front Row: Yours Truly (second from left), Dex (centre), Jatt (far right). The rest are juniors -- been there, can't remember the names though.

Dining Dangerously

Just when you thought it's safe to patronise Nasi Kandar restaurants again, a little girl was attacked in the ladies' room while her parents were having dinner under the same roof! This usually peaceful small town is abuzz with talks about this unfortunate incident in the toilet of a popular Nasi Kandar joint. The pervert was said to be a foreign worker of the restaurant.

The parents didn't suspect anything when she came out of the ladies crying and too scared to tell them anything. But later the poor girl related her ordeal to her shocked parents in the car on their way back. After making a police report, they then went back to the restaurant with other male members of the family to look for the man's scalp.

During the commotion, two of my friends who were dining there noted that a waiter was quietly driven away in a car through the back alley. He can hide but I'm sure he'll never get away with what he had done. Had the little girl told her parents in the restaurant, it would have definitely started a free-for-all.

News is going to spread very fast; the management is certainly going to have a very tough PR exercise to do, again. Not even having a popular preacher as Chairman of the Board is going to help this time. Perhaps the good ustaz should start preaching about decent behaviour to his own workers now.