Old Boys Weekend : Beberapa Catatan Kenangan

Old Boys Weekend 2013 at Tiger Lane is only a few days past. Is it too early to reminisce? 

OBW13 was my OBW2. My second OBW, sad to say. I’m not from Class of 2011 and 19 years old.  I’m from 71 and 60 years old. It’s just that I showed up only for the second time. My first was in 2010. Where was I before that?

It's a two-day homage to alma mater, a heady mix of one-sided games, grand dinner, rugby, school song, Mr Lau, rugby. And a dandy time to recollect and rerun old jokes and hostel heroics. And rugby.

The AGM was my first, and it's fast, and it's furious. The decibel hit the roof when the constant question of coffers and contributions cropped up. Financially we're under water (what else is new?). Mr P had to become Mr B.  Let's bite the bullet and sell our all-conquering rugby team to a mad Arab. Rebrand it Etihad Tigers or Qatar Queers for all I care.

I'm not sure who's foul, me or the weather. Every time I attended old boys dinner, it rained. Either way, it's a treat. Old boys reunion is a model of equal opportunity: a 60-year old is an old boy and a 20-year old  is an old boy.
 

Dinner and show was the climax, and this time around, it felt grander than my last one. These young people surely knew how to organize. Rain apart, the atmosphere was faultless. The stage and the props and the lights and the sound. Not exactly Montreux, but brave enough.

I’m no music maestro, but I thought the Ghazal fare was gorgeous, especially for a low-hormone audience like me. The Ghazal-pop fusion with a hint of hip-hop was pleasing and delightful. My flagging senses were all fired up. The repertoire romped home with glorious Ribaibaru, Ghazal in Japanese. Nice.

Class of 86 were class.  97 of them stormed this reunion, all clad in loud yellow strip. Or was  it orange? They’re the biggest contingent ever.  Wonder how they did it. (To think that only nine from our class made it this time). Imagine if every batch had the same turnout. We’d have a sold-out crowd of 5,000 old boys!

What else can we say about Khalid Siran? An old boy like no other. A 62 alumnus, he’d never missed even one OBW. His modus operandi warms your heart: he’d travel all the way from Pontian and check in for OBW in the small hours. Let’s all cheer him on. We talked and talked about love, loyalty and friendship. He walked, and showed us how.

The Wangge platter looked like the real thing. But the food station was about one km out, well beyond our reach at the far end. Weak knees and all, who’d want to travel on heavy pitch? We’d to skip Cendol and Satay. Ahmad Darus and Dr Ibrahim had to calm down their wives on the way back.

Empty tables are never a pretty sight. I don’t have the exact number, but I think only 600 turned up for this edition, and the last one, and before that. Some of the Facebook heroes and trolls were missing. Only 10% of total old boys bothered? I don’t have an industry standard for old-boys shindigs, but we should be more ambitious. How about 1000 for OBW14? Even 2000. Ask 86 how they did it, and we’ll do it.

Mr President’s speech? Valiant, passionate, spirited. Except that it’s OBW13, not PRU13. Hahaha.

Finally what passed for music from the lazy and live bands toward the end was slightly more exciting than inter-house debates. Try harder, boys.  

Make no mistake, 93 has done a fine job. It’s much easier to organize a wedding reception. Turnout is a perennial problem. Maybe we’ve to reimagine OBW, the concept, the program, the communication, to ramp up the turnout.

Less than 10% from my Class of 71 showed up. At this rate, we're Crass of 71. I’m equally guilty, I know. Not sure what can really motivate older old boys like us. Now that our age starts with 6, our train ride to Ipoh is 50% off (only RM16 one way, cheaper than luggage on Air Asia). Hamid is ready to transform his Ipoh weekend retreat into Hamid Homestay for OBW. One of us can be the head-honcho to round up all of us. Come on, let's crash OBW14!

Ah, before I forget, Yuzer, your stand-up skit about a fat Kelantanese at New York airport just fell over. You’ve to be a Kelantanese to tell that joke. Your paid-by-Colgate my-teeth-can-crunch-ice routine is more hilarious.