A reunion of campus classmates recently was a low-key, lovely affair. Ripples of all those years ago came flooding back, and old, long-lost friends were finally reunited. I love reunions, and this one didn't disappoint. Thirty-five of us with a combined age of at least 2000 years, some I'd not met or even heard about since I left campus in early 1979. Man, thirty seven years, can you believe it? I'd to pinch and punch myself.
We first met and hit it off as young undergrads way back in 1975. Or was it 1875? It's such a long time ago. On good days we'd crash the lecture halls and stagger out all dazed and doped trying to make sense of all the fuzzy economic thoughts and theories. You know, sexy stuff like laissez-faire, Malthusian model and Sweezy's curves. People call Economics the dismal science probably for this reason.
But it's hard to figure who's who now. Time really has a way of catching up, and the ravages left in its wake are all too clear. The Afro-hair is now zero-hair. Macho whiskers are but grey patches. Waistlines have all but disappeared. But who cares. We're now all here and together. Weight and shape can wait.
Admittedly we're a group in a hurry now that we're on the last lap. But there's plenty of imagination left. We named our group MF 101, a cheeky homage to our alma mater. This offbeat moniker is actually the subject code for the basic English course all of us had to pass in the first semester. It's close to our heart. Why? Because if we failed MF, we didn't graduate. That's why.
Days of Daisies And Freshies
There's plenty of precious MF memories to go around. The English teachers assured us that if we got through MF we would be able to read and speak English better than any Welshman. Not too many of us were actually inspired by the smooth talk. We had a seizure every time we stepped into MF classes, you know, singular and plural, nouns and pronouns, gender and gander. You can imagine the trial and trauma of switching from Kelantanese to English. I often overheard my two roommates drilling each other with graceful lines like "That is my shirt. That Shirt is mine". University can be a humbling experience.
My first day at the makeshift campus at Jalan Pantai Baru was a non-event. The old Sri Jaya bus dropped me off at the crowded bus stand. The bus ride from KL Foch Avenue cost 30 sen but it was so slow it felt longer than forever. The campus was crawling with seniors waiting to pounce on the helpless freshies but I just strode by with an air of defiance. I strongly felt that student orientation was the last relic of the defunct British empire.
The next day there was a half-page coverage of UKM student orientation in Utusan Malaysia, with pictures, interviews and all. Those days political scandals and slanders weren't yet a sport, so registration of new university students was big news.
My campus transition was smooth, no culture shocks to speak of. With eight years of hostel life behind me, I knew exactly what not to expect. But I certainly loved the new-found freedom of expression. We could now go to classes in bell-bottoms. Or we could choose to stay back and sleep. We could smoke just about anywhere and anytime. We could grow long and ugly hair and beard just to make a statement (pictured below, gorgeous).
My first class was Maths or Statistics or something. The hall was full because it was a core subject like the dreaded MF. I could feel a whiff of sweet air as female students floated in and took their seats. I was stunned but quickly recovered. After so many years in all-boys school, I'd almost forgotten that girls also went to schools and universities. I sat very far back but I could still see the lecturer. He weighed no less than 200 lbs and sported a loud and flashy shirt. I later learned that he'd graduated from University of Hawaii.
Ladies And Hippies
After a few weeks, things began to unravel. I was familiar with Form Six Economics, and I thought it was all straightforward supply and demand. No, it wasn't. As we delved deeper, some subjects simply turned nasty, with all sorts of curves and kinks. It was absolute mayhem when the lecturers threw in strange Malay terms in the mix. Just imagine, Kelok, Anjal, Kelok Tak Anjal, Kos Melepas, Kos Sut, Terakru, Kerbeda, Lompang, Merembak, Komputa. Yes, these were all Malay words accepted even in the court of law. Komputa was so cute.
I thought the girls were really smarter and sharper than most of us in bell-bottoms, I mean, the way they articulated and expressed their ideas. So impressive. They were, like, forever in the library. Maybe even now, who knows. I'd scraped through my form six with only two lowly principals. So the prospect of pitting myself against these clever divas was really intimidating. I thought coming here might've been a big mistake.
And the lecturers, well, they were all young and such good-looking people, brimming with boundless energy, mostly graduates of some foreign universities. They had, how should I say it, their unique ways of coping with geniuses like us. I can readily recall a few standouts.
One was a Harvard hippie and closet socialist who let us mark and grade our own exam. And there was this overzealous La Trobe lady who vented all her anger with the world by failing more than half of the class. And the Otago easy-goer who allowed us to "discuss" during exams. The maverick MBAs from Cornell and UCLA business schools tried their best to remind us that they were from Cornell and UCLA, and not from Hawaii. The Komputa class sold out every time because the teacher was model of the year.
Where there's a will, there's a way, so to speak. Our assignments all looked conveniently similar because we somehow "had the same ideas and philosophies". By then the lecturers had all wised up to our repertoire of tricks, but they'd just look the other way. Thank you, teachers.
Bangi Band Of Brothers
Things happened thick and fast from the third year on, after we'd migrated en masse to our spanking new campus nestling along Bangi hill-slopes. Bangi was nothing more than a jungle clearing. The nearest town was Kajang, which was actually a bigger jungle clearing. But you could hardly see the town because it was shrouded in heavy smoke spewed out by the satay industry. I had a room all to myself, overlooking virgin .......... jungle. You could write plenty of poetry if you had enough talent.
We were done with the basics, so for the final two years we were allowed to major or specialize. No, it's not Ear, Nose and Throat or Kidney kind of specialization. Economics, dismal as it was, has its own sub-sets. We could now actually choose what not to study. I immediately avoided Statistics. A few of us, for some unknown reason, chose Accounting. As a field of study, Accounting is exciting in the way that Kidney is exciting. A close friend had the foresight to plump for subjects without any numbers, like Rural Development or Land Reform or Asian Drama. He found his true calling and went on to become a ranking administrator at the Ministry of Rural Development.
Despite the early jitters, I prevailed and did enough to graduate. So did everybody else. I'm not sure now how many of us altogether in our class, 100 or maybe slightly more. Nobody that I knew dropped out. Everybody passed MF 101. Hooray ! We're all, technically, English speakers.
It sounds so cliched and corny, but, really, I made a lot of friends along the way. I can give you their full names if you're interested and I can promise you'd instantly fall for their cool charisma. It was fun learning together and about each other. For example, a friend came from Kg Bok Bok, which I never knew existed.
Seriously, I can't imagine toiling away on my own without good friends to spread around the stress. Good thing that we were about even academically, I mean, no one could strut around boasting a CGPA of 3.85, not even the library-loving ladies. If you got a D, it wasn't a disaster because there would be like-minded friends who also "scored" a D, or worse. So nobody had any reason to break down or go mad.
It was blithe and bliss all the way to March or April 1979, or was it February, when we graduated. Sorry I'm too old to remember the month. We received our degrees in a glittering convocation ceremony carried live by Radio Malaysia. The whole class, garbed in heavy gowns, lined up to receive our scrolls. When my name was called, the whole country and Prime Minister knew I graduated that day.
It had been a life-changing experience. Four glorious years just flew. After graduation, we parted and left campus. A good friend returned to sweet home Kelantan and didn't get to speak English ever again.
Yesterday Once More
Ah, yes, our reunion. Sorry. So here we were again, back together after.... how many years? Really? The venue (Hotel UiTM Shah Alam) and the setting were minimalist. No red carpet, no Birkin bags, nothing over the top. The guy who organised this should score himself an A. The food and mood were good, and we were all fired up. Some of us were breathless with anticipation.
We broke for a moment of quiet contemplation while our competent kiyai read a moving tribute and doa. A number of friends and lecturers were no longer with us, including my first-year room-mate, a second-year house-mate, and a lecturer (and good friend) who wrote a glowing recommendation for my postgraduate application. I knew he'd struggled to find the right words to flatter an average achiever. I can never thank him enough. (I was accepted. It's not University of Hawaii).
What a memorable and heart-warming evening, a fitting celebration and testament to our lasting friendship. We were way past our peak, we know, but at heart we were pretty much those young freshies of 40 years ago. The air was seething with nostalgia as old campus jokes were retold, and refreshed with new grandfather-and-his-very-young-second-wife tales.
It was easy enough to lose yourself in the thick of the excitement and commotion, leaving a grandmother nail-biting at home. We could go on reliving and reminiscing right into the small hours, but there was no way of catching up on all the lost years. Everybody agreed that we should meet again, and it had to sooner rather than later. A group in a hurry, remember?
Just one more thing, before I forget. We found out during this reunion that half of us could speak Javanese!
