Kelas Dewasa

I'm quietly celebrating the first anniversary of my Kelas Dewasa.

It's Arabic class. This time it's different, I can promise you. No, it's still Arabic language, not Arabic dancing. But unlike the normal, garden-variety Arabic classes where you've to memorize each Arabic word and its sex (male or female, not that sex), this one only teaches you how to translate and understand the holy Quran in a literal way. That's all. No note taking, nothing to memorize, sans textbook, zero homework. Repeat after me: no homework. I just have to show up twice a week in my beat-up Crocs.

This is my third attempt at Arabic. Each of my previous attempts imploded in self-proclaimed martyrdom after two weeks of brain fog and manic depression. I've been holding on to this class, braving it out, and as soon as I realized it, it's already one full year. I've somehow managed to navigate, adapt and finally learned to live with it.

Previously I just read the Quran. Now I can read and (faintly) feel it. I'm serious. I can now declare that I know Arabic. I  can tell you the meaning of Hum, Kum and Thum. Three words out of 70,000 words in the Quran. Some way to go admittedly,  but you've to start somewhere.

But why Kelas Dewasa? Because we, the students, are technically and figuratively dewasa.  We're late bloomers, where late here means really late. I'm one of only two "boys" in the class. The rest are mothers or grandmothers or both mothers and grandmothers. Just like the proverbial roses, we were conveniently conspicuous, and easy pickings for the teacher every time he was high on a sadistic streak. 

It's either me or Rashid (the other boy), but mostly me (you guessed it). The teacher would scream "FAIL, FAIL" before we could scramble up some semblance of an answer. But the ladies,  man, they're always so clever, I mean, they asked lots of clever questions and the way they vocalized and translated the verses, so smooth and dynamic, with all the right tone and pitch. I'd never felt so uneducated.  

Religious classes everywhere are dominated by the fairer sex. My wife attends classes three days a week, and three days a week I've to buy and manage my own lunch. I've no major issues with this creative disruption. She deserves a rest after thirty-five years of sustaining my food chain. But it begs the obvious question of why ladies are partial to religious classes.

Is my wife intellectually more curious than me? Is she turning to religious classes to fill some social and cognitive void that even a good-looking husband can't meet? Or maybe, just maybe, I'm already promised bidadaris in later life, so I can ease off a bit and let my wife fend for herself? Too philosophical. I hope somebody is doing a PhD on this.

For me this Kelas Dewasa moniker comes with a whiff of nostalgia. It brings back fond memories of my childhood days in the old Tanah Melayu in the late fifties. Yes, that long ago. The great wisdom of our founding fathers had found it urgent and expedient to educate the people, and mooted the novel idea of Kelas Dewasa (compare that with their progeny who are now busy enriching their wives).  It took the fledgling country by storm, and in no time Kelas Dewasa simply popped up almost everywhere, even in rural Kelantan.

I was still running around unshod and unbuttoned, and Kelas Dewasa had to be my favourite past-time. Watching the proceedings from the windows, Kelas Dewasa would make my day everyday. Fully-grown adults struggling with the alphabets, ribbing one another and clutching for fresh air, it was a riot every time.

Now back to my very own Kelas Dewasa. I don't have the age statistics, but I'm very sure everyone else in the class, the teacher included, are younger than me. But thanks to Tun, "old" is back in fashion and, like him, I can walk and talk in class with a swagger. He he.   

I know your idea of a Kelas Dewasa teacher is young and sweet Roseyatimah in Pendekar Bujang Lapok (pic above, blurred for effect). Our teacher is not like that. His name is Johari, Ustaz Johari. He's a teacher like no other. To the adoring ladies he's Ustaz Jo, or is it Joe? To him, we're all his students and we're all old. So, he teaches us on a no-fear, no-favour basis.

For some reason, he's not very forthcoming about himself, probably to preserve that Ustaz aura and mystique, leaving the ladies in the dark about his age, education, wife or two. The only clue he's ever volunteered is that where he comes from, people speak English. Yes, he has a huge sense of humour. No surprise he'd call our class Kelas Dewasa every time he'd to repeat something. "Every time" here means many times and "something" is many things. I can imagine his exasperation, so who can blame him. We took this jibe in our stride, seeing it as nothing more than his flippant way of motivating us.

       

Ustaz Jo, or Joe, speaks his mind, and takes no prisoners, if you know what I mean. Everybody is fair game. He'd get any of us to repeat twenty times or more if he'd to. Against this force of nature, my 35 years of corporate culture and soft power count for nothing. The trick here is to forgo your ego and gung-ho, and things will just fall into place.

His hard-driving and military method is a radical departure from the modern-day psychological and soft-sell approach built around overrated Malay sensibilities. His teaching style is founded on the simple premise of "Ingat, Lupa, Ingat, Lupa, Lama-lama Ingat". So he drills and grills us to death. You'd go back home all drained but you'd come back the next day asking for more. Our hardworking Minister of Education should have a look at this teaching technique. Forget Finland. Come to USJ and watch Ustaz Jo in action. 

I hate to admit it but the teacher is one reason why I'm staying on. Please don't let him know this. Let's not allow him to swell and spread with the pleasure of knowing that his abstract art of teaching is working, at least for me. Arabic is no cakewalk. But in his hands, it's fun and surprisingly joyful.

The class is lively and littered with his wisecracks, dark humour and his life stories. I can now count three favourite stories he'd relate to press home his points: his early Arabic class, his first date (aka RM 50 note), and his late friend with a Lamborghini. Nothing wrong with these heroic tales, except that our great Ustaz would replay and reproduce them every other week. By now any of us in the class can repeat the stories with little or no effort. Well, everybody has a weakness or two, even a teacher with so much expertise and experience. I'm not sure whether it's deliberate or late-life lapses. Either way, I guess age has just caught up to him, too. Kelas Dewasa sounds so right.