27 July 2016
When I was 15 years old, the year was 1982. I was in Form 3A at one of the prestigious boarding school in Malaysia i.e. Sekolah Tuanku Abdul Rahman (STAR) in Ipoh. When you were in Form 3, basically you have already survived the ‘torturous' year of joining the STAR ‘house system’, where every boy since Form 2 will join their boarding hostels which are named after colours Green, Blue, Black, Red, White and Yellow, together with other seniors students of Form 3, 4 and 5. Being the most junior among the hostel residents, most if not all of the cleaning and tidying up chores in the hostels will be done exclusively by the Form 2 students, which sometimes can be a bit torturous for the faint hearted.
The year was 1982, Tun Mahathir (Tun M) was just a year in his premiership. It was about seven months earlier i.e. on the 1st January 1982, Tun M changed the time of Semenanjung Malaysia to be 30 minutes ahead and hence matching the time of East Malaysia. Tun M leadership and thinking was so far ahead of time (unlike the current kleptocrats, who only thought of bankrupting the nation) until even Singapore elected to follow suit and change its timing.
At 15, I was beginning to understand things. I understood that I have my strengths and weaknesses. Let's start with weaknesses first. I came from a kampung, albeit not coming from a well to do family. Even though my dad was a teacher, probably because I was the sixth of the family and maybe my older siblings required more attention than me, and I was a bit more independent, then I felt that I was left out to do things on my own. Imagine, that the Biasiswa Kecil Persekutuan III (BKP III) which entitled me for a RM30 per month pocket money from the government, was used to pay my school fees. What about new clothes, what about sport shoes, what about other things that a 15 year old boy at a boarding school needs, like a new pair of glasses. What about exercise books now that SRP is coming. Off course, extra tuition class was out of question.
No problem, I said to myself. It’s not a problem. It should not be a problem. I knew that I was smart enough, and having other smart people around helped me a lot. Just using textbooks (skim pinjaman buku teks, to be exact) and by studying together with groups of friends, I managed to get 7As in my SRP (as a result of too much of lingo dwindling via Dewan Sastera that got my BM a 'C') and becoming among the top 20 in my batch, and even entitled me to be considered as a recipient of PETRONAS scholar (that’s another story). This small success gave me a lot of confidence in the coming years.
At school you have to be active in sports and co-curricular activities. When I was in Form 2, I was with the U-14 school hockey team. Maybe because I was not so good at it, the coach normally put me as a reserved, i.e. coming only during the second half of the game. When I was 15, at Form 3 which was also termed as ‘the senior of the juniors’, I said to myself that I just cannot let this to happen. I needed some glory to myself and cannot be just playing as a second fiddle. I also cannot see myself to play rugby where STAR is famous for, as I had a very bad eyesight and had to wear glasses all the time. I can’t play football as I’m totally ‘kaki bangku’. I can run a bit, but not good enough to represent school, even though I did represent my White House.
So I quit hockey, and I joined the school cricket team. For whatever reason, the school cricket team is only joined by boys who don’t know how to play other sports. Maybe that’s true in some sense, but who cares. I thought that, maybe I can change things. Maybe do something small, but doing it great. I quickly find myself at ease with cricket. It’s actually more than a game. It teaches you about life, about camaraderie, about sportsmanship, and mostly about being a gentleman. Most importantly, cricket is played in the Commonwealth countries like the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Maybe, if I play cricket now, I could play it later if I managed to further my study in those countries.
From then onwards, I make it a point that I wanted to go overseas and further my study and try to get the government scholarship and play cricket as well. This also means that I have to be good both in my study and cricket. Being an ex hockey player, I naturally can hit the ball. However, hitting a ball with cricket bat is totally different than with a hockey stick, which one tends to hit the ball across. Whereas, in cricket the batsman is encouraged to hit the ball with a straight bat as crossing the bat might cause the ball to go up resulting it to be caught and you are out. Moreover, the chances of missing the ball and getting out via LBW (leg before wicket) are much higher. When I was 15, I was made the U-15 Cricket Captain, and lead the school team to play with other schools in Perak.
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| STAR U-15 Cricket Team Yours truly, the Captain, front row 2nd from the right |
I can hit the ball quite hard, however I’m not quite a patient guy. Normally I bat at number 6 or 7 position which is normally reserved for an all rounder, i.e. for those who can bat and bowl. However, when comes to bowling the cricket ball, that was my real passion. Normally I was the opening bowler pair and bowl quite viciously. As my stature is not tall, my bowling style was more in the swinging action rather than hitting the deck. If the ball has some shine on it, I could make it swing and deceived the batsman. In a cricket match, normally I will take 2 to 3 wickets at a regular basis and at a very economical rate. I was good enough to be absorbed in the School U-20 Cricket Team, when I was 15. The team went on to secure runners up position in the coveted inter-SBP Datuk Hamzah Abu Samah cup in 1982. A year later I was already in the Perak U-16 Cricket team playing at the national level tournament in Kuala Lumpur.
When I was 15, I realised that a boy needs to have friends other than boys. I have none. Nevertheless, I had an on-and-off long distance mail relationship with my primary schoolmate. She was also in a boarding school somewhere in Seremban. To be honest, she was my first childhood crush. She was very beautiful and sweet. This on-and-off letter writings were nothing special. It wont be another five years later when I actually had the opportunity to meet her at a KFC restaurant in Sitiawan, before I went to UK and she went to US (that’s another story). There were also one or two other pen pal friends once in while. Mostly we wrote about boring stuffs about the coming SRP and exchanging cyclostyled exam papers.
When I was 15, there were some good songs playing on the radio. Songs like ‘Who Can It Be Now’ by Men At Works, and ‘Waiting A Girl Like You’ by Foreigner as well as ‘Rosanna’ by Toto were some of the memorable songs that you could asked the music shop to record them onto a personalised cassette tape. There were other songs like ‘Hard To Say I’m Sorry’ by Chicago, ‘Physical’ by Olivia Newton-John and the Rocky theme song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ by Survivor that could move the heart of a 15 year old boy. There were some memorable Malay songs as well.
When I was 15, beside studying for SRP and playing cricket for school, I was also in the Cadet Corps. I was not really keen to be the best but I was good enough to be part of the squad. Every Saturday morning the squad will practice marching at the basketball court as well as the nearby PLAW (territorial army) camp. We were given cadet corps uniform and marching boots and green felt baret. Joining the cadet corps have instilled a good sense of discipline within me, in addition to ensure that I could walk properly like a man should walk. Previously, when I was in Form 2, my squad and I attended a 2 week camp at PLAW where we learnt everything about the army life including marching, shooting live bullets with the SLR rifles, eating our rations as well as dinner at the mess hall, having our hair shortened and sleeping less as we have to wake up really early in the morning.
When I was 15, whenever there’s a school holiday I will either went on a school trip or went back to my kampung in Lekir, Sitiawan. Normally, I will clean up the big wooden house everyday, sweeping the dust and cobwebs, and wiping the window panes, mopping the 'tikar getah' as well as ensuring that the house courtyard was free from falling leaves. I enjoyed reading and have read all that can be read in the house, especially the 24 volumes of Grolier encyclopaedia and all the older Time and Newsweek magazines as well as all the Dewan Bahasa, Dewan Sastera and Dewan Masyarakat back issues. I sometimes rode my bicycle to visit my late grandaunt Opah Ngah who lived alone. She was having a bit of mental health condition, but she was very nice to me. I remembered that I sometimes did my study in her house.
When I was 15, I did many things that a boy of that age could do. Today 15 years ago on 27th July 2001 my son Waseem Akram was born in this world. He is experiencing an autistic syndrome which severely stops him from having the ability to do what I did when I was 15. In addition to his severe autistic condition, he is also enduring nephrotic syndrome, a condition where his kidney losing protein which could lead to edema. Imagine a 15 year old boy who is living in his own world, could not talk properly or walk normally and suffering a serious kidney problem and had to continuously take prescribed steroids to control his conditions. He spends his days streaming video clips on Youtube, talking gibberish mostly to himself and watching favourite cartoon shows on tv. However, he is indeed an ‘anak syurga’. He smells like a baby, and everything about him is pure and untainted.
All praise to Almighty Allah for giving me Waseem Akram. He is indeed a blessing to me and my family. Even though he was not like me when I was 15, but he is what he is and all of us already accepted that.
May Almighty Allah saves us all and grant us His infinite Mercy and Kindness. Amin.
