Then I realised that it is not totally true. That we can actually go back to where we have left.
That we can turn back to find that things can still be the same. That seasons might have changed but people can still be the same. Perhaps not physically, but emotionally.
So we take time to look back. To remember where we met our best of friends. To see that many of those friendships emerged in the context of doing something interesting or even silly, together. We went to school together.
Some of us learned in the same class, belonged to the same house, took part in the same club, played the same sports.
We might have been in the same and different sub-groups, but we were and still are members of the same brotherhood.
So we tied the connections in the good year of 1982, and some of us broke the connections, not by intention that’s for sure, when we left school after the SPM examination in 1986.
The Big School, from 1905 has been the integral part of The Malay College Kuala Kangsar
The 123 of us went our ways to further our lives. Thirty years passed, and thanks to some of us who took the efforts to trace some others and reunite us all, and thanks also to technology like the social media – Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram – we did get together.
At the moment, 105 of us are in the Telegram group, everyday sharing news, stories, pictures. Personally to me, this is one social media group that has the most number of messages daily of an average 300 messages, or maybe more, I lose count.
The Malay College Kuala Kangsar or better known as MCKK where I spent five years growing up and being educated, has taught me a lot.
Not only for the quality education upon the backdrop of long tradition and extended accomplishments, but more than that, for showing me the true meaning of camaraderie and brotherhood. Being an all-male boarding school, we had closer bonds for having been with each other 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, for 5 years.
I have come to learn and understand the true meaning of good fellowship - the love among brothers. This to me, is the main reason that despite being away and separated after all these years, we got together again, reunited with the same kind of feeling for one another, and the same love towards the alma mater.
The year 2016 marks thirty years since I left coleq in 1986 – the fond name we call our college, aptly pronounced the local way. Although it has been three decades since, the love and affection never fade but only become stronger.
Indeed I have seen many kinds of relationship between men. I have learned through the passage of time that what we want and expect from relationships may change throughout our lives, making it all the harder to figure out in the best of situations. No doubt, along the way, there may exist some degree of fear and denial.
The fear that maybe our choices are not the same. The denial that maybe our adoptions are not equivalent. Then we contemplated that perhaps we need not look to past lives for answers. Perhaps we need to consider looking to this lifetime and what lies before our eyes.
The answers are numerous. Uncertainty and fear, unconsciously lie within human, are inevitable. And for that, there would exist an expectation of an indifferent reception. And because not everyone enjoys that perfect life, some sense of pessimism could surface.
But what is perfect in this world? As we mature, we realise that its definition varies, only to arrive at a conclusion that what matters most is the passion within us. This to me, is what is unique about MCKK.
The pride, passion, and tradition that we share – all intertwined like vines on a big oak tree. So why do we ever think of the ways to end what we started, or to restart what we ended, when nothing has ever ended.
And so it has been said that we may be far, separated by distance, but we see the same sun. I knew then and I know better now that the bond that binds us never breaks because the spirit lives on.
To be continued...
