Alhamdulillah we had a simple tahlil for Shahrol tonight. Everyone had started leaving around 10+ but Izrin, Izzat and Bean stayed behind to help me clean the place.
There were those who were his acquaintance and close friends before he left us, there were those who had difficulty remembering which one was Shahrol. I showed them videos and photos to remind everyone - and usually the common response was "laaa budak ni memang baik dulu".
I hope whatever small ibadah that we do will lessen his burden a bit. Also to make sure those who were close to him remember him well.
I was also touched by the generosity and compassion shown by many of my batchmates - after all, only Wong, Allen, myself and Pejal whom can be considered close to Shahrol, as we always pray and drink together. But the outpouring of contribution as well as messages of condolence gave me comfort that we all have grown up - that it is not about someone you know or your batchmates, it is about a fellow Muslim brother and his soon to be 4 anak yatim and his grieving widow.
I take comfort that when my time comes and these fellas are around, Insya Allah they will arrange the necessary and will remember me well.
Thanks to all who came tonight, and those who sent messages and wanted to come but couldn't. May in our death, we too be remembered and blessed with friends who care and pray for us.
Attendance:
Class of 94 Allen Jita Chamat Wong Ezrin (Imam) Zaman La'ba Aiwa Tungkid Sharap Idzam Harrie Pejal
Allen, Canoe and I had just arrived from Pokok Sena after a brief stopover in Kuala Kangsar. I managed to get the first flight out of Ho Chi Minh City but still couldn't make it in time to see him for the last time at HUKM; and to kiss him. Allen and Canoe waited for me at KL Sentral and we sped off to Pokok Sena straight away, being 2 hours behind the kereta jenazah. I always wonder why people want to rush back when their loved ones have passed away - now I understand. All I wanted to do was to see him for the last time and see his face whatever it takes (which I didn't get to do).
I still feel it's surreal that he is gone. The trip that we took yesterday to Pokok Sena and back today to KL - was the saddest trip I have ever made in my short life.
There's so much I want to write or to tell but couldn't. Maybe when time permits and I am in a better state of mind - that finally I can get a grip that he is gone, I can pen my thoughts properly.
The image of his jenazah being lowered down to the liang lahat, is something I cannot get rid of, interlaced with the images of his smiles and the many jokes we had had all this while. And the many regrets I have that I cannot come to terms with - that I did not bid him goodbye properly when he was here last 2 weeks, that I never buy him anything expensive for the 17 years I know him, so many "that"s and "this".
Throughout the journey, occasionally our eyes (but Allen had a shade on all the time throughout the last 2 days so his were not as obvious as mine, and Canoe had this ability to shield himself, though I noticed he walked away each time there was a conservation about Shahrol trying to avoid breaking down I guess) were wet out of sudden - because that route (the KL-Northern route) is a route we travelled together so many times for the last 4 years.
Everything that I do reminds me of him.
Waking up in the morning in the hotel room this morning, I broke down again - because there were countless times that we shared room for the many activities we ran together. If he woke up first, we would imitate Ustaz Latib ("anak-anak yang baik bangun Subuh") and would wait for me for Subuh berjamaah - or if I woke up first, he would ask me to wait for him. This morning - he wasn't there.
Driving up and down the route reminded me of his singing in the car, of how he used to taunt my own singing, of chasing each other on the road, of the many stops we made at Tapah.
Looking at this blog even wrenched my heart - that it was only last 2 weeks that he was here, all the way from Putrajaya to cheer me up when I was down from something that happened before. And he was so happy, and so serene throughout the night. The drink that he bought the last two weeks is still in the fridge!
Tomorrow is Wednesday and I know I will cry again the next morning - because he was the one who convinced me to put on my MCKK tie on Wednesday - by buying me the tie himself! He in fact bought for most of us (the coaches of the debating team).
And I dread this coming Friday more than anything else - because without fail for the last 3 years, we had prayed together unless one of us was away. Even when he was posted to Putrajaya, he would make that drive just in time for us to convene our "Jemaah Pokok" lunch, then prayed together, then adjourned to either Dome or Gloria Jeans. The fact that this Friday he will not be by my side - I don't know what to feel.
There are so many thoughts in my head.
But the one that I feared most - is trying to make people understand why his sudden return to God affected us (the debating coaches especially me, Allen and Canoe) so much; after all Allen and I came from a different batch. People would not have understood that he was as close as our own flesh and blood (even closer!), that for the past 3 years every single thing that we do had included him. That I had been close to him ever since I entered koleq and there was not even a single period of my life that he wasn't around. That in reality, I was perhaps the closest budak koleq to him in his life, despite being from a different batch.
MCKK boys speak of brotherhood so easily and casually - but I came to realise how difficult it is to explain what it really means in light of getting to terms with Shahrol's departure.
If anything, my advice to the younger old boys (even the older ones) is do not make the same mistake I made because you will regret it. It is OK to actually tell the people you love most that you love them. Don't wait until you bury their body to tell everything to them.
I had never written or told Shahrol, in the 17 years we know each other - of what he means to me, of how much I had loved him every single day and hour I had known him because he had never hurt me even once. I assumed he knew, and I assumed he would be around for me all the time.
I had written so much to all the kids we look after, telling them of our care and love for them that they grew up in the last 4 years knowing how much they meant to us - but I never did the same to Shahrol or all the others.
I wish at least once I had told him, although I knew he knew. But it makes all the difference if I had ever told him.
So to all the closest of friends who had been around all my entire life - Ben, Allen, Canoe, Jita, Fazurin, Chamat, Fadli, Sharap, Awie, Epit, Mpro, the debating team's coaches (Dany, Rizal), the junior coaches (Izzat, Haqqa, Helman, Bucks), the MigDuck team (Epit, Badut, KNO, Joe, Idzam, Mpro, Chibiok, Wong), the closest of friends from my batch, the debaters and hockey players in MCKK (please be gentle with me if I've missed your name here because my state of mind is beyond repair for the time being) - I have loved you for as long as I had known you for your kindness and understanding of my failings as a human being. I want you to know that you mean the world to me and how without you there's a huge hole in my rather already incomplete life.
To Allen and Canoe - distraught as we are, the last 2 days must have meant so much to him as it was to us. That since we came back from the UK, we had the privilege to be the closest to him, that we never missed lunch and Jumaat prayers every single day much to the dismay of people who knew us. I wouldn't have been able to go through the last 2 days without both of you and we should honour Shahrol's memory by remaining this way for as long as we live (regardless of how long that will be).
For every single thing that we did in the last 2 days, I kept thinking what Shahrol would have done. Not even a single thing that we did could have matched the length he would go should we switch places.
I miss you so much already Shahrol, I pray that you shall have peace and get rewarded for being the person you were. Ameen.
My colleagues and I (those who are involved with the coaching of the debaters and managing the career/scholarship programs) went back to koleq twice over the space of the last three weeks.
The Scholarship Workshop was held on 22nd and 23rd September in the very hot Hargreaves Hall during Ramadhan. Kudos to the boys who stayed throughout despite the heat and being 17, I am sure the temptation to skive was very great. Apart from the malfunctioning Hargreaves Hall’s air conditioning system, everything was OK. Some of the boys really enjoyed it since we had a few games in store, some were more confused than anything else ha ha, the rest you just can’t tell.
Last weekend we had to be back again for the debaters’ Annual Dinner and Election – quite an important milestone each year as this is the time they elect the next year’s captains and complete the handover ceremony from the present captains to the next (this was after the Annual Sahur Reunion at PJ Hilton that lasted from 11.30 pm to 5 am, and after I have done nearly an 18 hours in office non-stop, but will blog about that once I get the photos from Fadli.)
The food at Safari was lousy as the boys didn’t have sufficient time to organize a proper one in Ipoh like they normally do (it’s exam time and Ramadhan), but the proceedings went well. The new captains were well elected – I take comfort that they are good captains who will look after the team well and I can leave them to their own devices. We spent the next day completing the training for the teams 2008 – 2011 so that when the season begins next January, we can concentrate on the tournaments and not the trainings.
I’ll post some of the pictures and videos later, but this post is not about the two events. It’s a reflection of the journeys and observations that I made during the two events that I thought was worth sharing here.
My colleagues and I are clocking our fifth year as the coaches and the third year looking after the career/scholarship functions at MCKK. Along the years we have met many boys whom we took under our wings and spent a lot of our time grooming them for the sole purpose of making them worthy of MCKK. I used to tell this to them:
“…..In them we pour our hopes and dreams that for every little failure we have, they shall succeed. For every mistake we make, they will avoid it. For every opportunity that we were denied, they will have access to. For all the things that we wanted to change but couldn't, they will finish the job. I can only pray and hope that in your own ways you will grow up and become people worthy of the MCKK heritage that you often wear too proudly…”
Everything happened without any plans but it stemmed from the desire to see that those who come after us will always be better than us – that though we may not choose the mainstream way to contribute, we leave our marks in the littlest way possible. When our days are numbered and we transcend through that journey to meet God, we can look back and take comfort that we have not sat idle. Life, after all as Lennon famously pointed out, is what happens to you while you are busy making other plans.
Along the way too you meet many challenges and hindrances that tested your patience, without which you would have wondered why you have to put up. I still have to put up with the constant nagging of one individual (a fellow old boy in fact) who for 3 times had tried to convince the school to ban me from running activities allegedly for fear I would instigate the boys to be anti-government and anti-school administration (ha ha) given my rather less than conventional opinions on many national issues (and my involvement during my student activism days). The school administration has to put up with the constant nagging (or to be more precise “interference”) of parties who want to dictate who can and who cannot have access to the boys, let alone when the administration has to defend a character like me.
That doesn’t include the holier-than-thou comments sometimes made by parties related to MCKK. In the last PIBG meeting, a parent who went on to become Deputy Chairman of PIBG (and an elected MP at that no less) easily lashed out at the debating team teachers for our “embarrassing failure” at losing to SBPI Gombak from his constituency in the 2006 UIA National Competition; mocking the quality of our debating team and by extension the commitment made by the teachers and school. What he failed to see in the mirror was that MCKK is one of the very few SBPs now which do not have paid coaches; compared to most other schools (including that one SBPI from his constituency) which hire full time coaches and fully paid for by PIBG (including the often quoted TKC!). What he missed was that these unpaid teachers and coaches sometimes spent more time with the debaters than their own parents (and if his son happened to be a debater, it would have been him too). And what he should have apologized publicly to the boys and the teachers is his failure to realize that the very same SBPI from his constituency won that year in the most controversial manner, as the paid coach eventually judged the final debate – hence the narrow margin by which we lost (but then what do you expect, he is a Malaysian MP after all!)
I wish as adults and responsible citizens, we ask first what have we put on the table before we point fingers. Until then we do not have the right to wiggle our fingers or stick our noses easily – and this goes to all bodies at all levels when it comes to MCKK. Perhaps the question that should have been asked – what have WE done to assist, rather than questioning the demoralized teaching staff; already over burdened with work and underpaid; of their level of commitments.
There are many other challenges. As an outsider, we also have to navigate the suspicion and negativity attached to old boys who want to run programs in MCKK – from some past experiences it seems MCKK old boys like to promise but do not honour the pledges. So it is inevitable that some teachers do have suspicion – though I do not discount that a very small minority just need to grow up!
Despite all this and the dent it takes on our pockets, we went on. The only reason why we went on is because most of the time we felt the boys are worth it; they have earned our presence. The teachers put up with the unpaid commitment and sacrifices because they love these kids as if they are their own.
But what happens when some of the kids break your heart with their misdemeanours or complete disregard for courtesy?
I observe an increasing trend of our youngsters not paying the right respect and deference to elders, especially their teachers. This apply in general to kids from as young as 13 to young old boys as old as 20.
Last weekend, I had a chat with some of the teachers and nearly dropped dead to find out that one of the kids wrote the most vulgar and hurtful letter to one of the teachers – which include comparing her to a Zionist. It was a long list of quite venomous expression of frustration. In her 20 years teaching at MCKK, this is the first time it happens.
Another teacher confided in me how she has loved the school and kids as her own all these 20 years she was teaching and never ever had she called any of the boys “biadap” – but recently she did because she could not stand the utter disregard for manners that some of the boys displayed.
If I had not known better, I could have jumped and said it was unbecoming of teachers to use those words on children. But I do understand as many of us (the coaches) are not dissimilar to the teachers – as coaches, our role is almost the same albeit in an unofficial capacity.
There were many times that I felt slighted, or shocked observing the manners of a small number of the boys I have had encounters with. Even in the course of doing our work with koleq managing these teams, there have been instances that the boys broke our hearts with their indifference and lack of manners. Some of the young old boys, on the other hand, just see us as nothing more than an opportunity for a free ride – free trip, free food, free everything; without ever understanding why adults do certain things so that what is wrong at present will be right in the future (and that task is to fall on their shoulders).
I have to admit that it is a small minority, but it is growing at an alarming rate. When it’s the junior boys who usually have problems, you have to wonder what leads us into this.
At a relatively young age, we are all building our young family. I pray that we do not lose sight and always opt to see both sides of the story. I’ve always believed that part of the reason that kids nowadays are less economical with their venomous words and indifference is because they are pampered so much. They always take things for granted as whatever is invested in them is taken as their God's given right hence the obvious lack of courtesy from some of these boys.
I also pray that should one day I have a child in a boarding school, I will try to see where the teachers are coming. For the meager pay they are earning, it really does not commensurate with the amount of headache they have to put up with some of the boys; because for the voluntary work I have been doing with MCKK for the past 4 years – there have been too many instances of unnecessary heart ache that I have to navigate because of the boys’ lack of tactfulness, indifference and sometimes outright rudeness.
And to all my batchmates who are parents out there, always remember that it is easy to point finger – but never forget that the children is a mirror image of ourselves. I looked back and wondered where I inherited this patience to tolerate young people and take them under our wings, only to remember that while growing up there had always been young people around my house whom my parents looked after (either because their parents were dead, or as a new graduate starting a job in an alien part of Malaysia etc.) from time to time – so we are always the creature who our parents shaped us to be. We have the biggest role to shape our kids to be whatever we want them to be; so do not outsource that job to anyone else.
As to the final reflection of how do you cope and maintain your focus when one or two of the boys really let you down – well it’s never good to focus on the bad apples; when you have an orchard full of good harvest to look forward to in the future. Investments made in people are extremely risky, speculative, volatile and most of the time you never recoup your investment – hence why most people or organization do not want to invest in people. But just like any other risky investments, when you do make your return it is so big all your previous losses will be recouped. The thought of seeing one of these boys grows up to go to the top universities and becomes prominent in whatever they choose to do is the biggest impetus of all despite the occasional heartache.
So I am telling myself and everyone in the team that we should not despair when once in a while we hit rock bottom with these kids – they, after all, are kids and it’s in their nature. Do not despair because our despair is nothing compared to the lost opportunities of seeing these kids growing up to do magnificent things beyond our imagination. After all as we always tell them – what we invest in other people’s children, others will invest in ours.
PPS: We had a small "pot luck" bukak puasa tonight, between yours truly, Allen, Jita, Chamat and Shahrol (yes of 8993 ha ha), beginning with the sweeping of any food we could find at the pasar ramadhan. At this age, the simplest thing in life like berbuka puasa and looking for food with friends just like the old days walking around Lembah - is one of the best pleasures in life. The night was ended with *ehem ehem* (too scandalous to announce here) but suffice to say that Jita has finally beaten the prediction and is getting married soon, so we had to do something that fit the occasion (ooh yes Jita I will be the first one to steal the thunder and tell the world). People get ready - it's another wedding of the year maaaa (and opportunity for reunion too!)
The Mighty Ducks are gearing for a few more activities end of this year and early next year.
1) Mighty Ducks Cup 2007 @ Stadium Hoki, Majlis Perbandaran Manjung
For a few years there had not been an MCKK-level hockey tournament, which partly explains the lack of interest among the boys to play hockey. So one of the first things we decided to put back on the "takwim" is to have an annual closed MCKK hockey tournament for hockey players Form 1 to Form 4 - but to make it more interesting, it will be on the astro turf (just to get the boys excited).
There will be 8 teams altogether and though initially it was planned at Stadium Hoki Ipoh, we have to change the venue to Manjung since the former is under renovation.
It works well with the kids/anak-anak itik as the further it is, the longer they have to travel and so the better for them.
On top of them, we throw in free t-shirts for them.
The result?
Ha ha the no. of hockey players have surged to 58 (latest count) and the difficulty to get the F3 to play solved by itself, as I was told the F3 players numbered around 10++ latest (the corruption problem has gone so deep rooted nowadays ha ha).
So all of us the Bapak Itiks and families are looking forward for the one day tournament and the carnival atmosphere (in fact the families are also going for a short holidays around Lumut!). We invite everyone - all who are around - to come to Stadium Hoki Manjung to be with the boys and cheer them, hopefully it will be memorable for them and compel them to love the game and play for koleq for many years to come. Please pass the words around too.
The details:
Venue Stadium Hoki Majlis Perbandaran Manjung Kompleks Sukan Majlis Perbandaran Manjung Jalan Pinang Raja 32040 Bandar Baru Manjung. Date 3 November 2007 2) USM International Open Hockey Festival @ 14 - 15 December 2007
After a few years' absence from the festival, MCKK is sending our teams again this year. There will be 3 teams - two U18s and one U15s.
We will use the Mighty Ducks Cup games for selection.
Those who are around - please drop by and support our boys.
3) Annual Camping/Teambuilding @ February 2008
We learned a long time ago that a teambuilding via a series of camping and physical activities is a must if you want to build a coherent team; or ensure sustainability of the project in the long run. The kids need to understand why we are doing this, what are our expectations and allow them to live with each other and bond.
The next teambuilding will be the biggest that we have attempted to organise so far, judging by the surge in the number of hockey players who have joined the team. It is not easy to design modules/programs, cook and ensure the safety of 60+ kids in a jungle for a weekend, managed by 3-4 lead facis only.
MOST IMPORTANT UPDATE The only reason we are putting this update is because we'll be going asking for contribution he he. We need approximately RM10,000 to run all these activities so on top of what the Bapak Itiks dig from our own pocket, some contribution will go a long way. This is to pay for the food, accommodation, drinks during tournament, their travelling, jerseys etc. and the list goes on (including medical bills when they get hit on the head ha ha).
So bila tengah bagi duit raya this year, don't spend all your money; save some for Mighty Ducks!
