Sensasi Sahur Yengkoz 2009

For whatever reasons, the planning for this year’s Sahur was a bit late (it was all my fault that I alerted Epit a bit late) that by the time it was announced, the only date available fell into the last 10 days of Ramadhan. So inadvertently it whipped up some discussions on the properness of having a “Sensasi Sahur” (as Epit inaptly branded it ha ha) on such a date when we should be concentrating on ibadah to reap the reward of the last lap of Ramadhan.

(Discussions come and go; and usually there are people who would divert the attention and after a pause; events like this go unhindered anyway ha ha).

For the record, we have been having a Batch Sahur since 1995 i.e. the first year we left the school. I was not around until 2004 but the others went on religiously year after year, meeting at PJ Hilton until 2008 when we chose Concorde Hotel.

I was not privy as to why we opted for Sahur as an annual Ramadhan get together (as opposed to iftar at MCOBA Penthouse as practiced by other batches) but I can have a good guess. First; as an under achieving batch we shy away from MCOBA all the time ha ha. Secondly; the time after Iftar to sit down and chat is too short as everyone will be rushing for tarawih; hence why it’s a lot more convenient to sit down for Sahur.

And traditionally the hours for such an annual Sahur get together stretch from 11 pm to imsak (about 6 hours).

As we grow older, we shun the upper class establishment like hotels or expensive restaurants more and more. I was only interested at a place where we can sit down to laugh and chat and increasingly hotels are no longer a perfect place for that – especially for a motley crew of people with different backgrounds, dress codes, opinions and noise levels as us.

So we decided to downgrade to a mamak restaurant this year ha ha and we chose Pelita @ Section 15 in Subang Jaya, the place we gathered after the annual MCOBA Futsal tournament.

I had to pick Bobo at Mandarin Oriental so we planned to leave a bit late. I took a nap after tarawih and by the time I woke up it was about 11 pm. Waited for Bobo for almost half an hour late at Mandarin, I was really grumpy and was an inch close to abandoning him to a midnight cab ha ha.

It was a blessing in disguise because for hours I could blame Bobo for my lateness – I arrived around 1 am because there were at least 3 roadblocks around KL that night that jammed up the whole place.

All went well – we did exactly the same routine each time we have a get together i.e. a crash course on what has been happening on the emails for those who don’t regularly check their emails.

You see, our batch’s mailing list churns out on average 300 to 400 emails per day so sometimes some people will just give up. A few of them employed a different technique in order to prioritise their selection of which emails to read e.g.:

1) Ikram filters the emails containing his name so he reads these ones timely – but this doesn’t work too as there were times people play a prank on him by including his name in all unrelated emails so he ends up reading spam too;

2) Picca confessed that he only reads emails with attachment – which will not work too because Fadli’s emails are all about forwarded emails with large size attachments (and he has lots of them each day!)

…and so on ha ha. But usually, unless you are in front of your laptop each day, it’s very difficult to keep up with the emails. I have been missing out on what’s happening in the mailing list for the last of 2 weeks and the unread emails on my Blackberry have reached thousands ha ha (just to give an example).

Anyway – that’s why most reunions revolve around the mailing list and people just laugh about the most comical and impromptu emails that we exchange every day. The Sahur get together was no different.

By 3 am some people have started to leave. Our jaws nearly dropped when Toy, Chibix and the Winning 11 Gang (see Note 1) pulled out their gadgets and tried to connect to the TV. Apparently they had planned to play Winning 11 all along – fortunately (or unfortunately) the connection did not work out so we managed to stop it from becoming a precedent; otherwise all future Sahur will feature a Winning 11 competition!

Everyone left about 4 am and Aiwa, myself, Bobo, Sheppe and Fadli were the last ones to leave to witness Aiwa’s fourth Sahur for the night.

As always, Epit collected the money and as in any other get together in the past – we always make profits ha ha that contributes to the ever revolving “reunion fund” (see Note 2).

On this point; to the juniors who are reading this – there were a few people from junior batches who asked me before how we managed to keep up with our constant get together. It is understandable that as we grow older, it gets very difficult to organize anything; what with the different schedule and preferences – everyone thinks they know better and do not want to acknowledge the group who takes the initiatives to organize.

That’s why you need to identify a character like Hafiznizam Hashim @ Epit in your batch.

In our batch he is the equivalent of Penyimpan Mohor Besar Reunion who would announce and organize reunions, together with a group of other people. We do not question when he says it’s RM50 or RM30 – because that’s his job (although we always have a suspicion of the profit margin he and Mpro were making ha ha).

But the Penyimpan Mohor Besar Reunion of each batch must possess a unique set of qualifications. Our Epit has the following credentials:

1) Muka tak malu – he is not the type who would stop harassing you just because you did not pick up his call once. He will harass you until you give up and promise the Heaven and Earth to come. His time in koleq prepared him for this – when we were in Form 2; he was stripped nude right in front of the class by Kantoque in retaliation for the same act after a PE class. When your most prized asset had been shown to the world; there’s nothing that can embarrass you anymore.

2) Politician to the core – he is the type who gets along with everyone. His cube was the centre of any vice activities you can think of – from tempat bertenet, to where all the illegal things were hidden, to the smelly breeding ground of Madad’s guinea pigs during school hours etc. He says one thing to this betik; and says a different thing to that betik. With me he is the reform minded prefect; behind me I am sure he said I was crazy (nak hidup ha ha). You need this kind of character – only he can blend in and extort money from anyone in the batch regardless of the affiliation.

3) Civil servant at heart – Epit is the type whom once given an instruction or request; his usual reaction will be “consider it done”. I usually smile because I can imagine how in his daily life as a PTD officer; that must be a bread-and-butter act with the superiors ha ha. But the good thing is he usually delivers very well and you can consider it done (even if he over estimates the budget for fruits by 3 times; but at least the fruits were there ha ha).

4) Bini boleh kawtim punya – All of us were really lucky because throughout the years that we were doing this, Aily (Epit’s wife) has always been supportive and understood why we need to do this. Many times she would join in to organize and chipped in – without the Home Minister’s license, you can consider your Penyimpan Mohor Besar without the balls.

5) Trustworthy – whatever jokes we played on Epit (and we had many, including the title Bapak Betik since he was the only one interested with fellow batchmates back in 1994 when all of us were busy with juniors ha ha); Epit was the same trustworthy person I knew him since my third day in MCKK. He was sitting in front of me in 1 PK 1 and we had been in one form of alliance (holy or unholy) or another ever since that day until today because I trusted him with my life. So when we requested him to organize a reunion, I think he would not hesitate knowing that financially if there is a short fall, I and others will always top up.

I suggest those batches in MCKK began to scout for your own Penyimpan Mohor Besar Reunion from now on; so that you grow closer as you grow older.

Speaking of that, next year marks our 20th year rendezvous with MCKK. We registered as an MCKK student on 6th January 1990 and it has been 20 years since.

Some of us are already hatching suggestions and plans for another big reunion next year – the whereabouts, themes etc. will depend on the type of development we see in MCKK in the next few months.

But expect to hear more from our Penyimpan Mohor Besar Reunion ha ha J

Note 1: These are the hardcore W11 fans who congregate once in a while to battle out with each other at each other’s house; sometimes the points contributed to the batch inter-house competition. W11 was one of the events included in the 2008 Sukanterer in the run up to the athletic events at Padang Big School. I just don’t know why their wives tolerate this but they (the chubby husbands) may compensate the Peter Pan behaviour with good performance in bed – bersangka baik la ni kot.

Note 2: The reunion fund is the most unaccountable and unaudited fund in the batch; with the sole trusteeship in Epit’s hand. We never know how much it is in the fund – once in a while he would update us on the balance. That was why Aiwa made a joke that Epit could not wait to go back for the night to count how much money he made that night that can pay off his new hobby (whatever that is).