They will walk (or had walked) the gates for the last time, looked back and cried (well, some of them. Most of us did cry like hell when it was our turn almost 16 years ago). I didn't know why we cried so badly the last time.
Perhaps the realisation that we would not meet each other for a very long time (that was proven wrong. We see each other all the time, except one or two who had gone into M-I-A status. But our lives revolve around our batch - something of a bliss and nightmare to the wives. Bliss because at least they know the company the husbands are with. Nightmare because these damn husbands just refuse to grow up, ha ha).
Perhaps because we were very sad to leave the school (ha ha I think even this one was proven wrong. It wouldn't be long before each batch that leaves the school forgets the promises they made about going back and making the school proud. We all get sucked up into the rat race).
Perhaps because we had to say good-bye to the special someone (yeah, but you did this way much earlier before SPM started and the juniors left. And the concept of "betik" was too clandestine and considered an aberration back then to have manifested itself so publicly on the last day we left the school).
So why did we cry?
I don't know, I guess we were just boys.
I truly missed MCKK and the batchmates in the first year I left, although the missing part was ameliorated by a bunch of batchmates who went to the same school/UK with me for A-Levels. But it did take a while before I could get my focus on something else. Of course, once you get your eyes on something else, you never looked back.
I see the same thing with each batch that leaves MCKK in the last few years.
In the first few months, they cannot detach from MCKK. They'll find every excuse to be back. They'll commit to anything, even sleeping in surau just to be a part of an MCKK team (he he).
Then, they'll get on with their scholarship/college application and all will apparate (to use HP's lingo) in a second. They get sucked into the new thing so quickly and they will move on very quickly too.
Such is the inert nature of human beings. We resist change. Change will come at a heavy price and it will be resisted at all cost initially, because we fear the unknowns. We prefer the milieu we are familiar with.
But change will come nevertheless, it's a journey upon which this Earth has been ordained.
Observing a bunch of MCKK boys leaving the school year in and year out, I am convinced that even the boys in a remote school in Kuala Kangsar observes this rule.
To the boys of Class of 2010, just as I wished every batch before you - may you do justice to the heritage you carry. You owe it to the heritage to build upon it and bring new heights to everything we have stood for. Be the change you want the others to be, lest we forget what a folly it was to sing it from out heart each Monday morning! Good luck.
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