Monday, May 26, 2008

Friend Friend Where Art Thou ?

I have dialed almost 10 people's phone numbers trying to speak to my long lost friends.
Funny too that not only did i get some horrible responses from unidentified people on the other side of the line, which makes me wondering too why on earth am i indulging in such an annoying engrossment of my past time that promised me nothing worthy, but i also had to face with strange human voices that comes along with insensitive remarks and crude answers to top it all !

Alas ! tonight without much difficulty, due to the familiar and almost perfect name list that was featured on the internet of the phone book directory that matched my findings,i specially had the pleasure of speaking to my very old classmate in secondary two as a start.He was in my class for 1 year and incidentally he was a very close by neighbour, in class that is,as my desk was just behind where he was seated and it was also next to the large sliding window where you can also have a good view of the main corridor outside the classroom on the 1st floor of the 2 story school building. This was interesting because the school has a very long corridor where one can run or walk almost as far as the eyes can see from one end to the other. The lower secondary classes were located nearer the school hall and the library as well as the science laboratories while the other end was meant for the preuniversity classes and upper secondary classes and facing the school field. The school principal's room laid smack in the middle of the building. We had the traditional school bell that rang at every hour to signify the start or end of each class curriculum until it broke into 2 one fine day and soon replaced by an electronic somewhat "irritating" alarm effect after that as a marked progress towards the use of present time technology, so to speak. I wondered what really happened to the historic bell's whereabouts now. It could have been a part of a great museum masterpiece collection.

Adam was a typical Malay student who is bright,witty and wonderfully cheerful. He also had a brother who is a senior in the same school. A little lean with a slight wavy hair in front and a mole near his pouty mouth, tanned skinned Adam was very active in his uniformed group i.e. the NPCC as well as in athletics. I managed to call Adam through the Singapore Phone book directory after rummaging through so many names and numbers all for the sake of relocating long lost chums of years gone by. When i got through Adam's number in Jurong,his sister picked-up the call with so much of apprehension and doubts and began to query my reasons for asking about Adam. A minor interrogation of sorts anticipated as she would be wondering why at this particular time, his old friend from Malaysia will be looking for him after all these years. After a little bit of convincing and coaxing and to my near exasperation that came with it, she finally decided to impart the information of his residence number and i started to get down calling and tracking Adam immediately soon after that; without much hesitation of course.
As usual, the first few seconds of conversation did not ring a bell for Adam as far as my voice was concerned. I had no choice but to succumb into revealing my true identity soon afterwards, so that the introductory dialogue wasn't intimidating him in any way, especially when it was already a little obscure in the evening and to make matters worse ,to receive such a strange inquiry about self identity from a stranger.

I learned that Adam has "retired" from the police force and that he is on contract now for his current services.I suppose the government has a good pool of recruits and officers alike in not wanting to extend the retirement age of the police force personnel in the republic. He is living happily with his wife and three children. While speaking to him, my mind is still visualising him as in his old days, not someone who he is suppose to be now. It was hard to imagine anything that i have not seen yet, his current face that's it, as his voice was still the same as before way back when.
It was easy to work on this blog and singling Adam out as the main cast of players because he was such a happy lad in his school days. He could sing and he could dance too and he was what you would want to call a "cheerleader" person. His antics would cheer any person who is facing the blues in the class during any quiet and depressive hour. His laughter was indeed funny so much so that it sounded irritatingly "shrieky" and at an almost high pitched tone.

He was also a good sports person!And i remembered he won some trophies and medals due to his athletic achievements for representing the BLACK HOUSE(Lee Kong Chian House). Suddenly it came across my mind that i realised Adam too was my former school mate in primary 6. See how the memory lapsed !!!!

Adam's late father was also in the police force and i can now realise why he chose that field of occupation for himself after all these years. As an ex NCC police cadet or Red Cross member, his experience would have enabled him to pursue a great career later on in in his life. The NCC Police unit was a very popular organisation in school at that time. Even until today, its claim to successful achievements and awards at national level garnered great admiration for its student members and teachers in charge alike. Such was the pride and profile of this uniformed group which Adam is part history of.

Adam humorously told me that he was almost worried to have received my call; as if someone was making investigations and probing to recover some bad debts or something in its pretext.I thought for a moment realising that in this modern day of communication accessibility and possibilities, the thought of making calls out of your vast area and distance is very much unimportant and far less valueless. A "lost" person suddenly became easily recovered by means of the internet quick connections and it seemed like a miracle for all of us to be able to pursue your far fetched friends and make contact again at almost at the touch of a button on the computer if you so desired to make that happened. It was like a dream come true minus the magic.

But then again, not much people will go through great extents for such a memory recovery pursuits of sorts. Adam told me that as we grew older,the fuss about re-communications and re living the past thoughts of one's life is almost an assurance that we are getting of age . I was not bashful or intimidated about the philosophical remarks made by Adam but I got great relief and utmost satisfaction in overcoming the hurdle and successfully winning this challenge of locating my old school buddy tonight. I still remembered speaking to Adam about 11 or 12 years ago when i was working at the ITT Sheraton Asia Pacific Sales office.Again that short spoken communication was akin to touching base with some people i knew soon after my move to Kuala Lumpur.
I told Adam that i was keeping a blog as part of my new hobby and that tonight's conversation would be part of that new subject in the posting. And chat we did for the next 20 to 30 minutes or so, blathering and exchanging moments lost in time.

So i asked Adam if he had kept in touch with his other contemporaries of late or in the past few years. He bemusedly mentioned Halmi, Amirullah and some other guys, whom he had met at Geylang and at a wedding function respectively.I told him that i was contemplating to pay him a visit one of these days. An interesting story unfolded when Adam told me that his youngest son is also attending the same school as him now although his son never knew where his father attended his.It took me by surprise as to why a parent like him did not disclose that sort of information which was regarded as something casual and informal to share. I suppose that was Adam's prerogative.

So you can look for a book in the libary, buy a DVD to see your favourite old movies but how do you locate your old buddies ? Look into the telephone directory and start locating them and you will be surprised how easy it was to find them or at least one of them. I had the happiest moments of my life through such discoveries and attempts. It was not too late for such a verbal reunion even though we cannot see how the other person looked like after all these times. It was absolutely a healing process for the minds and hearts of sorts. Something we can cherished so that we will not regret in the later part of our lives when it will be too much too late to rekindle old friendships when some of us is gone forever.

Just in case, if you are wondering why the Carpenter's RAINY DAYS & MONDAYS song is featured here is because Adam sang this song in class when i told him that it was my favorite song too. Please click on the music video bar on your right to listen to 2 versions of that hit song !!!! What angelic voices !! It was interesting to know that Adam could sing while doing his class assignment at the same time, but of course when the teachers are not around then and thats for sure !

Rainy Days And Mondays

Words and Music by: Paul Williams & Roger Nichols

Talkin' to myself and feelin' old
Sometimes I'd like to quit
Nothing ever seems to fit
Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

What I've got they used to call the blues
Nothin' is really wrong
Feelin' like I don't belong
Walkin' around
Some kind of lonely clown
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

Funny but it seems I always wind up here with you
Nice to know somebody loves me
Funny but it seems that it's the only thing to do
Run and find the one who loves me.

What I feel has come and gone before
No need to talk it out
We know what it's all about
Hangin' around
Nothing to do but frown
Rainy Days and Mondays always get me down.

Liner notes

from The Singles 1969-1973 written by Digby Diehl

The conventional manner in which new material is supposed to come to a hit recording group is by the submission of demonstration records -- recordings often just sung by the songwriter with piano accompaniment in order to audition the basic tune. Out of hundreds of "demo" records that Richard has received, Rainy Days is the only song obtained in this manner that he has ever selected to record for single release. Recorded early in 1971, Rainy Days was included on the Carpenters album. Released a s asingle in April of that year, it became their fourth consecutive million-seller.