ONE AFTERNOON AT BAYU LAKE

Shamsuddin Zahid invited all of us to the Hari Raya Open House on Deepavali day. The usual suspects came. Hadi Endut came all the way from Kulim. Later Datin Sharifah Aminah brought along our juniors (Datin Tengku Maimun, Faridah Hanam and Atan).
Tahlil prayers were made for departed classmates and "Doa' Selamat" was read for Hajjah Rokiah who is going for haj next month.
Pak Daud, unable to leave his goats, sent his sallam to all.
Enjoy the slideshow. If you do not fancy waiting for You Tube or if you want to download the pictures, please go here.

SIRA's SUDDEN DEMISE

Our friend and classmate, Sirajuddin Abu Bakar passed away suddenly after asar yesterday barely two days after responding to my reply to his email. He was amused that his cucus enjoyed reading my blog and he wanted to compile a list of Terengganu words that he felt were becoming extinct and sending it to me.
I have not met Sira for a while. The real satisfying meeting was at our reunion in Marang Safari Park. That was years ago. When we started this blog, Sira wanted to contribute even though he was not familiar with the way the team could post. He decided to just email me his articles.
Last month, when attending a wedding in Kuala Lumpur, Sira promised to come to my place. He never did. He did however talked to me over the phone later and promised to get together on his next trip to KL. I wanted so much to meet him and listen to his adventures in the US.
We all remember Sira as a soft-spoken, quiet person. That is how I will remember him.
Al-Fatihah to Sira and our deepest condolences to his family.

Tan Sri M Yusoff Bin Mohamed

Some of us may have heard the sad news that Tan Sri Yusoff died yesterday. Al Fatihah.

Arwah was an ex student of SSS and if I am not mistaken he was the first Sulaimanian to be appointed the State Secretary of Terengganu in the early sixties or late fifties. I remember him giving a speech at Skoloh Kuala Liba (must be during a Speech Day) wearing a suit and a songkok. He was known as Yusoff Che Mat Tinggi to the locals in Kuala Terengganu.

I remember arwah as a nice man, pleasant disposition; a man of few words and never raised his voice. He must have been a man who believed in life long learning because some time in the 80s when I attended an Arabic class at UIA (in PJ then) as part of a course I was pleasantly surprised to meet him there. He had been in retirement for some years already. I met him again later in a matter involving his house in Johor Baru.

I also remember him as a man who liked "makan nasi lauk kampong". During one of my regular trips back to Terengganu I met him at the famous kedai makan "ikan patin masak asam tempoyak" in Termerloh (Karak Kuantan Highway was not around yet). That reataurant was famous for masak asam tempoyak ikan patin asli. There he was with his family just finished his meal when I arrived. He must have arrived early in order to beat the crowd.

Semoga Allah mencucuri rahmat kepada roh nya sebagaimana yang dicucuri kepada roh mereka yang soleh dan beriman.


Som

AMINAH HJ ROSE

I have to confess that I have a strong urge to post this picture of Aminah Haji Rose. After we posted the picture of Miskiah I thought the next one must be of Aminah. If she reads this post I hope she does not mind. Aminah was one of my favourite girl classmates because as I remember she was really "one of us" meaning she was friendly to all boys and girls in our class. Of course there were the naughty boys who "nngusek lebih lebih". But she took it all and she gave back as good as she got. At the back of the picture she wrote "For my dear Som. With best wishes for a happy bright future. Classmate Aminah". I remember she had a younger sister in the school and I also remember she had a close friend named Fuziah (cannot remember from which class) who lived in the same area as her (Ngadang Akor?). The last time I met Aminah was at our get together at Marang Safari. She married Alias our senior who worked in the Terengganu Civil Service. I wonder how many anak and cucu she has.

May Allah bless her with strong iman, good health and every happinness.

Som

FOND MEMORIES OF TEACHING DAYS

(Contributed by Ahmad Sirajudin)

(Photo by Pak Idrus of idrus.blogspot)

On the way to school one afternoon, I stopped at a road side warong that sells crispy goreng pisang. When I was enjoying them in the staff room, a student came in to hand in his assignment. I offered him the goreng pisang. "Thank you Sir" he said and walked off with the whole package of goreng pisang. I was not at all annoyed with what happened but amused instead. And I am still amused at the incident today.

In another incidence a girl stopped me on the corridor "Sir, I want to be a doctor. I must get A for English" she told me.
"Good" I said "I will think of something. Come and see me tomorrow".
When she came the next day I gave her some story books including "The Count of Monte Cristo" and I made her come to the staff room to discuss the story. She got an A and is now a doctor.

I have hundred of anecdotes like the above. Teaching won't make you rich but you are rich in different ways, in job satisfaction.

POK OD

Pok Od was in town yesterday for another of his flying visits. He will be going home to Kuala Terengganu tonight.

Pok Od shares with other classmates a few of his images form the earliest (the one with the twirly moustache) to the latest.

FRIENDS GOOD WITH NUMBERS

At the end of our school days there was a rush to capture memories, to distill all those happy days into some images that would help us go through uncharted days ahead.

Aziz, Naguib and I did just that. I do not remember exactly where and when this photograph was taken. I do remember the shirt though. It was a fine shirt with an obscure brand - "Lifting". It was green and it was bought in a big shop somewhere along Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, Kuala Lumpur.

Aziz Abdullah (Now Dato') and I applied to do 6th Form in MCKK. Aziz was accepted, I was rejected and sent to STAR Ipoh instead. Naguib went to Penang. he had illustrious relatives there. Unlike me, both Aziz and Naguib were (still are, I guess) good at Maths. Aziz, after a short stint at UM got sent to where most of our electrical engineers studied then- in Brighton, England (thanks to Som for jogging my memory). Aziz was with TNB all the way until retirement. Even after that he was still helping TNB in one form or another.

Naguib, nicknamed "Silvertip" by our teacher Mr. Gopal had his degrees in Mathematics and lectured in UKM.

I fervently hope that Naguib and Dato' Aziz come across our blog and give some feedbacks now that they are featured here. As it is, there is only a handful of contributors and commentators who is keeping our blog alive. Considering that there are many classmates out there with access to the Internet, I would expect more to comment, if not contribute.

SSSS Cadet Corp 2nd Platoon 1961

This is another picture I keep. I was in the 2nd Platoon of the school Cadet Corp. I remember we had a fair bit of weapon training. The teacher in charge (I suppose we all called him Commander then) was Mr. Ghazali formerly known as Mr. Mahinda. He reverted to Islam. Don't know where he is now. I cannot remember the name of the teacher next to him.

Looking at the picture we can recall names of our classmates or form mates. I can see sitting at the front row 5th from left is Abib Mat (Syed Mohd). This friend of ours always sported the Elvis hairstyle which was the in thing then. 4th from right is our Shamsuddin (Sam44), Najib Mahmood, Soh Kim Hee? and Yahya.

The middle row from left are 3rd Ghazali, 5th Mohamad Ismail (I think I called him Mang in the Kampong), yours truly, Gomez and 5th from right is the ever stylish Alias Mohd.

I cannot recall the names of those standing at the back row. May be someone can name them and also tell us where they are now.

Som

THE DAY OUR SCHOOL GOT BURNT DOWN

(by - Mohd Shamsuddin Z Sopian)
I am not sure how many of you remember the day our school got burnt to ashes. I vividly remember because I was already in Std 1, though I was not supposed to be in school yet, but being the son of a teacher teaching in the school I got into Std 1 via the back door.

It was 1950 and I was staying in Kg Kolam about 2 km from the school in Batas Baru, a quaint but very beautiful school made of wood with a few cengal trees very near the frontage, hope they are still there, not being back for a while. They could have been cut down to give way to the school expansion, but the point is they did grow again after a couple of years. I remember seeing them a couple of decades back when I happen to drive that way, before they built new school blocks.

One fine day after the school sports, and I was at the telaga trying to bath, drawing big heavy buckets of water (no public water supply in those days), when someone shouted Fire! Skoloh Sertang Selemang tebakor! I remember seeing my father jumped on his motor bike and sped off. After I got my clothes on, I ran to school in time to see the last bit of the school being gutted by fire. My father was standing there with an axe in his hand. He told me later that he was trying to get in to save the trophy won by his Blue House in the school sports on that day. My word such colonial mentality! Saving a trophy instead of other valuable things such as books and records.

Any way a few days later we were told to go to Istana Maziah to continue our lessons, and we did sitting on the floor. No furniture and the istana at that time was in a bad shape. I thought they were going to tear it down and build a new one. Somebody must have learnt the meaning of conservation. I did not stay in the istana very long, just a couple of weeks later I followed my father to Kuala Krai, and restart my schooling again in Std One.

When I came back to SSSS in 1957, I was made to understand that my classmates had to study in a “Kajang School”. Sorry no pictures this time. I did not have the luxury of a camera in those days.

ROHING

Here is a picture of Rahim Abdullah our classmate whom we all call Rohing. Some of you called him Rohing Tokki to diffrentiate him from another Rohing in our class. In the photo on the left, he looks very scholarly in a jacket and glasses. He now lives in Dungun. I do not know much about the size of his family. Perhaps he can tell us something about that later by responding to this post. However I know that his elder brother Rahman was our prefect in SSSS. I remember Rohing told us that Rahman died in a car accident some years ago in Selangor (Al Fathihah).

During those school years at SSSS I remember Rohing lived (I believe as a student tenant) in a house opposite the Istana. He occupied a room on the ground floor and I used to spend time after school at his place. Rohing had a good collection of comics and whenever I went to his place he would share those comics with me.

After we finished school Rohing worked in the court house in Dungun and I worked in Bukit Besi. We must have met often. I remember getting his help and assistance when I was a witness in a taxi accident case. That was when the taxi I was travelling in from Dungun to Kuala Terengganu knocked down a cyclist who died.

Som

PARADISE

(Here is a contribution by Ahmad Sirajudin who cannot post it directly yet)


Size: The Quraan tells us paradise is as big as the earth. My guess is in term of habitable area, paradise is much bigger. It doesn't have huge ocean, deserts or tundra like earth. That's comforting thought. There might be space for a person like me!

Physical features: Its a garden state with streams flowing with milk, honey and wine. These might be allegorical. Whatever it is one can drink wine without getting drunk.

Natural Vegetation: Besides gardens there are also orchards bearing all types of fruits and berries. So durian must be there too because it says "all types"

The dwellers of paradise:As we all know our soul is indestructible, survives death and continues life in paradise in a brand new body neither too old nor too young. Everybody is 33 years old and there is no aging. Its kind of hard for my grand children to recognize me! Experience and memories of earthly life is retained. So Old Sulaimanian will recognize each other and talk about previous life on earth. I ook forward to meeting the prophets especially Moses to find out what has gone wrong with the Jews

Lingua Franca: Everybody speaks Arabic. Don't worry if you don't know it now. Arabic will be installed in you the way the install Windows in computers

Family Life:A family on earth remains a family in paradise provided none of its members gets sent off to Hell. A man so inclined towards taking a second wife may marry the maid of paradise, the Quran describes as "most beautiful of gaze". In sexual activity there will be no seminal discharge because procreation started by Adam had stopped. Otherwise paradise will be full of babies.

Detoxification: Before a person enters paradise whatever evil thought still remaining will be removed

The best thing in paradise: The Quran says the best thing in paradise is having the opportunity "to gaze at the countenance of Allah"

Notes: Comments are welcomedf

THE GANG OF FOUR

The Year, 1960, we were in Form 4. The place, not sure, may be Yamada. This is about the only picture I have to share with you. But you know something, there were 3 Mohamad Ismail’s in our class, A, B and the one in this picture is Mohamad Ismail (nothing), that was what our Form Teacher Mr Gopal decided. The one on the extreme left is Aziz (bin not sure, cannot remember), next to him is yours truly, Mohamad Ismail and non the extreme right Osman Ali, Mr Bodybuilder. I and Mohamad tried to follow him without much success. What is nostalgic about this gang was the regular trips to Kedai Sumbu, having air batu campur. Oh yes just to update you, Mamat as we used to call him, was the son of the driver of the Raja Muda of Terengganu at that time. If I am not mistaken was the father of the present Agung.

MORE MEMORIES

Part of the 1st. KT Scout Troop at Chendering Camp 11-13 May 1961.

Since we are still in the Memory Lane, former scouts among us might want to recollect the happy times that we had. I can identify our classmates in the photo above. There's Wan Adnan, Rohing Dolloh, Ramli, Sahar, Hadi Endut & Wan Zamil in the back row while Ismail Shamsuddin and Kamaruddin is right in front. You might recognize our juniors too and might want to tell us where they are and how they are doing.

While you are it, may I remind you that this blog is yours and participation from you is absolutely essential. You can contribute a post like what Sirajudin did and will do in the future. If you feel that writing is not your forte, you can at least comment on the posts. Click on the balloon top-right of the post area and you will be taken to the area where you can type your comment. I am using Disqus Commenting software where you can Reply to a previous comment. This is an improvement over Bloggers built-in comment system. The least you can do is to tell others (classmates, schoolmates and family) about this blog. The blog is designed to be some sort of portal from which you can go to other places in the World Wide Web. If you need more places to be included, let me know. I will be happy to include all the links that you need and you can use this blog as your Home Page.

Just remember that the continued existance of our blog depends entirely on you.

MY SCHOOL

Sultan Sulaiman 1957 - 1961 which we all attended was a good system and if it were to continue, Malaysia would be spared some of the pressing problems it is facing today.

1. Racial Unity. There was a good mix of students and teachers. We don't have that anymore. Today the government has to organize events to bring the races together such as National Service or Kongsi Raya. They are not as effective

2. English. Those who came out from Sultan Sulaiman have a good command of English but the same cannot be said of today. Even those coming out of universities still have problem and they lose their competitive edge.

The government is spending millions to bring about racial unity and to bring up the standard of English. Both are important if Malaysia is to function as a political and economic entity in this globalized world.

So those of you who have friends in high offices should speak up about this. Time is not on our side.

Salam to Sulaimanian who are still living.How about making a list of those not dead yet. Som said there are about ten of us now. I don't think so. There are more.
By Ahmad Sirajudin

THE LADIES IN OUR CLASS

These are the ladies in our class except Hajjah Nik Mahmudah. This being Chap Goh Meh, the Chinese ladies in our class are busy with oranges etc and could not make it to Kedai Yamada for the group photo.
With the exception of Hajjah Sapinah, most of the ladies in the above picture are not actively involved in CO61 events. Taherah did attend a few when she was well enough.
Ladies please leave your number with Som (mohd.somATgmail.com) so that he can alert you of upcoming events. Friends or relatives of the ladies above are welcomed to contact Som to update us of the ladies location, contact and current state of health.

PANAH SOK OH

(Republished from another blog for friends who have not read it yet)
Terengganu- speaking folks use panah sok oh to describe uncomfortably hot weather. What is sok oh? The answer will come later. First, my question:
How often do you see your Class Monitor after leaving school? Our friendly and likable Class Monitor was Hj. Mohd Nor Bakar affectionately known by all and sundry in our school as Mat Nong Jawa. How he got his "Jawa" tag remained a mystery. Some of my classmates have not met Mat Nong since leaving school. Some met him at our Class Reunion over 10 years ago.

Thus when Mat Nong came down to KL from Kuala Terengganu we decided to have lunch with him. Only 6 of the classmates made it to the Lake Club on Saturday. Since Mat Nong was also part of my first band "The Arjuna" (he was the drummer), I invited another member, Adnan Othman, our junior, to come along.

(Back row L-R) Kolonel Bersara Shafieq, Shamsuddin Jaafar (School Head Boy), Adnan Othman, Mohd Som
(Front row) Mat Nong, Shamsudin Zahid, Yem Al-Qudsi, TMA.

During lunch Som asked me why my blog does not deal with Terengganu words any more. I did not tell him that the primary reason was that Awang Goneng is already doing an excellent job in that area. When not giving us insightful peeks into the history of Terengganu, Awang Goneng explained Terengganu words precisely and elegantly. For someone as inadequate as I am, it would be foolhardy to duplicate what he is doing.

Just to soothe Som (he is the only classmate in KL regularly following my blog) I asked him whether he knows the origin of panah sok oh. Som, like many Terengganu folks had no clue whatsoever. So I told him.

Panah sok oh is when the weather is so humidly hot and uncomfortable that you want to divest yourself of all clothings. You want to strip down to your kain pelikat (sarong) or, depending on your company, to your underwear, be it a Jockey thongs, boxer shorts or striped seluo katok ( a home-made version of the boxers). It is that hot. But where does the sok oh come from?

Just like mat salleh came from Mad Sailors and ropa came from rolled pie, sok oh was attributed to Englishmen who had to endure Terengganu weather. Being prim and proper, the only thing they dared to take off in the sweltering heat were their socks. So there were shouts of "socks off!" from Kemaman to Kuala Besut during the hot season. Thus, to their Terengganu eavesdroppers "sock off" became sok oh and became assimilated into the Terengganu vocabulary.

I credit this discovery to my good friend Mat Jali, who as far as I can remember, would never wear socks. He is a cool dude.

MISKIAH WHERE ART THOU?

Som sent me an email with a photograph of Miskiah Zakaria lamenting that we have not seen her for nearly 48 years. Som suggested I put the pic up in my blogs which would affect the flavour of my blogs considerably. I have recalibrated Di Bawoh Rang Ikang Kering as a "talking blog" dealing mainly with Terengganu words and dumped my take on socio-political stuffs in a new blog Pokku's Post. Miskiah's pic fits in neither. So I thought "Why don't we have our own blog?"

Setting up a blog is very easy. It takes less than 5 minutes. Updating and getting it read will be much harder. I shall make it easier for other people to post entries or if you prefer, email your entries to be posted in this blog. If you want to be among the regular contributors, I can put your name/nick as a TEAM MEMBER. It will appear in the Profile. Please let me know. Call me, SMS me or email me (kustamangATgmaildotcom -replace the AT with @ and dot with .)

This is our blog, not mine or Som's. Its longevity is up to us. We keep it alive or we let it die. Our Choice entirely.

Now, if anyone out there knows of Miskiah or her whereabouts, leave a note in the comments section or contact Som. To comment or read the comments click the balloon with the number on the top right hand corner of the post.
(TMA/05/02/09)