Hafizi Abdullah.

Thursday 2 August 2018.

Yesterday was my first ride on the ETS electric train to Padang Besar, but this time only from Seremban to Ipoh, leaving at 8.45 a.m. and returning the same evening at 6.05 pm from Ipoh. In fact I'd taken and paid for the return journey on the same "Golden" service that took me to Ipoh, but the scheduled time was 9.30 pm from Ipoh, arriving in Seremban in the wee hours of half-past one the next morning - this morning, in fact. That would have given me less than 3 hours of sleep before the return match at golf against the Tok Sleman/Tok Zaha team. So in Ipoh upon arrival at 12.50 p.m. yesterday, since I couldn't change my return ticket, I bought another one on the more frequent and faster Ipoh-KL "Platinum" service that allowed me to be home before 11 p.m. and get about 5 hours of rest. And the result of the match this morning bore the fruit of my adjustment - we won 30 ringgit ("haram" in Selangor, Tok Sleman says, but this is Seremban and therefore "harus").

Hafizi was a fellow University of Malaya undergraduate I befriended during our 1965-68 stay there. UM was the only university in the country, but the student population was still small, and we made friends easily. We grew somewhat closer because of two things. One, we attended some lectures together, sitting right at the back of the class, right on top of the sloping, tiered seating in the lecture hall, chatting away while the lecturer was trying to teach right at the bottom of the pit. The second thing was, we found out that Hafizi's sister was the second wife of my cousin, Bang Enon, with whom I was at that time staying. But even at our meeting yesterday Hafizi couldn't say if his sister is still married to Bang Enon or not. But the children have been doing great. Two are medical specialists, and one a successful lawyer. If Bang Enon had in fact divorced his second wife, that's his "loss". In fact Bang Enon married a third wife with whom he's living in retirement now. Hafizi knows that, but we don't know if there're children.

This reunion with Hafizi in Ipoh yesterday came about because Adnan Din, a fellow ex Felda officer,  connected us after Adnan told me about 15 days earlier at an exFelda Hari Raya gathering in Seremban that Hafizi meets him regularly at their mosque in Ipoh and had been mentioning my name. Since then, I'd gotten Hafizi's number, and we eventually agreed to see each other in Ipoh yesterday.

As I said to Hafizi, it's been 50 years since we last spoke to each other. That's a half-century !

Over the years, when I was still in the Felda group, I'd inquired about him, and received word that he was teaching somewhere in Perak. I'd never forgotten him, but somehow never managed to get hold of him until Adnan came for the Raya gathering. Once that happened, I was determined to meet Hafizi again.

We had lunch, Adnan, Hafizi and me, at the "Hadarmaut" Yemeni restaurant near the Kinta Riverfront Hotel. What a coincidence. Every time I'd come to Ipoh to accompany Dekna when she had her court cases here, we would stay at this hotel, and we would dine at this particular Arab restaurant. We were all talking at the same time over lunch (it was a good lunch), and before we knew it, it was almost 4 pm, and Hafizi had to fetch his granddaughter from school etc, so I asked they send me back to the railway station to wait for my 6 o'clock train.

We embraced as I took leave at the station , and I became rather emotional, briefly, and Hafizi said "don't cry". I didn't want to turn back as I walked away towards the station entrance. But it had been a heartfelt reunion for me, and I sms'd later to Hafizi and said I hope he shared my feeling. The lost 50 years had covered a lifetime of all kinds of happenings we went through, totally disconnected from each other. There were things that could have been shared, but were not, in spite of the three years of friendship at the beginning of it. The 1965-68 years were a different sort of student community years from today. We are both glad to have been there then. Things are so different today.

At past 70, both Hafizi and I have agreed to meet regularly for the remaining years we have. We agree to meet in KL, the common meeting point. We agree to we meet every 6 weeks or so. KLSentral seems a convenient place, with the train service for senior citizens making it cheap and easy. We could even bring the wives and grandchildren. I'm looking forward to it.

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