Feelin reluctant and uneasy moving from Batu Road Boys School (picture above)  to a secondary school and   wearing those silly dark green long   pants which my dad bought  at Selangor Mansion, Jalan Masjid India.The pants was slightly big for my size , but I had to tolerate the 'defect' as my dad says that I will grow as the months progresses.

 As an adventurous city boy, I proudly use the public transport to go to Maxwell School which was 15km away from home. In 1973, the volume of traffic on the road is of acceptable level and the buses movement are normally on time & predictable.

My Mum is a fast cook and my dishes are simple.ThenI’ll leave my house with lunch up loaded in my stomach at 11am to take either the 11.15am or 11.30am Segambut Dalam bus belonging to Len Omnibus Sdn Bhd to KL with the route plate number 91.

             

There were others  at the bus stop - girls, boys and adults  as I unintentionly  noticed a distinguished young school girl in the crowd , new and alien to us in the kampong, wearing a pair of specs and on her dress the prestigious Convent Bukit Nenas School badge .We exchanged  glances ,and pretended to be passive as the  eyes wondered elsewhere.

When the white and red coloured  Len Omnibus bus arrives,   behaving like officers & gentlemens,  the boys will let the girls  board the bus first and the boys wil usually standup as all the seats will be already taken by the earlier passengers.And during the journey we continue to look at each other eyes until I board off d bus first as her journey to her school is way towards the city centre.

One day on the bus as I walk towards the back seat stil looking at each other, she smile and said ‘hi , I have something for you’,I smiled, my hand out of controlled went forward and  took the envelope she handed & thanked her.

Inside me its was trembling , frozen and speechless and at  the same time so crazy of her.Later  that night, me and my two elder sister was trying to write a letter in respond for her request to befriend me.

The next day , on the bus I gave the letter prepared by my eldest sister.I will remember this occasion til the day I die as this is the first time in my life receiving and giving a letter to an unknown  girl in the name of passion.

Her name Afrida Ahmad a Singaporean from Blair Plains and she’s staying at Hj.Pilus her Grandpa’s home in Segambut and coincident a neighbour to us.She's here to continue her studies instead of doing it in Singapore.


Then this couple still at the cusps of adolescent, so innocent  became infatuated to each other.Or in other words this young couple started a courtship at the aged 12 towards 13 years and were moving to a puppy love zone.Still on the bus, one day she gave me a tie pin .I gave her a ring  (bought by my elder sister from an lady accessories shop) which she wear it for a long time.

From the minute the friendship begins, my life was full of daydreams..fantasies and all my examinations results were major disasters to everybody except myself.Ha..ha...Abah & Mak had a hard time trying to bring  my frame of mind back to reality so that I can focus on my studies.

During school holidays,she will go back to Singapore and for a while I felt I miss her eventhough a chain of receive letters & postcards with  Singapore postal stamps reached myhands.Maybe that was the first time in my life that I miss someone.Recalling the old feeling makes me laugh but its surreal...happened unconsiously. I withdrew from my  friend, turned into a loner to be carried away in the emotions.Hmmm..I remembered the song 'Yesterday When I Was Young" , the lyrics are precisely related to the event  but I did not have sufficient vocabulary to express to her the depth of the longing to see her. .

Now 40 years has already  passed, I still wonder why she choose me to pour her youthful emotions and feelings  at such a young age which I voluntary reciprocated.I collapsed into a world of  wooziness being drunk by  'first love'. While having a soulmate at a young age, I continue to be active like other kampung boys  playing kampung football,konda kundi,hide/seek,climing trees  & war games using senapang kayu with my friends.Apart from that I definitely like to pee at my neighbour's kebun Pokok Ubi.

 

Like a child having gotten a new toy, the puppy love lasted for few months , but Im glad that as we grew older and matured, we end up became friends and she befriended both of my elder sisters and my wife Salwani.As the clock ticks away and time passes, good friends got lost along the way, I wish all the best for her and may Allah bless her....and til now I stil regard her'a friend '.