One of the most enduring theme of one's life as we charted our course in this wonderful universe is the experience of the joys and pains of having friends.
An undeniable fact of a person's existence from the day he or she entered this world is an "addicted" need to have friends besides own family members.
You first experienced this wonderful bonding with other human beings besides the safe haven of your own cocoon at home when you entered primary school.
Even now i still can recalled my childhood friends at primary school and at the confinements of your own kampong....at school i remembered we called ourselves the "secret seven" ha taking up that Enid Blyton's fictions group of young sleuths trying to solve endless mysteries and "whodunnit" ventures, such imagination by us all and we even took a task ourselves trying to solve a case of stolen pencil or eraser!!!
Move on..at secondary school somehow you would end up with different set of friends not that you had totally abandoned your earlier friends!! I have learnt the joy of having real and close friends of people of other races!! Who bother if he or she eats pork while you didn't as long as we can fro lick around at waterfalls, seasides during school picnics! those close friends i picked up when i was very much involved in the Red Crescent activities.
We even went on a historic trip representing Sarawak to signify the event when the Red Cross is changed to Red Crescent...Hari Raya, Chinese New Year,Gawai were times for us to visit each other and a close chinese friend of mine even slept and spent Raya with my family.
Also besides school friends i was also part of few of us Malay boys calling ourselves the "Keehak boys" immersed in the joy of those 70s music(Blak dog bone, carefree...) and when i met again my 'Keehak buddies" we reminiscent of those great days as teenagers
In the UK doing my A levels,i made great friends besides with some locals but also with my West Malaysian brothers . I played badminton for my college and we had great times competing in the local Halifax league and i still kept contact with my chemistry tutor and on a recent trip to Manchester , i drop by at Halifax and met with her, besides her white hair nothing has changed as we talked about those days!!
I also learnt more of my identity and the struggles that we must cherish and as my Trengganu flatmate always reminded me, "dah sembahyang?"
At university while keeping friends with my own Sarawakian and Malaysian friends i did keep tab with some Brits and one particular guy i remembered i am always his minder on football trips to Wembley. He Will ended up stone drunk ..wonder indeed he watched the football game for without fail i had to carry him back (being me the only sober person !!!) as we trudged back to the university bus back to Birmingham.
Why did i write this article on friendship? Reason being the exhilaration's and joys of having great friends did not end once you got married, had a decent job and raised 5 kids....now i am part of a group of friends which we called ourselves the GBAT gang..the group started as a socialising activity playing badminton once or twice a week. It had blossomed into a real close unit of friends that included the wives! This weekend we would be celebrating our GBAT family day...
Friendship i believed endures because we do not make too much judgements of each other and also ever willing to give n take as necessary without a sense of selfishness and material rewards.
Throughout my life i was really blessed knowing good and great people who i can call my friends, it is not the position , wealth or societal status that matters with real friends. What matters is that you have the time for them, you have the time when they are celebrating something joyous eg their son's birthday, you have the time when they experienced something tragic or sad eg the passing of one of their loved ones .
To all my friends , thank you for giving me your time and to GBAT let us have a wonderful time this weekend!!!
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