July 24: An exciting reunion after three decades of Setapak High School Form Fivers 1981

I was one of 22 former Form Five Setapak High School students (1981) who gathered at Bangi Kopitiam, Wangsa Maju for a reunion after 30 years . The first to come and sat at the table was Martin Paul who looks young as ever. I then came second as the main coordinator of the reunion and saw Martin whom I have met once or twice prior to this. The numbers then became nine (Martin, Ganesan, Ahsan, Ruzaini, Annuar, Zafarul, Tarmizi, Felix and I) by about 9 pm and mostly made up of those who had confirmed their attendance via facebook. By this time we got to know that Zaid, Ruze, Gan Kim Beng, Tan Kim Ping and other who had been invited via facebook event will not be attending.

After a few more minutes, some of us started to ask impatiently "where are the others?", as the agreed time to start was at 8.30 pm, more than 30 minutes had passed. To reassure each other, everyone started to confess that they had done their part of inviting i.e. Zafarul said he had invited Azim and Megat, but two others Cikgu Jagdev and Kamalanathan might not come. Ganesan said he had invited Martin. The confession continued until everyone was placing their patience back in place.

The patience bore fruit as Azim and Megat showed up, then one by one surprises upon surprises as the attendance started to grow bigger and bigger. Hamid, Zainal, Ghulam and Man were the best surprises that night. Their names had not been mentioned, but somehow Azim were the connectors between the event and them

The event was a success and the attendees had a lot of fun and excitement. These are the comments from some of them:

I spoke to Mazlan who could not turned up, he promised to make it when we have it again next time. Eventually 22 people turned up, Yana being the last to show up while the rest waited patiently for him, except for Azim who had to go as the wife had called for him. In the meantime, we shared our memories and talked fondly of High School, other friends who were not present, teachers, incidences at the canteen (Azim with his "sudu"), Len Seng Bas Sekolah, Bas Semata, SJI and High School fighting and many other sweet, happy, fond memories.

Most of us are married with children, except for Oing (Kamarulzaman) who is now an actor in a local drama "Laila Asyikin", Tuesday to Thursday at 10.30 pm. Frankly speaking he was not an actor material, a few more centimeters (probably ten) of his height would be better. But he has a nice smile and can act as either a father, grandfather or uncle. In the drama, he acts as a shareholder. Another celebrity among our batch is the famous sportscaster, Shaukei Kahar who could not attend as he has a sportscasting assignment the same night.

We took a lot of photographs, especially Aziz with his band of handsome sons who sat at another table not far from us. At the end of the session, Zafarul and I paid for the drinks and foods, actually not much just a mere RM177, however what I was impressed with the rest of the guys were their willingness to put in their money and eventually we collected RM405. As the coordinator of the reunion, I then proposed that whatever has been paid by Zafarul and I will remain and the money collected that night will be brought forward to our next gathering.

The renunion adjourned at about 12 pm, as all of the patron of the Kopitiam had left, the staff had already cleared our table, the Kopitiam chefs and cooks had their parting meals, the lights were switched off and the shutter was about to be pulled down. Most of us left except for some who continued and extended the reunion at the new NZ Curry House just a walking distance from where we were before.