May i go to toilet teacher? Those were the first few words that I learned in SRYP Krai, an English school in a small town in the heart of Ulu Kelantan. I spent the first 12 years of my life in Kuala Krai and another 5 years in between school holidays back from SASKL prior to spending another 4 and the half years of my tertiary education in Colorado and Utah in the United States.. During my stay in the United States, my family moved back to Kota Bharu right after the demise of my father in 1986. I came back to Malaysia in early 1987 to our "new home" in kota Bharu . Actually, it's a house that was built in 1979 as our lodging whenever we came to Kota Bharu to visit our relatives there and it's also the ancestral place of my mom.
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| Rumah DO Kuala Krai |
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| Tangga Bradley, Krai |
Now, 28 years later, i still have this alien feelings staying in Kota Bharu compares to Kuala Krai. I have to admit that i don't have good friends in Kota Bharu except for a few school mates from Alam Shah KL who reside and work in kota Bharu. Otherwise, my stay in Kota Bharu is always about morning breakfast of nasi "belauk" from kubang pasu market , a lot of catch up sleep and a short drive to PCB in the evening only to see those big rocks by the beach. And with my youngest brother who now resides in KB, we usually take a drive at night searching for the best food in and around KB even to the distances like Tok Bali in Bachok. There are few favorite foods of mine while in kelantan which are pulut ikan bakar Tok Bali, Maggie Ketam Pauh 9, nasi Kerabu Pasir Pekan and sup belut Tumpat. That's the best i can do in 2 days one night stay in Kota Bharu and any period longer than that will be a personal disaster for me. I have never spent more that 2 weeks in KB since i came back from States and until now, my stay in kota bharu can be labelled as a "touch n go" trip, never to be permanent and can be as quick as a day turn around.
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| nasi Kerabu |
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| maggie ketam Pauh 9, bachok |
My affiliation with the primary school mates in Kuala Krai runs deeper than just normal friends. We can address ourselves to each others with our initial names and we can feel the sincerity in our relationship even though we have been apart for more than 30 years for some of us or meeting only once a year during Raya season. No one can take away the bond that we have created among ourselves, maybe because we drank water straight from the tap outside Yong Sing's canteen or because we breathed the same fresh misty air in the morning generated by the nearby Kelantan river that flows 100 meters away from our school field. What ever event and magic elements in the 70's, we remain truly friends until now and this 2014 year is our "5 series" year. We should cherish the blessings that we have over the years, the health and the prosperity that benevolent upon us by Allah the Almighty and the chance to meet each others again in reminiscing the good old time together. We will never know what is fated for us next and for those who have left us forever, we pray that their souls are at peace with our maker, Allah the Almighty. Al fatihah to Bro Marzuki, picture below in black shirt second from the left whose sudden death last february shocked all of us here.
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| Re union SYP Krai 2013@ KLGCC |
I pray that all the Kraians and so called X Kraians who have lived and studied in Kuala Krai will never erase the memories in Krai no matter where you are staying now from Alaska to Antartica, please put Krai in your permanent hard disk of memory. This is the place where you belong and this is the place where you wanna be in the future.
Kalau P Ramlee ada 3 abdul, kita ada 4 Lan, Lan Minyok, Lan Gerpok, Lan Kudo ( arwah) and Lan Botok. Kalau tempat lain itik tak makan budu, kita ada Ho Kee Aik yang makan budu sampai ke Vietnam. Kita ada juga Farid Hassan yang tak lekang tak panas tak luntur dek hujan , masih kekal dengan body lansing nya dan ramai kawan2 kita yang mewarnai kehidupan di Kuala Krai dulu dan sekarang.
Seperti gambar di atas, from left, Pro Golfer and Pro singer Soyee, Arwah Zuki ( successful O&G guy), Haniff ( Captain sekolah and another successful O&G guy), Captain KTM Man Mamat ( can take you anywhere where KTM goes), our evergreen Farid Hassan ( soon to be Dr Farid), Bro Lan Minyak ( successful property sales man and part time Imam), myself, Rohaiza (penyeri kelas 6A and property investment woman ), Malik Nor - the one who built second linked rail roads(also part time Oud smuggler to Dubai and a golf hustler), Syamsul Bahar ( my inter house sprint nemesis and the guy who kept me fit chasing me almost everyday together with arwah Din Hassan), Fauzi Jepun ( one of the cutest among us those days, now the title has gone to someone else - "no more macho guys among the kraians", declares Lan Minyak), Datin Nik Faridah - serial entrepreneur ( thanks to her, the boys in our class didn't dare to be a romeo and only confined to academic excellent) and the one showing only the bulging stomach is Syed Abdullah - another serial entrepreneur, a risk taker with penchant for high life.
You can also read my previous accounts of Kuala Krai in my posting;
http://nikmatismail.blogspot.com/2011/08/perhaps-only-in-krai.html
Until next time, salam semua.
Nik Mat Ismail - Class 6A 1976 , Rumah Biru ( Blaney)
April 24th 2014.
