Remembering Shauqina
By Wardatulnina
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Remembering Shauqina - Wardatulnina
© Copyright 2013 Wardatulnina.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
ISBN: 978-1-4669-3167-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4669-3168-8 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4669-3169-5 (e)
Trafford rev. 12/14/2012
TFSG-logo_BWFC.psd www.traffordpublishing.com.sg
Singapore
toll-free: 800 101 2656 (Singapore)
Fax: 800 101 2656 (Singapore)
Contents
PROLOGUE: Remembering
CHAPTER 1: Zak
CHAPTER 2: Hating Maths
CHAPTER 3: Zak’s Mother
CHAPTER 4: Playing Hurdles—Upper Primary Years
CHAPTER 5: Primary Sports Day
CHAPTER 6: Hari Raya Visiting
CHAPTER 7: Separation
CHAPTER 8: Secondary Days—and We Meet Again
CHAPTER 9: Dare
CHAPTER 10: Rahima
CHAPTER 11: Student Leader Unit—Exco Meeting
CHAPTER 12: Follow the Leader
CHAPTER 13: Sick
CHAPTER 14: Ramadhan (Presents and Sufism)
CHAPTER 15: Cat and Mouse
CHAPTER 16: Losing It
CHAPTER 17: Dismissed
CHAPTER 18: Decisions
CHAPTER 19: Conciliation
CHAPTER 20: Pain
CHAPTER 21: Existing
CHAPTER 22: Please Come
CHAPTER 23: Please Stay
CHAPTER 24: Going
CHAPTER 25: Gone
CHAPTER 26: In-Limbo
CHAPTER 27: The present—Remembering shauqina
To all who have taken the courage to love righteously
27050.jpgPROLOGUE
Remembering
The past is sometimes remembered with such clarity that it seems only yesterday the events happened; only yesterday we saw that special smile, those precious tears, and that special person. It is a cliché oft told that the past is always looked upon with lenses of rose and gold and nothing can quite replace it. Nothing . . .
I wish I could say that this is a biography. It is not. Life was a beautiful journey for me but not as rosy and eventful as what I am writing now. I am pretty much an ordinary person. I wish too that I could say that this is fictional. It is not. Most, if not all of it, is based on my experiences and narrated as seen from my perspective. The characters are mostly, if not all, real—based on people who have come and gone in my life or still form a part of it now. Reality it is not, nor is it fantasy. I guess, in the end, this is something one has to do lest one forgets . . . and I certainly do not want to forget . . .
27062.jpgCHAPTER 1
Zak
I still remember the first time Zak stepped into the classroom. That was when all of us were in primary four. He was a transfer-in student from our neighbouring country, and like all transfer cases, he became a curiosity to all of us. As he stepped into the classroom on that sweet, cool morning, he looked very unsure—he was short and small for his age and had this slight stoop which made him look even shorter. What I remembered most was his complexion; he was darker than the rest of us, with downcast eyes and a very nervous, shy smile. Oh! What a smile it was! I have never seen a boy smile like that before! Foreign transfers-in have a reputation of being, well, slightly not as bright as we were, and I remember feeling a pang of pity—was this boy like the rest, very blur and very dull? Our English teacher must have felt the same as me, for she looked very kindly at this ten-year-old boy. Zak, from the moment he stepped into my life, has always commanded attention. His quiet, unassuming way would make girls swoon and endear him to them.
Did I swoon for him? Not at that time. I was what one would call a tomboy, before that word today has become tainted to refer to something else much, much more sinister. During my time, a ‘tomboy’ was simply a girl who is, well, more of the outdoor type than the normal girl is. A tomboy was a girl who doesn’t mind getting her dresses dirtied by the mud, who would rather play football with the boys than be under a shady tree, dreaming of Prince Charming—yucks! I wasn’t so tall myself, yet I still towered over Zak. I was what one might call ‘petite’, and I enjoyed deluding people who thought I might just be blown away by the wind. They always underestimated my speed on the field, or the power in my hand, as I hit the hockey ball gleefully into the goalpost. I am darker than my sister and have always considered myself somebody whom you would not give a second look if you pass her on the street. People always mistake me as a non-Malay, many saying it wasn’t my dark skin that added to the illusion—it was also my features. I do have a sharper nose than my sister, and my hair is not really black—when the sun caught it at a certain angle, my hair is, well, not exactly black. I have been mistaken as an Indian girl, and at best, a Eurasian. Both of which did not affect me much. My preoccupation has always been with sports. Where my childhood peers, the girls, played ‘masak-masak’—pretending to be good cooks and loving housewives, I was with my male cousins, becoming their goalkeeper. My legs and arms were always with bruises—I was always bumping against the wall or other as I ran down the class corridor, or as I kicked boys like Imran for daring to touch the ball I was playing with. I was rather bossy too—no, I am bossy, a legacy to all firstborns. A bit of a busybody, ‘mak kepo’, should you say. And boy, do I love to tease! Boys would run away from me because of my teasing. I remember looking incredulously at this male classmate who burst out crying because I said he walked like a crab and looked like a shark. Well, it’s true! He still does now, even after all those years! I shrugged, I wasn’t bullying them, just having fun! What’s wrong with having a bit of fun? Zak was not spared either. In fact, he became my favourite boy to tease. I don’t know why. Maybe because I was taller than him and he looked so alien.
‘Did you come from Terengganu? I heard the girls are very beautiful, but the guys are as dark as you!’
‘Eh! Your English is so Malaysian lah!’
‘Why you walk like that, eh? You’ll never hit the doorway even if you jump!’
And so on and so forth. My teasing was greeted with the same winsome smile and a livid face which became livider depending on the embarrassment he felt and the ‘offensiveness’ of my teasing. I would have teased him more, if not for the sharp eyes and frowning face of Cikgu Ruzina, who would turn into a lioness every time she saw any of us even give a boy a glance. You see, she was from the old school, where boys played rough, and girls were demure and smiled and talked in hushed tones. She found me rather annoying and would reserve her most awesomely furious expression for me. Yup! Just for me.
27064.jpgCHAPTER 2
Hating Maths
I had not realised there was something wrong with my eyesight until the nurses came for their routine check-up of us. It was soon after Zak joined the school. There we were, wide-eyed ten-year-olds, some fearful, some curious, and some not caring at all whether the world was going to end even. I fell into the third category. I was just following the tide, going from one station to the next, even yawning in boredom until I came to the last station—the eye-check station. It was my turn, and as the nurse covered my right eye, I tried to read the letters on the white card about fifty metres away. All I saw was a blurry image of white and black prints happily merging with one another. I squinted and squinted, and I thought I was starting to hyperventilate out of sheer desperation when a soft voice behind me whispered, ‘Capital L.’
I dared not turn my head for fear of reproach from the nurse, so I muttered out the alphabet. The voice behind me was loyal. It helped me all throughout the test. ‘Small letter v’, ‘Number four’ and as I grew more confident, my voice was louder, steadier, and haughtier. I smiled triumphantly at the end of the test, but my wide grin somewhat faded when I turned and saw Zak. It was him all along. I remembered being puzzled as I saw