I cannot believe it. But it happened again...
Meeting Old Friends:
We were at the Masjid nearby, for Friday prayers. The sermon was as I remembered, but nothing significant until after the prayers were finished. It was a familiar face sitting on the row right after mine, and sitting beside Amin. I looked hard, and I sensed, very strongly, that I knew this side--profile. He got up, and I grabbed his left hand as he crossed in front of me. "Encik, saya nak tanya, nama encik Halim ka?" He looked down at me, and nodded. "Halim Hussein ka?". "Ya". So I had to tell him who I was and he was stunned, and I was, too, but for different reasons. He said that we can talk outside the masjid, and those five minutes taken were a quick series of QAs as we tried to fill in 28 years of absence. But En Hassan, my host, had to take leave, and so must he, but 8:30 tonight was our rendezvous at En Hassan's house.
Halim Hussein, 1977 -- basketball champs, Hamdan Sheikh Tahir, at STAR -- the crowning glory of the 73-77 batch. Together with Jo Rahmat, Reza Beg, Ramlan Aziz and a couple more from the juniors pool, they got them by a mere two points in the dying minutes of the Finals.
Yeah, those were the days...
So,Halim then contacted Mok A (Zulkarnain Md Shah) and Onn Hassan to let them know of the 8:30 rendezvous. Mok A came first with is wife and youngest. Halim came 15 mins later, alone. We just talked ... what else, about us, the guys, and the gone. It's after all, a life thing. Life goes on.
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