..youthful ways..

...as with the ways of youth, friendships tend to be fleeting and short..no matter how intense they may be once...when pakmat came back to Kota Bharu in late 1969, I was pushing 23 and a stranger...but Kota Bharu was too swinging a town and pakmat too gregarious for him not to be accepted by the in-crowd of boys...boys responsible for making things happened  then...Kota Bharu was like a ripened fruit, waiting just for the moment when it would fall to the ground...Britz Park has closed down...but there were a number of night clubs operating through the nights that helped maintained the beat...but they were fighting against an ebbing tide....

.Haji Wan Salaman...a pic from his youthful days..
pic borrowed from blog Ayu The Sun..

...bands, three guitars and a drumset, maybe a keyboard, was the in-thing..kugiran were formed at a drop of hat...but two rose  above the miasma..boys with talent a cut above the others...with names like Suara Kilat and The Streaks..pakmat was part of the scene...yes, pakmat remembers them...Wan Salman, singer and keyboardist, Yusof, lead guitarist, Asran, bassist, and Opa on drums...throughout the year that we were together we were  like brothers...moving around in a pack......and a love for music the bond...

..but all too soon we went our separate ways...life has a way of starting anew with marriage and children...with pakmat it was several marriages...those days of carefree bachelor days were forgotten...when you faced the tempest of polygamy, there is not much time to reminisce your youth...

..but sometimes in the first week of Ramadhan, Haji Wan Salman called...Opa had died...solat jenazah at Masjid Telipot after Zohor...as I hang up, a mist cleared...and I saw a gangly youth a few years younger than me...pleasant and easy with his grin and laughter...Opa was a maestro on drums...though we never met as an adult, I remember you, Opa...and I remember you well...May the Lord includes you among those He blessed..May the Lord forgives you your sins...and mine...and places you in His Jannah...

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