SEPTEMBER 15 — Long before smartphones, WhatsApp and secret likes on TikTok and Threads reposts, there was a time when conversations had to pass through someone else first.
If you called someone’s home, there was no guarantee that the person you wanted to speak to would answer the telephone.
More often than not, a parent or (faster) sibling picked it up first, and only after a brief exchange would they call the intended person to the phone. It was simply how conversations began.
One particular memory takes me back to November 1999, during Malaysia’s 10th general election.
At that time, voting still required many university students to return to their hometowns, and I was among those making the journey back to Pontian.
I had turned 21 three years prior and had registered as a voter. The young woman who would later become my wife was already old enough to vote too, but she had not registered yet, so she remained in KL.
You see, there was another reason those few days apart felt much longer than they probably were.
Only a month earlier, on October 10, 1999, we had quietly decided that we were finally a couple. It was our own little anniversary, although neither of our parents knew anything about it.
Looking back now, it all seems wonderfully innocent. At the time, however, even a few days apart felt like an eternity.
That afternoon, we had already spent quite some time talking on the family landline. Or at least what felt like a long time to two people who had only just started secretly dating.
Not very long afterwards, the telephone rang again. Mak answered. A few moments later, I heard her say, in a tone that was more amused than suspicious, “Eh, bukan tadi dah call ke? Nak cakap apa lagi dengan Adib?”
I cannot remember exactly what happened after that. I do not remember whether I laughed, protested or quietly wished the floor would open beneath me.
I certainly do not remember what we spoke about during that second phone call.
What I remember is Mak.
At the time, it was simply one of those mildly embarrassing moments that every young person experiences sooner or later.
Parents notice things. They tease us. We roll our eyes and hope they will stop asking questions. Looking back now, I suspect Mak probably knew far more than either of us imagined.
And life, as it usually does, moved on. That young woman became my wife. We have now been married for almost 25 years. The landline disappeared. Mobile phones became smartphones.
WhatsApp and social media apps replaced expensive long-distance conversations. Somewhere along the way, that little family story quietly settled into the background, surfacing only occasionally whenever my wife and I wanted to laugh at how awkward we once were.
It has only been since Mak left us that the memory has begun returning more often.
Not because it was an especially important day. Quite the opposite, actually.
It was completely ordinary. Nobody knew it would become one of the conversations I would keep replaying in my mind years later. Nobody thought to preserve it because there was nothing, at the time, that seemed worth preserving.
We spend so much of our lives waiting for extraordinary moments that we overlook the ordinary ones quietly unfolding in front of us.
We remember graduations, weddings and promotions because we know they matter while they are happening.
Yet many of the memories that stay with us the longest arrive disguised as Monday afternoons, casual conversations and playful remarks that seemed too ordinary to deserve our attention.
A sentence spoken in passing. A familiar voice calling our name from another room. A joke that everyone laughed at before immediately forgetting.
Years later, those become the moments we would gladly relive if only for another minute.
So much has changed since that election in November 1999. Election results now appear on our phones long before the morning newspapers reach our doorstep.
The two young people who thought a few days apart felt unbearably long have somehow grown older together. Life has been kinder to us than we could ever have imagined.
Yet when I think about those days, I do not remember the election first. I remember the second phone call, and the voice that answered it before I ever could.
Perhaps some of the greatest gifts our parents leave us are not the lessons they deliberately teach. Sometimes they are simply the ordinary afternoons they unknowingly leave behind for us to remember.
* Nahrizul Adib Kadri is a professor of biomedical engineering at the Faculty of Engineering, the Director of UM Press, and the Principal of Tuanku Bahiyah Residential College (KK2), Universiti Malaya. He may be reached at [email protected]
** This is the personal opinion of the writers or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
