YEARS ago was the story of the happy ghosts of Kajang told, and in old and gentle living spirits did gladness take hold.
But the ghosts refuse to stay in the catacombs so cold, where memories chatter — Yoda-like — in the air so old. They whisper stories endlessly to the old women and men of satay town, and so these poor, living souls grow weary and frown.
The citizens ask this writer: "What may you do, Encik, that will calm these spirits wearying our minds, so they will know they have not been forgotten, their tales of all kinds?"
The writer is approaching the end of time, when far back in years lies his prime (AI/ChatGPT is nipping at his heels.) What else may he say about the dear old town that lives only in memories, which die each day a senior to heaven journeys?
KAJANG HIGH SCHOOL
Perhaps he must begin in the 1980s at Kajang High School (KHS), when he was but a teenager who thought he was cool.
(And who can blame him, for he was in an institution whose old boys counted among the who's who of the nation: the mention of Tun Dr Abdul Aziz Abdul Majid and Tan Sri Dr Tan Chee Koon should send readers scurrying to Google, at the very least.)
In those days the dirt paths of cross-country races wound through and on the fringes of rubber estates and secondary jungles, and many KHS lads did along the way fumble and tumble.
Girls and boys started off near a place where Japanese war tunnels and secrets were supposedly lying asleep, but no one feared a ghost would on them creep.
The older boys ran a longer route close to the bowels of Sungai Kantan, where disused mining sites held water for sure more than a tonne. Some gave up at this point, and broke into a leisurely amble to rest the weary joint.
Few among the runners were obese or overweight. The story of the past is thin on such a lad and lassie, but the future that we live in now is fat with forms messy. Progress.
The boys and the girls swept past a hill under the watchful gaze of thousands of unsmiling spectators, whose tombstones were white no more because of wind, rain and sun — nature's other raptors.
On the final stretch — past the main town mosque and the hospital — spirit could not muscles match. A crawl to the finish line was the fate of many. Alone. Wandering "lonely as a cloud" above them, as Wordsworth did.
There were fewer cars and motorcycles then, but we had fewer roads too. No danger came upon the students, but waved them on did many-a-stranger, even to the stragglers. Ha, ha...
The writer wonders if cross-country races are even possible these days, for much of the countryside has faded away, and buildings now hold sway.
OLD KAJANG TRAIN STATION
THE "iron horse" shook the earth in Kajang just as it did in the time of Empress Dowager Cixi in China.
Well, the writer exaggerates a little, but in the lonely 1970s' Jalan Reko, all souls felt the trains' thunder in their bones more fiercely than an echo.
The road was smaller, as were the homes. When the "horse" roared past, "ga-doom!", "ga doom!", "ga doom!" were the furious words that it blasted to folks fast. Vehicles paid their obeisance at the two Reko crossings, for who would have dared face the wrath of the giant so hot and crushing?
The train station was a wooden structure, but this writer struggles to recall the details of its nature. It was plain and old, not a sight to behold.
There was a large and shady tree around which people let their cars sleep. And the platform was quiet and lonely at most times, unlike the one belonging to its offspring next door, the MRT, in these times.
But what he does remember well is the cheap third-class ticket, which would make today's prices look like a racket.
On one journey to Singapore, which began when the owls were wide awake and the sun was in slumber, this writer and other Interactors paid just RM6.
Now this fare covered the return trip as well, which was long and wearisome and not as swell.
The station is now buried deep in memories and its place remembers it no more, as the Psalmist wrote.
THE PUBLIC LIBRARY
Decades ago, students went to the public library at Bangunan Dato' Nazir on dates, or to study or sleep. For it was cool to the skin, and cool to be there seen.
"Galactica" was what this writer used to call the then three-storey colossus. At that time, two books could be borrowed for two weeks. Now a smaller incarnation of the library in a corner of the town allows 20 books to be taken for three weeks. Indeed. Wow!
The writer recalls families cantering up the steps into the large chamber, wherein sizeable rooms waited for adults and children to with books chatter.
There was no work on cats by Makoto Shinkai and Naruki Nagakawa, and on time travel by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. But others of the age were the rage. Many have become unknowns now, for "all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall…"
Alas, the books have passed away, and so has the library. But Bangunan Dato' Nazir remains till today, home to the delightful satay.
The ghosts are sad they can't have meat on skewers any more. And amused — in spite of themselves — by the writer's archaic and Yoda-like English. But in their catacombs so cold, a certain peace has taken hold. For a while.