Eimranians 99/00

From left Jaha, I.K, ME, Serip, Pengetua, Talahah, Lijid, Zarif, Taufiq, Pok Yie, Segho and Shah

Yeah that's me in the picture and I know my hairdo sucked .... It's been awhile since the last time I talked to any of my ex-classmates ..the boys I mean .. except for serip, we keep in touch almost a couple of times a week. Feels like a decade ago was the moment we last spent together.

I still remember during the orientation week we had to perform a dikir barat (DB)with some dudes from other classes but the majority of the boys went to a Pengakap camping trip. So, at that time we only have like 10 dudes and I was the only non-Kelantanese/T'ganu in the DB team. Serip poser Kelantanese nak buat camne.

Imagine performing a DB performance with 10 boys. Sorang tukang karut, sorang tukang ketuk baldi dan sorang tukang goncang bende yg ade bijik sagu/beras tuh. I forgot the name. And we were left with 7 to sing the song.

Anyhew, after the Kelantanese dudes wrote the DB song, yes they wrote the song themselves .. power tak ingat .. it was time for everybody to start singing. The first time we practiced singing the song everybody forgot that there was a non-kelantanese/T'ganu dude in the team who neither has any experience performing DB nor has he seen a DB performance.

Kat skola2 KL mane standard perform DB .. nanti bebudak modern nih cakap kite conservative or whuteva. Kalau performance kat Melawati high school pon panggil MOB, that's Melawati Old Boys yang ade nyanyi lagu skali ngan Too Phat tuh .. I forgot the name of the song though.

Back to the DB performance, realizing that I don't have prior experience bout DB (Serip berlagak cam die born and raise kat Kelantan), Pok Yie suddenly said " Ho bado, cubo mu teghay nyanyi sikik .. mu soghe jah nyanyi .. nok pastike sebute mu betul deh .. mu buke oghe Kelate ke..." I was like WTF??? Natang mende mamat nih cakap satu bende aku x paham. Serip laa jugak being the Kelantan poser that he is .. translated for me.

Again I was like WTF, camne nak nyanyi nih. Did forget to mention that the song is in kecek kelate? Yes!! I was in a room surrounded by strangers who want me to perform something that I have never seen, and sing a song from a language I have never heard before.

Everybody was staring at me .. including Serip(budget Kelantan abis aaaa) !#@$!@#$! aaAAAaa!!! So, I started singing .. the second I finished the first line, everybody was laughing at me again including Serip (Dok Subang nak berlagak cam org Kelantan lak). I was so freaking annoyed. They were ROFL their asses off. Panas gile. I was like mmg garenti aku kene pulau ngan bebudak nih.

But as a matter of fact, they did teach me how to pronouce every word even though there were some laughs in the way. I had to practice really hard coz those words I have never heard before in my entire life. I was like learning a new language and I had to sing in that language in a week. It was tough memorizing it but I made through come the performance night.

Even though we only had 10 dudes, others had between 15 to 20, our performance was awesome primarily because we only had one non-Kelantanese in the group, me. And the good thing bout it was there were 5 groups performing and we got 3rd. How great was that? With 10 guys, we defeated 2 other groups. Bangge aa jugak kan. Because the amount of time I spent learning the song until now I can still remember the chorus. Yes I can still remember it even after 7 years and here it goes:

emareseng Pengkale Chepo, hey!,
Maktak Bitagha tahung pertamo,
Cikgu-cikgu hebak berpengalame,
Banyok ghage dale pelajaghe, hey!,

Apo kaba cikgu-cikgu .. hok kito semuo,
Cikgu-cikgu .. kami semuo dagoke ilmu,
haghak buwi tapo sege silu.

The good thing that I got from the DB performance was that was the reason why within a month I could understand the words that were coming out of my Kelantanese/T'ganu classmates. Yes, it took me a month. Before that I could only have a conversation with Serip but sometimes Serip nak poser Kelantan die, ditched me and hanged around with the Kelantanese dudes, so gua xde member aa basically. Some KL dudes even took like 6 months to understand the language.

My kecek kelate is a lil rusty now since I haven't talked in Kelantanese in awhile but I can still understand it though the basic conversation and maybe talk a lil.