Deepavali 2011

Mist and roofs.

Diagonal shadow.

'Slow' food, fast food.

The Return of the Bike

I spent the better part of yesterday morning cleaning and sprucing up my bike, the one my parents gave me for my 21st birthday. An adventure is coming, I hope!

Taken on the first day of Haluansiswa (orientation week) 2009, this is, as far as I know, the only picture of me and my bike, on campus. Somehow I just never got down to asking anyone to take a picture of me riding the bike, although the idea did lurk in the back of my mind for some time.

I told Kaun the other day, after completing his Convo shoot, that, for all the shoots I've done for various friends over the years, there's one shoot I never did—mine! (Except for the MPM shoot, but even that was only at/around DTC.)

And so when I look through the photos of my friends at their shoots, I always tell myself that there's no such thing as a 'bad' Convo shoot, because it is better to at least have photos, than to have none.

Demimu Kurshiah

Untuk Juin.

Cahaya lampu satu,

Cahaya lampu sayu,

Bunga mekar di waktu malam.

Tiga tahun di tanjung, di tangga,

Setahun lagi hilang (entah ke mana),

Bayu lembut sampaikan salam.

Bagai lilin membakar diri,

Mekar kini

Nescaya mati di siang hari;

Api terpadam, cinta terbenam

Bagai kawan lama, tak kenal lagi.

Jalan lurus, jalan selari

Tapi kita menoleh ke kanan kiri,

Manusia mengejar barang fana.

Bukan sia-sia

Haruman dibawa ke mana jua,

Mengharumkan nama kita berdua--

Kamu dan aku, menunggu, menanti

Bara cinta, biarpun sementara

Bagai mentari, menerangi malam.

Kaun, Kang and Fikri

Today I did a convo photo shoot for Kaun, Kang and Fikri. Not, of course, my first such shoot, but this one brought back memories, in no small measure because they were some of the people I actually started the whole UM journey with.

I'm down with sore throat (and fever looks like it's just around the corner), but thank God, we completed the shoot. It's been a rather long two weeks, but given the rest I had last week, I can't seem to figure out the cause of this present illness.

Anyway, the thing is, I was reminded of how I was very frequently sick during my undergraduate days. I used to have very long spells of flu, and even during my Student Council campaign I barely did any campaigning as I was down with the flu then, too. I remember re-joining debates at the beginning of my second year, and then withdrawing a few sessions into the semester. This was almost entirely due to fatigue, as I found myself feeling very drowsy and falling asleep almost every session.

And yet, in spite of these recurring seasons of illness, I pushed myself to make the most of my time on campus. I think this is one of the main causes of my irreversible weight loss, and my irreparable facial textures. I pushed myself because I wanted to live life literally to the very fullest; at the end of my three years I was able to look back with pride and satisfaction at everything that I'd been through.

Something that is not widely known, but that people like my ex-roommate, How (and possible Adrian) noticed, was that I was never really interested in photography. It was something I could do, and back in those days before the ultra-proliferation of DSLRs my 'talent' was an asset which I was able to put to some good use.

Nonetheless, the things I enjoyed most were physical activities like cycling, walking and swimming—just exploring every corner of the campus.

On Kaun's convo day, we talked about chasing sunsets. The conversation went like this:

Kaun: Cool sunset wei!
Ben: We can shoot it from Bukit Cinta.
Kaun: By the time we reach, gone dy.
Ben: Then we should chase it.

[pause]

Kaun: That's a good one!


And these were my thoughts after that:

I guess that's what rainbows and sunsets are for - chasing. We had both on Wednesday evening, after the rain. They don't last, and that's precisely why we must go after them while we can.

Congrats again, Kaun. Here's to the sunsets and rainbows we've chased, and will continue to chase!

* * *

Well, guys, today's was one last UM sunset for us all. We really couldn't have asked for a better way to finish this part of the journey. Thanks for inviting me to be a part of it all over again. ;-)