by Dr Rahim Said
It didn’t take much for me to feel guilty this Raya Haji. I had just landed from Manila — a delayed flight that left me no chance of catching a connection north.
So, there I was, stuck in the Klang Valley while my clan gathered in Alor Setar, sacrificing cows and goats, swapping stories, and dodging unsolicited advice from retired uncles who still think the best career move is joining the government service.
And then came the jab.
An old friend of mine — bless him — messaged to say he was driving up from KL with his son. Four hours flat, he said.
Staying overnight at Tabung Haji hotel by the old Kepala Batas Airport before heading to a conference at that university way up north. You know, the one my late father once insisted I should apply for tenure at when I was younger and “still useful to society.”
Another notch on the guilt stick.
But my friend wasn’t done. He dropped Jalan Langgar into the conversation — and that was it. The dam burst.
For those unfamiliar, Jalan Langgar was Alor Setar’s version of a Main Street. Not unlike those quaint thoroughfares in small-town America, it was where everything happened.
Buses from Penang would stop over, and passengers stretched their legs by the Heng Guan building — a car dealership that, in my youth, housed some of the prettiest girls I was accused of trying to befriend.
I say accused because while I was guilty of admiring from afar, those ladies were from a social class far removed from mine. Their fathers owned cars; mine cycled to work on a ramshackle bike.
Then my friend casually mentioned the Milk Bar at the old Station Hotel. That was where the rich kids held court in the ‘60s — shiny pompadours, bell bottoms, and those confident grins that only came with family money.
The rest of us? We were stuck with 40-sen matinee shows at the Cathay cinema, half a km down the road. Not even Milk Bar milkshakes for us, just sticky seats and dodgy local horror flicks.
And yet, despite it all, Jalan Langgar was home turf. Further up, near the junction where the road stubbornly refuses to be straight, stood our Alma Mater — Sultan Abdul Hamid College.
SAHC produced its fair share of scribes and troublemakers. Editors of the New Straits Times, writers like Mihar Dias of Newswav fame, and, of course, a bunch of us lesser-known, occasionally coherent storytellers.
That’s what my friend managed to do with one WhatsApp message. Sent me spiralling down a nostalgia rabbit hole laced with guilt.
I wasn’t there to trade quips with cousins, to watch the sacrificial cows refuse to budge, or to reminisce with old schoolmates about how we once ruled Jalan Langgar in our Bata or Fung Keong shoes.
And so here I am — flustered, guilty, and aching for a bowl of laksa from Pekan Rabu, eaten standing up because the tables are always occupied during Raya.
That’s the thing about missing family gatherings. It’s never just about the missed food or the absent faces. It’s about what those absences stir up. Old memories.
Ghosts of people you wish were still around. Roads you thought you’d left behind, but which still hold pieces of you.
Next year, God willing, no delayed flights. No excuses. I’ll be on Jalan Langgar, dodging traffic, chasing memories, and maybe — just maybe — passing by Heng Guan one more time, for old-time’s sake.
Even if the girls are long gone!
WE