Chenta oh Chenta

Zaman bercinta memang indah.

Percintaan itu indah, pemandangannya pon indah; rumput lebih hijau dari hijau dan langit lebih biru dari biru (why notice the grass and the sky when in love, you ask? Well, love doesn’t discriminate, cows love too).

When Yamtuan and I were dating, we laughed a lot. He knew how to make me laugh (a big plus point). Everything was so funny and we laughed ourselves silly. People must have thought that we were on ganja all the time. Well, love had that intoxicating effect on us. And then we decided we should celebrate the comedy that was our relationship with marriage. Both mothers said okay but since both mothers were into ‘ikut adat lah, nanti apa orang kata. Kawin stail koboi sat ni orang kata hampa kena tangkap basah’ so we had to do the ‘bertunang’ thing first. I was always wary of this bertunang nonsense. But being the dutiful children (I insist) we were, we agreed but only for a few months. We agreed on 6 months.

And the six months engagement period was a real Italian opera oh-my-gawd! Berdarah-darah! We fought all the time. I cried all the time!

I suppose when you were dating, it was the easiest phase because you were not sorta ‘tied’ to each other. There were no real commitments except scout’s and brownies honour. There was no stopping you should you wish to walk out. Families were not in the picture, there was no pressure.

But being engaged was a different ball game. It was like waiting to see the dentist. You were afraid of the unknowns and all the possibilities; ‘we need to remove all your molars’ said the dentist or ‘woohoo, you have perfect rows of teeth, you deserve a lollipop’. There was no way you could tell that life together would be all molar-extractions or colourful lollipops! And the knot felt like a noose around the neck and the slightest misbehaviour from your betrothed would make you re-evaluate the decision; ‘do I want to spend the rest of my life with this guy who eats nothing but chicken? Maybe I will be happier with a guy who eats fish’. And you see the door, the way out. You could walk out from it still. And if you wanted to, you must do it before the wedding! The fact that those fiery red devils with fork were working full-time did not help matters. It was the most horrible period of our relationship. Let me just say that within this period, there was one casualty, poor Mr.Ericsson. He died of severe trauma to the whole body after ehem… falling out of a speeding car, and Ms.Nokia, God bless her, was disfigured for life after that terrible impact with the wall. She would never be the same again.

We fought teeth and nails (and handphones) all the time, over things so significantly not important. Most of the time I could not even remember what the fighting was all about.

There was this huge fight one day. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what triggered it but the fight got real ugly. This was all through the phone. I had enough. I switched off the phone and decided I would go back Kluang and just tell my family that the engagement was off. I could not tahan anymore. I packed my bag and went Puduraya. Bought a Transnasional ticket to Kluang.

When the bus arrived, I gladly went on it, chose my seat and just cried. I was so tired from the constant bickering, and I missed our good times and I wanted to just end the engagement. Maybe we would be better off without each other. And I cried (the bus was almost empty, it wasn’t a weekend) and cried and soon I fell asleep.

The bus stopped for makan-makan at Yong Peng but I didn’t go out. I continued on sleeping, nursing my wounded heart. Oh I was the reigning drama queen of ayaq mata that time. I slept on.

When we reach the destination some five hours later, I woke up NOT in the familiar Kluang bus station. We were somewhere else, somewhere terribly foreign to me. Eyes puffy from the sleep and all the crying, I approached the bus driver.
‘Encik, kita kat mana ni?’
‘Pontian lah, dah sampai.’ He said. Ayo..
‘Saya nak ke Kluang. Ini bukan bas ke Kluang ke?’
‘Adik salah naik bas lah ni….’

What to do? It was almost night and in this part of Johor the town slept early. There was no direct bus or taxi service to Kluang but I could perhaps persuade a cab driver to send me there, but I would have to pay double of the whole cab’s fare, meaning I would have to pay my fare times 4 passengers times the trip back because the cab would not want to drive back to Pontian empty. The amount would be enough for a trip to Perlis and back again, on a bus. The other option was to stay on the bus and go back KL.

‘saya ikut bas ni balik KL semula lah’ I said. I was totally embarrassed actually.
‘boleh! Boleh! Adik tak payah bayar tambang. Kira abang belanja lah. Tapi bas ni nak singgah Pagoh dulu. Nak pergi kedai kain terbakar tu. Abang nak beli baju raya.’

Whatever.

And so I journeyed back to KL, with the annoying Abang trying to hit on me.

‘adik umur berapa?’ he asked at one point.
‘30’
‘ye ke? Abang baru 25.’
Right, ABANG!

By this time, the silliness of the whole situation was apparent to me. The sob-sob sadness was gone. Called the tunang. He laughed at my stupidity, nak merajuk pon bodoh! And he picked me up at Puduraya.

Maka kedua-dua pihak bertelagah merangka pelan damai. And he married the bodoh the ood finally. Phew!