Those Days

SaSer Namamu Teratas




Kasturi, Jebat, Lekir, Tuah were the four hostel blocks we only had in Sains Seremban (SaSer), there was no Fatimah, neither Tun Teja nor Hang Li poh as the school was merely for boys. These four blocks were divided into two divisions which were blok depan (front division) that contained of Lekir and Tuah dwellers and blok belakang (rear division) for Jebat and Kasturi. Hence, as we can see here, the school boys were automatically distinguished by these divisions which finally would produce a few peculiar words to determine the boys’ citizenship such as budak blok depan, / front division boy, andbudak belok belakang /rear division boy. As east coat boys would call, sek blok blake, sek blok depe.Actually, these two divisions had their own advantages. For rear division, the DM, dewan makan / dining hall was close enough to them so the dwellers needed not to worry about tired of walking for some distance, or maybe time as the school really ought its students to adhere time management and period scheduled. Mean while for Lekir and tuah, they were the closest blocks to the admin and class blocks. Therefore, it was fair enough.



I would love to remind my mind and yours’ about nick names given to certain juniors by the seniors or maybe among junior themselves. Let’s recall it together, the first to come is ganu, pilah, letot, shin chan, a can, pok jat, comel, ikan, banting skem, weezer, vegi, kokrain,tengu, joko somemore? yeah help me....But some nice names came from seniors, such as Jaya, Maple,basah, :::::iki ,black,anas,chulan. i bet the juniors would never forget these names as they would punch you at your stomach if you could not pronounce their nick names even their real ones correctly. I was once threatened by these guys when i was naive to recognise them in a bus in my trip to Seremban (Terminal one seemed to be the first place of course) for outing. Iki and anas would say “ ko budak mana?..aku tak pernah Nampak pon ko..,dorm mane?...ok..malam ni aku datang”. / “who are you, ive never seen you before, which dorm are you from, okay,...i will be at your dorm tonight”. Thank god they didn’t show up that night and after. I have heard a lot of stories about their violence, even my classmate Mape was beaten by them, and I suppose you still remember the case which finally has ended up with Iki, Basah, Anas, Shake, chulan and another name that belongs to a teacher’s son that i cannot remember, expelled from this science school. We could take a long relieve breath as we didn’t have to worry about any threat anymore even though the danger was always there, it would not be as violent as theirs’.



In DM, we were required to queue up to get rice and its gravy. How nice we were, how patient we have been, it would explode anyway when a bunch of senior loudly chatted, made some rough jokes toward juniors and casually got in front of you when you just a step from the rice container. What could have we done the best was modestly smiling to them as if we were pleasing them nicely. We would do the same thing when we became seniors. The best things about DM were its cold drink and Saturday desert, ice cream. Every Friday, after we have done our Friday obligation, my friends and I would run a hundred metres from DM, push the DM’s front door, and run to be the first guy to tasteair soya /soybean. It was worthwhile after we had been walking to the nearest Masjid in the khariah ( Masjid Sikamat) all the way from our school. Yet, DM’s supper were never being enough. The best answer for this matter was NLCK, Nasi Lemak Cikgu Kahar. Cikgu kahar was a Kasturi warden that had his wife to prepare a bucket of Nasi Lemak for always-hungry-student almost every night. I occasionally ran to Cikgu Kahar’s dorm to buy a packet of them before the prep ended.



Two hundred metres from DM, that is exactly in front of school gate was the place where we have always been poked by Tengku Ampuan Durah’s girls as we started to step out from school heading to Masjid Sikamat.”pewweet...” they would sing. Sometimes, a mouse sound echoed when the girls closely shut their mouths and suck the air to produce the sound. On our way to the mosque, the chance would never be taken for granted. For lovers, this was the time for them to buy some phone credits so they could massage their couples and hoped the credit would last within a week as they had to wait until next Friday came. For smokers, this day heavenly brought them to freedom as they no longer needed to hide. 60 cent was an enough provision to produce some smokes from their mouths. For the internet lovers, they could have stopped to the near cybercafé to update myspace, frienster,check email. There was nothing such facebook back then. For roti canai eaters, Mamak reastaurant would be their choice to stop by. I can recall that i usually had one to two roti kosong, yet my friend would have three to four. The school ended at 12.15 every Friday and we were required to get back in school approximately at 3 o’clock. The prayer would start around 1.20. Hence, the time given was happily adequate for the boys to play around.



Sometimes, we wanted to indulge ourselves by choosing Masjid Ampangan to perform Friday prayer. This is because the mosque was situated a few yards from Ampangan super market. In front of Tengku Ampuan Durah school, we would take left junction to find a dozen of houses including my classroom teacher, Miss Hilma. But be careful before you hit the next road because there was a dog ready to bark if you choose the wrong path. We would take a path which looked mysterious and we would always hope to find any loving couple chatting quietly near the bushes, go straight, you would find a half settled flat house building that i suppose some of them have been tough to pay the rent. Then finally you would find the highway. Visiting super market by wearing school’ national clothe, baju melayu and songkok, we did not really care about it. As long as we can enjoy the ayam seringgit, /one ringgit fried chicken and one ringgit burger as well albeit we were actually not quite permitted to perform Friday prayer there.



There stood the tallest building in the school. The building was frightening me as a lot of stories have reached my ears about those who have been there. I once heard that those who climb the water tank tower will be instantly expelled because the crime was heavier then flying out the school/ school escaping. I myself have been up there for several times. My first was invited by my classmate, yoda. I still remember when i slept in my class just to wait the night gotten darker and we were waiting for warden to get sleep. But actually when we were up there, we saw our maddest warden Cikgu Sharul on his way to DM. Being delinquent is something fun when i was a young boy. Watching Jalan Sikamat from up here really touched my heart and almost pulled my tears down.i was fascinated...



Night by night, meggi / instant noodle would always accompany SaSerians because they would stay up late to study and sometimes just for fun. The problem emerged when we were no allowed to bring any electrical household. Therefore, school water coolers and heaters would be the alternative. These unreliable water tanks always broke. The water that was supposed to come out hot, coldly streamed out and poured on maggi cup/cupped instant noodle. There you would have noodle porridge. I can still remeber the aroma of meggi sedap when I approahed one of kasturi dorm that instantly kicked my stomact and forced me to ngepau / testing the meaggi. Apparently it was Pian, a junior who was fascinated to meggi sedap.I was astonished to see the way he ate the noodle. Like the wind.



Ramadhan came; it was time for us to get up early in the morning for morning breakfast before we stood strongly in day without food and water. I got up early to have tasteful fried rice joined with fried chicken and a few pieces of fish snacks. This menu merely can be found in Ramadhan as we all knew our taste bud were helpless in the morning. My hardworking friends would not sleep after having breakfast, yet to seize the time for study instead. For me, i climbed the stairs, the bed and pulled my blanket to cover my body to have another great dream. The year we became seniors, we have to perform maghrib prayer and hajat prayer first before we could have a real dish for evening breakfast/iftar. After we have done terawikh prayer, Ko’op / school convenience store would be a pit stop for us for money spending to pay back what we have not bought in the early day. In the middle of the night, the stomach would go empty again. My friend and i were ready to call an outside restaurant to order fried rice. Using merely one phone (cell phone was not allowed in school), about ten dishes could have been ordered in one message or a short call from the caller. The restaurant would deliver the foods by van and stop in front of pak gad/ guard booth. Occasionally, they could not deliver the food, hence one of us had to fly out/ escape from the school. This happened in kasturi house only.As the result; we could never save our money in ramadhan.



Sodom was a familiar word if you were a student from boarding school. It wasn’t a good thing actually yet not a real crime to be committed. Sodom in standard speak solat dalam dorm/ performing prayer in dorm was a wrong manner in the school as the admin wanted us to pray in flock in school mosque. The sodomer could get a can swing to hit his butt just after giving salam, the last manner of prayer. Yet, the punishment was not as hard as getting caught for kantoi suboh, /Sodom for suboh. For that, water splashing would be waiting for you.



In Sains Seremban, we had 5 times of assembly per week. The first is weekly assembly in Monday which we sang school song, Negaraku, and state song, took vow, and the school principle would take the microphone to say a few words. The next three days would be mediocre assemblies including English day for Wednesday. For English day the chosen English set would present some performance. It could be a poem declamation, drama, singing or whatever it could be as long you were using English. We should gather at certain square in Thursday assembly according to our respective houses. Today, we were to discuss on house / hostel problems, mark gained and to remind the school rules. For Friday, it was going to be an academic assembly or maybe they would have called it curriculum assembly. Our school senior assistant teacher would repeatedly remind us about achieving school target. ‘1.45!’ he would say. ‘1.45!’ we would mock him. Every day was not calming day as one student would be called in front to publically speak in English. Hence, we had to prepare the text earlier.



Weekend was the best day of the week. We paid 50 cent per movie if im not mistaken to watch it beneath the stars in Saturday night. School projector emitted the movie toward Form 4 block and we would gather on baseball court with bare butt. Some of us got effort to grab a chair. In front of canteen, a ko’op teacher would sell a few snacks what i can remember the most is Float/ coke topped up with vanilla ice-cream. Not forgotten, a nice simple roti john. The movie ended, yet the night has just begun. The boy needed to play some sports which seemed baseball court would be the first to be filled. The next day was outing day. Hooray.



Sekolah Menengah Sains Seremban,

Sekolah yang berwawasan,

Berbakti penuh cekal,

Harapan nusa bangsa,

Bersemangat waja berpadu tenaga,

Ilmu dituntut sepanjang masa,

Tingkatkan iman dan taqwa,

Membentuk generasi mulia,

Semua pengorbanan dihargai,

Semua usaha dicontohi,

Pemangkin kemajuan masa hadapan

Memartabatkan Sains Seremban,

Memartabatkan Sains Seremban,

Kamilah putera harapan!

Written by: Sayed Mizanuddin (SASERian 4th Batch)

original text disini