I Miss You

A big group of friends having late night supper @ Mamak always brings back memories.

In KL, it was sort of like a ritual, after a long day at work or college, we tend to get together and drink sweet chai and load up on unhealthy carbo, which made all our yoga and gym wasted.

We were a mixed bunch. Half of the ten people sitting in that table were mixed bloods, me a Malaychinese, a Chindian, a Punjabi + Japanese and Caucasian Malays. The other half were everyone else from anywhere else in different parts of the world.

Some of us studied, some of us hold big posts at corporate organizations, some of us were self confessed bums who made sure that their food and drinks will be paid for on that late night session, some of us were beautiful, some of us were average looking, some of us speaks with an accent and some of us didn’t.

And the best part was that, we don’t care.

Now years on, I am here in this god forsaken part of the country, two of the late night ritual members have gone to God’s lap, two of them migrated to Australia, the Malay Caucasian, who was the man who loved and still do love me is in the UK, a big time lawyer, the bum is now a jetsetter, who remembers to call me once in a while and always insisted on paying for that once in a blue moon lunch or dinner. The Chindian is due for a flight today back KL to take the next plane to NZ.

Those times were times before the advancement of digital cameras, thus we do not take many photos, and all we have of each other were recollections of those times, where we would sit there, me in my tanks and pajama bottom, ‘selipar jepun’ and my hair up in a bun, talking and making stupid tacky jokes.

There were some instances when a member of the group would hook up with another, only to go back as friends later on. They said it was because they are made to be friends and not lovers.

They confessed sheepishly that the sex was good, but it won’t work.

The Malay Caucasian, Trey, told me that we were supposed to be lovers. From that very first day we met, when we unknowingly wrestled for a piece of fried chicken at the uni cafeteria, and that second day he, a law student, slipped into one of my politics lectures just to get a glimpse of me, from that day he told a snob that he was in love with me because I am not her, and that fateful day when he received news that he had to fly off to the UK for the sake of his education and insisted on going on with the relationship, he insisted that we are made to be lovers.

God has plans for us. But there are such things as one is destined to be friends rather than lovers… and vice versa. I think it is part of the plans.

And I learnt that from the big group laughing and talking at the Mamak, once upon a time ago.

I missed that.