As I was shooting merrily down the streets of Chow Kit, my favourite street hunting ground, someone called out to me from inside his car. He said "Hi, you are from Kuching right?" I immediately replied yes, but still puzzled, I moved closer to the car, being careful because snatch theft and robbery are common crimes in such dangerous districts of Kuala Lumpur.
The next question I received from the stranger was "Were you a Thomian?"
And then it hit me, this must be my fellow ex-schoolmate from my hometown Kuching. It turned out that this dude, Mohd Rashdan was my junior by one year in secondary school, SMB St Thomas, and we were both in the prefectorial board when we were in Form 1 and Form 2. It was amazing that he could still recognize me after all these while since we were not exactly swimming in the same circles. I could barely remember him after more than ten years since I left school in 2001. I think I must have a face that is really, really easy to remember. That, or I could have had a reputation that lasted me this long, and lets hope it was not a bad one.
I do admire his balls for coming up to me and dared to asked if I was the person he thought he knew. We were both surprised, and I was even more surprised to find out that he had just married !! He seems to be doing really great with life, having his own business that gets him to travel around the world, and I looked at myself and wonder, gosh, why am I still stuck here in a place where I don't seem to be going anywhere?
Before we part ways, I managed to grab a quick shot of Rashdan. It was not perfectly executed, I could not find a plain, clean background, and the lighting was a mid-day sun, and I shot him with my 40-150mm zoomed in, standing from a far distance. Yet again, I wish I have put in more effort, and time to make the portrait photograph work. I seriously MUST work on this area.
Mohd Rashdan. So nice to see you again after 10 years !!
It was a brief encounter, but a very pleasant one that left a smile on my face as I continued walking the street that afternoon. Past memories are starting to haunt me, is this a good, or bad sign?