Lorong Mok Pe – Karim and I were neighbours

Contributed by Rosita Mohd Yusuf

So, it started off with me searching for old friends on the internet. I have been interested lately in trying to connect with old friends from the various schools that I attended in the past. I was in SMSS from Forms 1 – 3 from 1965 – 1967. Initially, I gave the wrong dates to Karim but he checked them out and informed me of the error. He was at that time looking for an article that I wrote for the school magazine, the 1965 issue.

That was how I stumbled on to “The Sulaimanians” group page. With excitement, I started reading messages and comments that were posted. One in particular attracted my attention, a message from Cik Gu Razali Mutalib because his wife Cik Khatijah Yong was my home science teacher. Check my response to his posting “Hello from Mr. Razali Abdul Mutalib.” Hope they are in good health and doing well.

From there I went on to look at pictures and there was a class picture of MCE – 1969 – 5 Science 1. I was in the Arts stream but I had friends from that science group, unfortunately, I was able to recognize just a few faces and not more – my apologies (mind you there is a time lapse of about 42 years) only their names are more familiar to me.  Two faces stand out, that of Wan Mohd Yusoff and Nik Roswati.  Karim later informed me that Yusoff is married to a once very popular movie actress and I just went ‘wow’.  Yes, if you were at SS at that time, you would know Yusoff.  Really friendly guy.

After reading Karim’s comments on the picture, I sent him a message  immediately.  I lived at Lorong Mok Pe too!  We were neighbours! At that point I still didn’t sort of know who he was until he emailed me to say, “You might know my sisters – Kauthar, Karimah and Kamaliah.” Of course I do, we were friends and Karimah was my older sister’s classmate! We would sometimes take the same bus to school. Kamaliah, however is one year younger than me and  Karim at that time according to him, was a little boy of just about nine years old.

I left Lorong Mok Pe for my hometown in Perak after the demise of my father in 1967. My memories of the neighbourhood can be sketchy at times but one thing I’m sure of – it was a good place to grow up in. There were a lot of kids around and we never ran out of friends to play with. There was a sense of camaraderie among the neighbours and most importantly, it was a safe place, doors were always open and there were no worries about thefts, break-ins and kidnappings.

Those were the days in Lorong Mok Pe when Karim and I were neighbours.

by Rosita Mohd Yusuf SS 1965-1967 (Form 1 – 3)

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Rosita’s article in the school magazine “The Sulaimanian” 1965 issue was posted here: How I learned to Ride a Biclycle. She now resides in Singapore teaching at Nanyang Technological University-Singapore.

[I was trying to find some old photos of the government quarters – too bad it may need more time. Will update it once I am able to get one – Karim]

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~ by akarimomar on February 16, 2010.