A Naked Kampung Boy By Yusuf Martin
The gentle evening’s rain barely dampened Abanglong’s stiffly gelled black hair but has begun to soak the shoulders of his genuine Manchester United Tshirt as he dashes from his Proton Satria into his ground floor apartment. Hurriedly he fumbles for his front door key, not to answer the persistently ringing telephone but to use the last few seconds of car headlights before his car security system reset itself shutting off the lights and arming the alarm system. The telephone ceases to ring as Abanglong throws his weighty car keys on the rickety telephone table and glances through the captured messages on the answer machine, realising none to be important he begins to leave a trail of discarding clothing as he wanders towards the bathroom to shower.
The apartment is small by most standards, a simple hall,
two bedrooms, one kitchen and one bathroom, minus bath. The smaller of the two bedrooms doubles as a storeroom which has all too quickly been filled to capacity, and overflowing, hence the old motorcycle helmet bearing a Yamaha decal, worn‐out car shock absorbers, badly copied CD covers of Black‐Eyed peas albums and numerous other objects which now grace the hall pretending to be ornaments. The hall is a sheer delight in urban interior design when compared to Abanglong’s bedroom which contains a vaguely bed‐shaped heap demonstrating that Abanglong is as carefree about his belongings as he is fastidious about his cleanliness. The room containing the bed takes shelter under an array of previously discarded clothing, some clean, some worn once and several that could have gone to the penthouse parties Abanglong attended, on their own.
Somewhere buried under the assortment of clothing, pirated DVDs, VCDs, copied CDs, MP3 discs, silver futsal boots and empty Dunhill cigarette packets is the sarong Abanglong is so
desperately searching for now that he has showered. The only two items not lurking in the undergrowth of his room, like forgotten soldiers after a world war, are his prayer mat and the white cotton topi he always wears at prayer times. Despite his apparent chaos Abanglong always has his priorities right when it comes to prayer, home and family, these are the three immovable objects in the constant shifting sands which has been his life since he left the kampung. For the past three years Abanglong has been sampling the doubtful delights of city life, playing with a PDA palmtop computer while working, trading this and that, driving an extremely noisy Proton Satria ensuing that the boom of the exhaust can be heard a good three minutes before his car actually appears and wears the best clothes he can afford to buy. Abanglong parties in penthouses, sings karaoke, dances to American hip hop, jungle, house, techno and is well loved by city guys and gals . After parties Abanglong goes home, cooks fried egg which he eats with remains of sambal his mother has made for him, or simply cooks rice and trickles black soya sauce over soft eggs.
Abanglong wears Lois jeans out, a Gajah Kursi (Elephant chair)sarong at home, plays Playstation games with friends but really loves fishing when returning to the kampung where he will sprawl, almost comatose at times, relaxing with inquisitive cats discovering if he had passed on yet. In the city Abanglong plays indoor football (futsal) with mates but often reminisces regarding games he played in the kampung, motorcycle crash‐helmets for goal posts.
It s therefore a truism that you can take Abanglong out of the kampung but you cannot take the kampung out of Abanglong, for beneath the gel, the western clothes and the city nonchalance there stands a naked kampung boy.