The day after Urbanscapes, I headed to KLIA to pick up my brother Zahid, who had just finished his winter exams in Sydney, and was heading off home for a few weeks. I was still checking my own temperature every now and then, and as he got into the car I asked him if he was feeling feverish. “My throat is sore,” he said, “but no fever.”
But the next day, a heavy head said hello and so did a slight fever, which prompted my parents to send him to the nearest A&E for a checkup. It takes 48 hours for the test results to come back, during which we basically confined him to his bedroom – even meals were brought up to him in paper plates and cups so as to minimise contact. No call came from the Health Ministry the next day, so we thought we were in the clear. As he got ready to ‘leave’ his self-quarantine the next day though, my dad rang: “Orang Kementerian baru call: Zahid positif, so kita semua kena kuarantin. 7 Hari. Call everyone suruh balik rumah.”
Erk.
Nadia’s version of Munch’s The Scream
Over the past few days, Angah, who was 9 months pregnant, already began her maternity leave , and based herself in Bangi. Farah, too, was at home as Uniten was on holiday, and Nadia and Abe already live at my parents anyway. A quick headcount showed that at Casa48 there were 8 adults and 1 kid. All under one roof. And all had contact with Zahid over the last few days. 9 people. 1 house. 3 bedrooms (only 2 usable). Since Zahid was to be taken to Sg. Buloh Hospital, that left 8. But the 8 included 1 very pregnant, very anxious mother-to-be. It had the makings of a disaster…
Which, in the end, it was not, if you consider the fact that no one actually killed anyone else. I came close to committing said crime (nama mangsa dirahsiakan) a few times, but the thought of never playing futsal again stopped me. Abe was the last one home that day, and we instructed him to make sure he came home with the basic essentials: Monopoly, Scrabble and Risk. Smart guy that he was, he also bought Apo! and Ujang, for our reading pleasure. Seven days, here we come…
But it wasn’t really seven days, it was eight. Eight painfully, excruciatingly slow days.
I once shared a (large) room with 50 girls. And later, a smaller room with 20. Then a flat with 7 others, a house with 2 others later.. and finally, after 16 years, I lived alone. Personal space was a major issue with me. Housed in a two-storey terrace meant for a family of five with seven other adults… erk and double erk! Even if I was related to all of them.
My folks, though, are nothing if not resilient in the face of adversity, and know how to make extremely good lemonade out of crappy lemons. They started each day with a smile, a joke and got us hooked to their infectious sense of humour. So in between Tamiflu doses, the temperature checks and fever scares (which ended up in Farah going for a swab, but she was negative), we soldiered through with a concoction of board games and Malaysian terrestrial TV. We had Astro, but that was upstairs and too near Zahid’s room. (He was doing fine at Sg. Buloh, and returned home after three days fit as a fiddle).
So we bankrupted each other at Monopoly and took over the world in Risk; but as much fun as that was, nothing beat the ABC game me and Angah played as kids, and was now being reprised. Nadia, interestingly, was quite good at it, and at Monopoly too, come to think of it. In fact, that kid has a knack for Risk as well…
I was also introduced to staples in the Malay dramiverse: I now know my ManjaLaras from my Kisah Kaisaras, and my Awal Ashaaris from my Norman Hakims. Heck, I even now know who Memey Suhaiza was. I am also now hooked on Akademi Polis… altogether now, Akademi Akademi Akademi Akademiiiiiii Polis!!!! Seriously, it is better than Gerak Khas!
What takes the Malaysian terrestrial TV cake though, is a 6am music segment on RTM2. Yes, that wasn’t a typo, I really did say 6am. On this show, former AF rejects sing English covers while swaying to the music in a car-crash-style studio videoclip. It is atrociously horrific, but a compelling watch. Seriously, wake up at 6 for Subuh instead of 7, and feast your senses on some dude called Yazid doing a cover of Lifehouse’s I Live My Life For You, complete with fake guitar playing and emo stares into the distance on what suspiciously looks like a sand dune in Semenyih. For some reason it reminded me of these…
In between all this, friends (thank you DZ Kepak Ayam Bersalut, Mimi and Afni!) and family alike dropped by to hang plastic bags of groceries, magazines and newspapers on our front gate – the quarantine meant we were not allowed (by law, no less!) to leave the house compound; do it and suffer a potential RM10k fine! Visitors were also discouraged so as to limit spreading of the virus.
During all this I was working on my paper, and it got pretty hard to do when Streamyx decided to be iffy and we couldn’t quite go beat up some TMNet engineers and make them fix things. I contemplated threatening to unleash Zahid onto them, but by this time, he was no longer with the symptoms (although we were all still under house arrest). There was a lot of swearing (out of Nadia’s earshot) and Abah contemplated the life of Au Su Sang Kyii in Burma, wondering if she had an internet connection and who her service provider was.
ProfZ menyorok kerana tidak mahu terlibat dengan ini gambar
At long last, though, freedom came at 8pm on 9th July, and Abah decided this was worthy of a celebration. We bundled ourselves into two cars, despite no one initially wanting to sit next to Zahid who had, by this time, not sneezed, coughed or fevered for more than 36 hours. Angah by this time was looking very pregnant, but nevertheless cleared plate after plate of food at the Equatorial buffet. She was, of course, not meant to be pregnant for much longer…
P/S:
1) Swine flu, for the most part is a mild influenza for many. Winter influenza kills many more people, but this is non-existent in Malaysia, hence perhaps the presence of more pressing panic and concern. However, this does not mean we can take the threat lightly. Be vigilant and be responsibile.
2) You can get swine flu even if you don’t consume pork. You can get swine flu even if you are vegetarian. Don’t think because you don’t touch the stuff, then it’s not swine flu. Be sensible. Don’t put others at risk. If you have the symptoms, do the right thing.
Although when I mentioned this to a regular punter on the KL scene, I was told they were the hipsters: the real indie kids stayed at home. Well, here’s my ‘whatever’ to labels: I’m still glad you all turned up at Urbanscapes and I hope everyone enjoyed themselves because despite the heat headache I got (which disappeared at dusk, interestingly), it was a blast for me to be there in the thick of things for once, instead of forlornly looking at pictures from 7000 miles away.