WE met while we were at the IPD Kajang (Kajang district police headquaters) recently. He looked familiar, but I just could not place where or when I had met him. This was cleared somewhat when he revealed that he had once served in Bukit Aman as head of some research outfit before his retirement. As such a designation is always mystifying, I declined from pressing further for details.
The subject matter changed when he said: “I walked to get here.” That astonished me, for that would mean a distance of over 14km as he lives near Batu 9. “Well, actually I walked a bit from my house to the Batu 9 Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Station, boarded the train to get to the station in Kajang, which is only 200m from here,” he explained.
He appeared to be happy with the new MRT, and even the necessary walking and physical exercise he got taking it. I, too, was similarly pleased after having travelled on it for the first time last Sunday from the Sungai Jernih Station to KL Sentral.
In fact, I was impressed and full of pride. The novelty of it all certainly contributed, for I have never experienced the light rail transit or monorail, which have been around for ages in KL. Then again, everything about the MRT is new, making the coaches, stations and facilities appear to look good and maybe even better than what the London Undeground and Paris Metro have to offer. The cross-channel train is, of course, another class of transportation and story. The pride comes from knowing that this MRT line was started and put into place by Malaysians.
I was a trifle concerned at first that my troubled eyesight and hearing would cause me to miss my stop. I should not have worried at all, for the electronic display of progress and announcement for each stop were clear enough. In any case, the 10 seconds allocated was enough for anyone to determine where he was, and to alight or embark.
The elevated line and the large windows allowed passengers to have a better view of the landscape on each side of the line. I saw more and further than I had ever seen all these years of looking out of my car. The areas along the route were even more developed and built-up than I had imagined them to be.
I had also made some pleasant observations, which got me to feel that there is still hope for us. A young Chinese man in baggy shorts and looking untidy like a car mechanic stood up and gave me his seat no sooner had I entered the coach. Now, that was something refreshing, having not seen such virtues being shown by our people for a long time now. Or, could it be that I have begun to look really old and frail as to draw that kind of compassion from others?
Then I saw an elderly Chinese lady smile at another elderly Malay lady sitting on her left. They started chatting after that. It was a good thing to see. The fact that we were travelling together as fellow human beings in a pleasant open coach must
have helped. I do not wish for a “love boat” situation to come by, but, perhaps, a “unity train” of sorts?
Later in the day at KL Sentral, I saw a middle-aged man picking up somebody else’s litter and throwing it into a rubbish bin. A far better thing to see than to hear of vandals already wrecking fixtures and other things along some parts of the line.
Back to the IPD encounter, the retired policeman had said: “The Samuri satay restaurant is smack by the station.” I found out that many Sg Buloh people even come down just to have satay and then take the MRT back. It is a durian runtuh (windfall) for the “satay people”, he continued. Leave it to a policeman to observe all that, I had thought.
Pleasant experiences always seem to encourage ideas to come to mind. Why not make the satay attraction appealing to foreign tourists as well by having live cultural shows and demonstrations regularly? What about having a photo gallery showing images, paintings or sketches depicting the history of the area or country on the side? Why not restore the Kajang post office to its old form for people to see what a typical small town post office looked like back in the day? I can still remember how it was like because my grandfather brought me to it to open my first post office savings book at the tail end of the 1950s.
Maybe I should call and get to know my retired policeman better, and see if he could see through all of my ramblings around the MRT. After all, we are almost of the same age.
**The writer, a former army field commander and recipient of the Seri Pahlawan Gagah Perkasa, M’sia’s highest gallantry award, is well known for his role during the Al-Maunah siege in Sauk, Perak, in July 2000.