WAWAS! - The Last Show

--10 of 19--

Tonight is the night of our last performance. We are prepared to give it our best. There is the usual bustle of applying make-up and getting into costumes. I took some time to actually find out the meaning of my lines. The rest occupied themselves with their final preparations.




Jihad thought of using the two toilet bowls reposing in the lift lobby for SHIT but Haddad thought it was wiser not to do so.

Sarah came to us with the sobering news that there was no one outside. Well, at any rate, we had to put on a good show! We gathered in a circle and had a final mood-capturing session. Then we wished everyone good luck and took our places.

The third and final show went well, except perhaps for a few shortcomings here and there, as would inevitably occur in any production. But there were highlights as well; Haddad's shrill cackling in the middle of Pelita never fails to make the hairs stand on the backs of our necks, and the Prostitute's seduction of the Old Man in Kucing goes on without a hitch (but still the audience is very cold). At the Ending, Didi dances with vigour!

And then the crux of the whole event--*the* Highlight of the Night, if you could call it that--"Wawasan Anak Singa, menyala..."--and at the last word, which means "burns brightly" in Malay, we all raise our hands and produce a flame!


Finally, a use for all those Cricket lighters! We stumbled upon this idea earlier, and we had enough lighters to go around--so why not? A classic Eureka moment. Ingenious!

WAWAS! - Room Reshuffling, Mama Indias and Cricket Lighters

--6 of 19--

On the morning after the Atrocious Snorings, all of us changed rooms. There were various reasons for this, some of which I shall not disclose, but the general agreement was that it would aid in synchronisation (for want of a better word). These new rooms, 3 and 4, were extremely spacious, 10 beds each and two bathrooms, so all boys took room 3 and the girls went into 4. Any communication between us would pass through faster this way, rather than having to relay messages between four rooms previously.

I also saw for the first time the Mama Indias! Not one, but three of them! They looked exactly like what I imagined: bright floral blouses and dresses, and a sarong around their waists. The Mama Indias were engaged in animated conversation, seated on a bench outside room 10 waiting for us to clear our rooms so they could do housekeeping.

The Malay lady in charge of the rooms was chattering away, reprimanding some of us for sleeping in the corridor. Well, we were guarding the corridor, in case anything untoward happened. She mentioned that she had not heard of any unusual event in all her years working there.

(At that point I remembered the other man's warning about not being too happy at night and wondered if she was wrong.)

In any case, after moving away from the inauspicious rooms (and corridor), we hoped for the better. We got dressed and went down for brunch at Kancil Restaurant.

The first thing I saw there was a sign proclaiming the sale of Roti Prata (or Canai):

"Attantion! Roti Canai ada dijual di sini!"

It led us to wonder about the sort of food sold there, whether it was as bad as the spelling.

Then there was the absurd impossibility of having "no plain pratas but got egg pratas". 17 egg pratas left, to be exact. Some of us chose to eat pratas, whilst the rest went to the rice buffet table.

Brief uproar over Cricket lighters. These are the ones that come in many different bright and solid colours, with exchangeable heads in also as many colours. Hadis had gone off in search of them, and returned with 10 or 15 lighters! Jihad saw one that he liked and a heated exchange of words ensued as to where they were found and whether he could buy one from Hadis instead, with the others joining in.

Our pratas came. They were Very Good! We ate to our hearts' content.


Brunch finished, and we headed to Stor Teater. Someone remarked that I looked very much like Hadis in my sunglasses, which led the others to agree. Photos were snapped for comparison, and yes, we looked quite alike in shades! It looked as if we were brothers! We all delighted in this amusing fact.