O Hail Thee! Tampon!
Side Three of Three

"Lalat, kau ada bau ikan tak?"
"Kat dorm tadi?"
"Bukan, kat sini."
"Kat kelas? Ada apa kat tong sampah?"
"Ada tak?"
"Sampah ikan?"
"Bau, bau ikan, kau ada bau?"
"Takde."
"Takde?"
"Ada hanyir-hanyir sikit, tapi biasa ah, tengahari tadi dewan makan hidang apa..."
"Bukan ah, dol, bau ikan serius ni, bau ikan mentah."
"Mana?"
"Kau tak bau?"
"Tak."
"Tak?"
"Tak le."
"Damn, aku sorang je ke yang bau?"

Then, the guy started asking the same question to other guys in the class for a while, a few said yes, a few more said no, but most just didn't give a damn, before finally making a great class havoc and the mistake of his life by asking the girl who sat closest to him.

"Aina, kau ada bau hanyir ikan tak?"
"Diam ah kau! Menyibuk je!"

Then, some of the girls in the class, as if in total understanding to her response, and what good coordinated attack that they gave, joined in on the poor guy.

"Ntah apa-apa ntah dia ni."
"Bodoh ke apa dia ni?"
"Banyak ah songeh dia pulak."
"Ntah, diam-diam dah ah."

At first, I had no idea why the sudden angry reaction, but now I know.

******


Cikgu Kek was an odd fellow, and in our hostel world then, anything that was even slightly out of place and did not conform fully to the rigid framework of a normal majority, which by default then was considered unanimously as very odd, was most often the favorite subject for ridicule by the students. He was a Chinese Geography teacher, or rather a Geography teacher who happens to be Chinese, for my class for two years starting when I was in Form 1 Alpha. To most of you, this fact about my teacher might not be much of a surprise, you've had your share of Chinese teachers from your school days, but please remember that this was in an SBP (i.e. Sekolah Berasrama Penuh) and to see a Chinese man walking around in an SBP school ground would only lead you to conclude to two things: one, that he's lost, and two, that he's looking for his lost Chinese friend.

In brief, Cikgu Kek was a male teacher; again, another common rarity for a gender in teachers nowadays, and a Chinese one, although there were two more Chinese teachers then, and one that taught at an SBP elite school, where only the most exceptional teachers go to contribute their rare brilliance, and in Geography, a subject that no one from outside the academic world would give an orchestral flying fart about. To make it even worse, Cikgu Kek was also a first grade nerd. He wore glasses with a dark black frame and tucked his short-sleeved square-patterned cotton shirt deep into his high-waisted carrot-cut khaki pants. His nerd image was further enforced by the fact that he was a rather plump man for his young age then, and that he was the head coach for the winless, starless, hopeless, all-Malay basketball team. Reminiscing high school days with my comrades, I could never resist mentioning humorously about Cikgu Kek's state of quadruple minority and high aura geekiness.

One day, in the middle of Cikgu Kek's afternoon Geography class, as he was busy writing up his notes on the blackboard, Aziah, a close friend of Aina, silently and politely walked up to his side and tapped him on his shoulder. He realized that there was a student to his side, but he did not turn his face away from the blackboard still, probably thinking that the student merely wanted to ask his permission to go to the toilet. But the student remained quiet also, as if demanding his fullest attention, and so prompted him to face her immediately and with a great big question mark stamped onto his forehead.

"Yes, Aziah?"
"Cikgu, ada masalah sikit ah."
"Apa dia?"
"Err... ni..."
"Speak up, Aziah, apa dia?"

Then, opposite to his clear instruction, Aziah gracefully moved her face towards Cikgu Kek's right ear and whispered to him short sentences audible only to themselves, and with the finish of every sentence, Cikgu Kek's already-confusing face became more and more confusing. He seemed mildly shocked initially, although he managed well to conceal it from the rest of us unknowing students, but as more and more information was fed to him by the careful Aziah, he regained his calm composure once more and shocked the rest of us instead with a sly smile. Oh, that smile, the horror.

"It's okay, it's okay."
"Boleh, cikgu?"
"Yes, yes, ini very common actually, saya faham."
"Saya temankan Aina?"
"Yes, yes, use the backdoor kalau you nak."
"Okay."

By that moment, everyone was starting to get very curious, especially the boys, and although Cikgu Kek and Aziah was standing very near to a few boys' desks close to the blackboard, the boys up front had no idea whatsoever what the secret matter discussed between them was. Some of the girls in the middle of the classroom also looked quite bewildered by the scene, but seeing the boys were more curious than them, and with their heads looking around and craning about in a very frantic manner, made them less bewildered than their female peers. Meanwhile, Aziah returned to her seat, which was next to Aina's, and put one of her arm above Aina's left shoulder and the other under her right armpit, as if supporting her physically and comforting her emotionally, before whispering something to her right ear. Aina, who had her face forced down and wrapped around her two folded arms, very possibly in tears and trying her best to hide it, said nothing in reply, but shook her head reluctantly in subtle agreement with Aziah. Slowly, she raised her face, but not yet her eyes, and there she was, in tears.

Upon seeing a beautiful girl crying, the boys instinctively calmed themselves down. Now, instead of being frenetically haunted by their own curiousity, they are haunted by the sad image of the girl. In fact, a few boys even returned to their notebooks and continued to where they left off copying Cikgu Kek's note on the blackboard, as if in downright defiant denial of ever seeing anything out of the ordinary happened in class just then. Aina, however, upon seeing the whole classroom looking at her, became more saddened and was in the verge of bursting into tears again, but was quick to be held closer by Aziah, and both of them then were locked in a quasi-comforting hug posture. Still, even up to that point, nobody in the class, but the nerdy Chinese teacher, knew what was truly going on.

"Boleh jalan ke kau Aina?"
"Hm..."
"Okay, jom. Ikut pintu belakang."
"Thanks tolong I, Aziah."

In small inconsistent paces, Aina began to walk towards the backdoor of the classroom, with Aziah propping her up with her shoulder every few steps on the way. There seemed to be nothing broken, or even remotely injured, with Aina, other than her spirit and her light makeup. Her steps were strong, although a bit shaky, and her breathing was clear and soft, and her eyes beamed the usual radiance that only a girl named Aina would have, although this time heavily smeared with dry tears and red eyelids. A few more steps ahead, and just as the classroom's backdoor was within their near reach, and then, just as about Cikgu Kek was turning around to the blackboard, and with him, all the other students in the class, boys and girls alike, Nasir, who sat where he literally had his fat backside leaning lazily against the door, remarked nonchalantly, "...pintu belakang ni kan pakcik jaga tu hilangkan kunci, korang lupa?"

Immediately, Aziah and Aina stopped walking. Now what?

Cikgu Kek twisted around and looked back at the two, and the suddenness of his reflex to Nasir's words brought along with him the other students' attention once more. He paused for a while before rapidly moving towards the teacher's desk, which was on the opposite side of the classroom, and dropped off his textbooks and colored chalks forcefully onto it before walking back again to the same spot where he was standing before, and then, like an enlightened preacher calling to the mislead masses, raised both of his arms straightand leveled up to his shoulders, and opened up his palms, and ballooned up his chest, and prepared to open up his mouth, as if wanting to shout a hundred miles.

"Okay, now saya mahu awak semua keep an open mind, yes?"

Oh, that speech, those words, carved like a scar to my mind.

"Ini bukan satu perkara unusual, all of you will experience this as adults, so... please, Aziah."

And with that go-ahead by the often ridiculed Cikgu Kek, and the classroom's attention slowly boiling up to the point of excitement, Aziah took it up to herself and whipped up a quick heavy breather before launching head first, and like a suicidal rocket she sped off, towards the frontdoor, a few rows of boys' desks in length, right underneath the shadows forecasted by Cikgu Kek's two raised arms, and with the very reluctant and very ashamed Aina at the neck of her two shoulders. Aziah literally ran towards the frontdoor with Aina stuck to her back, dragging her like a weightless tin can stuck to a fishing boat's net, and as they passed by swiftly the rows of desks up front, there it was, the great Satan himself, in all of its glory, the large round stain of blood on the backside of her school dress. Like a fleeting image of tragedy, there it was, a 13-year-old girl's innocence, lost to maturity.

That day made a man out of me, and I never looked at girls the same way again.

******


Coming from a small family dominated by men, and with Mak being ever so elitist about her womanhood, the many times she insisted that my brothers and I be in our bedroom while her female friends from Puspanita or her workplace came by to visit with their daughters, the world of tampons and menstrual cramps is an ever mysterious source of wonder and curiousity. Kids will always be kids and they will never stop being curious, and the more you try to hide something from them, the more that they want to know about it, and the harder you try to conceal it from them, the stronger their sense of curiousity gets, and with boys especially, a simple 'no' or a forceful 'just believe me' wouldn't do the trick. Once, when asked of the tampon question, upon discovering that someone, presumably other than Ayah, her ever so oblivious husband, had messed around, or rather accidentally discovered and then curiously fooled around, with her box of Sanita pads hidden in the most bottom drawer of her closet, she only replied, and reluctantly at that too, with "...ini hal orang perempuan lah, apa kau sibuk?".

For me personally, my encounter with the biological and emotional aspects of womanhood only came into my knowledge during my hostel life in Malacca, when people of age alike to me were huddled into cramped dormrooms, later to be called our living quarters, and were expected to perform miraculously in our secondary level education. It doesn't seem clear enough to the administrative dumbasses of the Ministry of Education that small boys and girls at the tender age of twelve and thirteen, regardless of their socio-economic and parental background, being flocked together like a herd of sheep, and with no prior experience of being far away from their parents for a long period of time, would only create more problem to the themselves, than to produce statistically valuable, but realistically meaningless, high school success margin in national academic excellence. These are kids still in their growth spurt period; they will change, physically and intellectually, and the condition that they are in when such a phase change happen will dramatically influence their view on everything that are related to that period of change: sexuality, personality, religion, God, identity, boy-girl interactions, parental authority, and et cetera. Changes leave a scar that lasts a lifetime.

Where were you when you had your first menstrual leak? Who did you consult to first? Your mom, your sister, or your equally clueless dormmate? Did your kakak angkat help you at all after she finished laughing her head off at your panic attack when seeing blood dripping from between your legs for the first time? What did you do when you first miscalculated your period and ended up stranded in the stinking toilet for hours with no tampon at hand? How did you manage your cramp, migraine, stomach uneasiness, vaginal discomfort, mood swings, appetite loss and every other monthly hell that accompanied your first lunar period? Why did God torment you with such a painful experience? Why the horrible passage to womanhood? How did it feel to be the only one left from your gang still not having your period? How did it feel to be left out of an all-woman's conversation by your peers? How did it feel to be called a 'little girl' by your best friend? How did it feel to be teased mercilessly by your seniors for still not having breasts? How did it feel to be called a 'papan' or a 'skateboard' each time you pass by a group of greasy-faced zit-infested boys? How did it feel to be a girl amongst women?

I love girls, and little girls are the prettiest, but I love women more; their sad smile tells you a story.


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